BJean

I don't care if this topic has been beaten to death before, this is really funny!! Furthermore, I can't wait to go to the site to learn more. I had read, Dody, that you found that it helped with the horrible gas pains after surgery. So, good grief, if us newbies can benefit from this, by all means... let's talk about it... give us the blow by blow, doncha know!:heh: Of course, descriptive accounts of ya'lls DH's daily by-products may be a bit less helpful. Amusing, nontheless.:nervous

That's funny. Why are we wired so differently, but when it comes to prescribing a diet, we're all supposed to lose the same way? I could probably live forever without french fries. I have a good friend who could kill for curly fries. In fact potatoes are so much her thing, she'll even eat them raw. Now that's body chemistry at work, big time.:straight Personally, a life without ice cream may not be a life worth living. OMG I can't believe I just said that. When I was a young girl, and my folks knew that ice cream was my favorite thing, it was always what they got me if I did something good. It was that way until I left home for college. Then I personally took over and rewarded myself for accomplishments, and failures, and because it was Tuesday, or because my boyfriend did/didn't show up, if my dog barked, or my roomy looked at me... whatever! So you see, I got it bad, and that ain't good.:huggie: So anyway, I have many, (yeah, way many) years of reinforced bad behavior. Now if I could just come to the realization that NOT having ice cream is the reward for the slender, pretty me, I'd be in good shape for this journey. Where's a good shrink when you need them??? :heh:

Jack posted the best answer I have read about not losing when you're banded. The point he made in response to some other posts, was that if you don't curb your carbs, you're going to have the same amount of hunger than before the band when you weren't curbing the carbs. I know that if I eat carbs, especially in the form of desserts, I will soon get out of control again. If I can keep myself at optimum heath by eating the right foods, and if I can stay away from the foods that instantly make me happy but then turn on me in the form of fat, then I should be successful. If the band really doesn't help with appetite though, my dilema right now is that if I can stay away from the carbs without the band, which is very hard for me after about 3 weeks of avoiding them, then why do I think that the band is going to work over the long haul? Somehow we have to get to the mindset that we want to be "normal" more than we want to eat dessert and overeat other high calorie foods, I guess. I keep bouncing back and forth - wondering if I'm kidding myself and just helping to make my doctor rich. I understand what it's going to take, and some posts I read say that they love the band and it is getting them right where they want to be. Other people say they are having PBs all the time and that they aren't losing weight. Which one am I? Pretty hard to figure without going ahead with the surgery. That's why it is so scary.

I'll bite... how many???? I'll bet if there was an ice cream cone eating contest I could have given you a run for your money! It's my drug of choice.

There's so much good stuff here that I want to claim for myself! Like the whole mindset of "satiety" versus "fullness." Genius! I love it. We have to get to a whole new place, both mentally as well as physically. Jack, you're giving me some fuel to fire up my guns so that I can blast into this thing wholly in charge! I have been so devastated to read all the negatives about the LB. I too hoped the LB would be a "silicon fist" that would do all the decision-making for me. Now I understand why I really wouldn't even want it that way. I'm not a victim! It's way past time for me to take charge. I'm not an underdog. I am one very fortunate being to be able to make this decision at all. Some people aren't able to get the LB for miriad reasons. What if they told me tomorrow I couldn't have the LB, you ask. Well now that you ask, I'm realizing I would be very disappointed because I would not have that little "fist" in my corner, giving me support. Not taking control of my life, just giving me some support in my very strong resolve to not be MO any longer. Your assessment of the carb-hunger cycle is absolutely true for me. When I am strong enough to deny myself carbs, especially sugar and bread, I am just not as out of control starving. Why sabbotage the LB with those things? It's just the worse possible outcome if you don't follow the plan and you wind up with surgery and a hitchhiker, for nothing. I know I can diet, but I also know I re-gain the weight. The Band should give me the help I need to keep my resolve. I need to work WITH the Band, not against it. That is, if I love myself. And by gosh I think that you, Jack (and Mr. Ford), have given me something to put in big letters up on my wall, "Whether you think you can... or whether you think you can't... you are probably right." I love it.

OMG that's a powerful story. It has to be good for you to get it off your chest and know that it can help someone else. You know if they can call alcoholism a disease, they can darned sure call MO one too. I swear you either are suseptible to it or not, and grows into a worse and worse problem over time. If you are predisposed to MO, you are almost powerless to control it. I feel sometimes like we are banging our heads against a wall trying to communicate with the medical profession. So many of them still believe that dieting is the answer. We all know that it isn't! I am hoping that I can go from looking like Mrs. Ozzie Osborne before, to within a couple of years after getting the LB, looking like her now.

My DH and I went on a diet once and the very next day, while he was at work, I totally pigged out on a number of cellophane wrapped yukee cinnamon rolls. I was so upset. I didn't know what to do, so I went in and made my self barf them up. My face was red, I was sweating, the veins in my neck and face were bulging, and I had a headache from it. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, remorseful and feeling seriously sick. I always wished I had been more successful so I could look like one of those skinny bulimic movie actress. It always seemed to me like bulimia was a way to have your cake and eat it too. After reading Sandybells story about her mother, I realize that if I had been a more successful bulimic, I would be in even more serious trouble right now than I am for just being fat. Whew!

