BJean

Thanks Stacey! The last time I wore a Petite size 8 I weighed about 118. And looks like that's within the range you mentioned for a person my height. I have a smallish frame - not big boned