Jack: You're a very eloquent expressionist. You had me at re: Seriouisly, I can totallly identify with some of your pre-band wicked ways. I cannot remember what real "hunger" feels like. Except now that I am doing the pre-surgical Protein shake thing, I've been rumbling worse than an actor at a West Side Story rehearsal. And reading your relevations has made me envision a sack of burgers and a coupla pizzas sitting here waiting to get-in-my-belly! :faint: But paying attention to what you're really saying about being a success at bandation is what has grabbed me and won't let me go.... get the biggest steak and 'tater on the menu, that is. :hungry: I'm very seriously impressed with your attitude and your success. l only hope I can follow in your footsteps. I'd dearly love to be inspiring some newbie who is as scared as I am, right about year from now. :huggie: Keep up the good work - it honestly means a whole lot to a many of us who are trying to understand and latch on to a positive LB attitude.

mbprn thanks for the laughs. You cracked me up. I've been saying for years that it's not just a willpower thing. I know a few people who are just as upset that they can't gain weight and have no curves. Bitches. It's probably a seratonin/endorphin/adrenalin thing when we see the blinking "hot donuts" sign and go in for a few... dozen, that is. Those skinny misshapen bean poles should be so lucky! Sounds like your DD has found a really efficient way of pushing your buttons. Like my son used to - and still can for that matter. One day you'll look back on this and laugh, a nice chuckle, not the hysterical screaming tearful laughter of today. Mary I had a doc that got busted too. He was German and didn't actually HAVE a license. He just pretended like he had one. He was very generous with the diet pills too. He was also totally sympathetic to the "plight of the fat man." Turns out he was smarter than any of my other doctors. They all said that it's just simple... do this one exercise and you'll be fine... the exercise is.. (are you ready?) ..."push yourself away from the table." I'm still amused. NOT!

Great information! It helps to have that info. Now I will know to ask my doc about it before the surgery. Thanks a bunch.

Liz: you're describing exactly how I hope I feel one day. I want to have eating be more trouble than it's worth. Mary: thanks for the reply. I didn't know that the VG was larger. You'd think that it would produce more problems because of the size, but it might be that the opposite is true.

Stella- Mind telling us which brand of LB you have?

Vera- Looking at all this, I think it might be a realy good thing to know if we could get the members here at LBT to reveal which LB they have and how much reflux and PBing they have experienced. We could do an informal study and see if Iamed bands have a higher incidence of kinking and PBs than the other two you mentioned. My doc only uses the Iamed. When I went to his seminar and saw how long the conduit is from the band to the port, I asked him if that could be adjusted for shorter people. He looked at me like I had 2 heads, laughed and said it is not adjustable. It's one of the things that gives me nightmares - worrying about that tube and where the heck it canl be in my body without bothering any organs nearby or it getting kinked. Afterall, we are supposed to be thinking this thing is going to live inside us for the rest of our lives, aren't we? What do you think?:paranoid

Golly geez, why wouldn't that be a thread kill?:omg: That's a nightmare if I ever heard one. I thought my Dad's story was enough to motivate me, but your Mom's takes the proverbial cake.:hungry: My dad died after surgery for an aortic aneurism. But before he died, he spent time on machines that kept him alive. After he finally got off the life support (except for dialysis) he was finally out of the coma, but mentally f 'd up from it, and spent his days watching TV and wondering if he had been in the World Trade Center on 9/11.:guess Seriously. One night, my sister told him that tomorrow his insurance was running out and that she didn't know what they would do with him at the nursing home if he couldn't pay. He died the next morning at age 83.:cry In all the years before that... he had many conditions and surgeries, all related to his lifetime of m/obesity. In fact, for 15 yrs. before that final surgery, he was in so much pain from arthritis of the spine, he wished he could die too. You don't want to hear all that, but having loved the man and hating to see him suffer so much, you'd think that I wouldn't need some dadgumed LB to keep me on track. :mad: But the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and I am facing some serious health issues in the near future if I don't do something pretty drastic. After pouring over most of the posts at LBT, I'm scared to have the surgery and scared not to. But I must say, you're sure adding fuel to the fire for me to get with the program, get the LB, and get this off! By the way, your stats and mine are almost identical. High five?

We lived in a little town in AZ where they put in the first drive-thru Micky Dee's. What an idea that turned out to be. Now I can get my cleaning, my banking and my Starbucks at a drive-thru. We should stage an uprising - a fight to ban all drive-thrus. In fact, I've been wanting more drive-thrus and until I read the class action lawsuit idea, it didn't dawn on me how serious a threat to my health drive--thrus are! In fact, we should ban cars!! They're a threat too. We could go back to living like in the old days, small town style, walk or ride a bike everywhere. Like in Europe. No gas prices to worry about, eat what you want 'cause you can walk it off, and not much pollution. Who'd care about Iraq's oil? Hey, this forum just solved practically all the world's problems!!! Woo-hoo.

Honestly I think Liz and Vera, you two have done more to restore my faith than anybody else I've talked to. You seem very level-headed about the whole thing, and you seem happy knowing that w/o the band, you probably wouldn't have had such a loss. I can do low-carb, low-fat is the problem, but soup, turkey and a little cheese is definitely workable for me. Thanks for some no-nonsense answers! :mad:

Vera, you're an inspiration to me! :clap2:

Yea Liz!!! You seem to have the same outlook on this as I think I would if I go through with it. That's encouraging. I'm grasping at anything positive to get me back on track. Right now I'm wanting to back out of my LB date.

Hey Debbie Downer you make some good points. But I am not good friends with these two gals. Just people I see in a couple of retails places I visit from time to time. When I asked each of them how they lost the weight, one said "I did it the 'hard' way" and the other said, "I had gallbladder surgery". Both sounded like the kind of answers that I plan to give if and when I go through the LB process. I have seen on this forum people's stats who have lost 30 or 40 lbs. in the first weeks prior to and including the weeks just following their LB surgery. And I see gastric bypass patients often on TV and one gal who I worked with last year. She has never looked healthy since the surgery. Also, her weight loss was so fast that she really had the saggy skin. LB patients don't seem to suffer that problem. Which is probably due to the point you made about them not losing that quickly.:straight Or it might be due to the fact that there is so much emphasis, from LB docs, on exercise.

Also - I hadn't seen either of them for about 3 months.

The reason I think it is the LB they're using is because they look really healthy. There seems to be a totally different look about people with the LB versus other bariatric surgery.

Pete: Thanks for your note. It is encouraging to hear from someone that appears to be in my same boat. I really haven't read all that many encouraging posts, either at this forum or others I've tried. Most of the ones who seem to be positive are in the first few months after surgery. I'm not too worried that I can deal with the surgery itself, or the PBs, but I'm worried about getting it all off over the next two years. And of course, I'm worried about the possible complications that I keep reading about ad nauseum. :faint: Fear can be a great motivator, but I'm afraid it's going to motivate me right into cancelling my Band date. I will keep working on it though for the next week or so. Thanks so much for your comments and I will keep you in my prayers!

The more I read, the scarier it is for me. I have had some really nice responses to my posts, but I can't help but worry about not losing weight and wanting the thing out after a few years. I am totally footing the bill and my surgeon (an expert laprascopic man) is probably more expensive than any stories I've heard here. I will have to have a hernia repair at the same time of the LB and I am literally at my wits end trying to decide if this is the right thing for me. I am not as young as most of you and I am 5'1.5" and currently at 212 (after some pre-surgical Protein shake meals). I am considered morbidly obese and although I don't have diabetes yet, all my family does. I have high cholesterol and hypertension and I'm on an antidepressant. To make things even more interesting for me, my fam doc says not to do it. But I've seen some people in my community who have done it and I've seen them blossom and appear happier than ever. (They don't admit to the surgery, but clues they've dropped make it pretty obvious.) I know you all probably think should be talking to a professional, but I've done that and this was my last resource for helping me feel confident about my decision to proceed. If I had any confidence that I could get the weight off on my own, I wouldn't do it. I have proven time and time again that I can't. I not only am weak-willed, but also my metabolism is in the toilet. I learned this past year that both of my knees are shot and I am unable to do any real exercise until they are replaced. They want me to lose weight before knee replacement surgery and so, here I am. Dazed and Confused, just like Led Zepplin.

Thanks everyone. For anyone who is having reflux, I'm a veteran of that. I've had a hiatal hernia for years. I can tell you from experience that putting the head of your bed on bricks or blocks, etc. is quite different from using pillows, wedges or any other movable system. My DH and I resisted raising the head of the bed for years. I tried everything in the book and more. I finally found myself sitting up dozing in a chair for hours until everything settled down and then finally getting a few hours of sleep in bed. sleeping with my head flat, without any pillows or props, turned out to be a better solution when we were away from home, than trying to get everything propped just right so I could sleep without reflux or pain. Allthough sleeping without a pillow is pretty hard to do. Once we gave in and raised the head of the bed, it took a couple of weeks, but before I even realized what was happening, I was able to sleep well without pain or reflux, no matter what I had eaten. I can't tell you how much it has changed my life. And it doesn't have to be raised so high that it interfers with your DH's sleep either. So I suggest that you give it a try. It won't happen dramatically overnight, but in a fairly short period of time, you will thank me. I promise. (The relief comes from having your entire body at a slant, not just the part of your body from your mid-section, or buttocks, up.)

healthlst: I called and have an appt. with my doc to go over everything I'm worried about. I asked about a mentor, but the assistant suggested my just talking to the doctor. She probably sensed my case of nerves. I appreciate your comments and they helped me decide to get more info since I am worried so much about additional repair work that I'm to have when he places the LB.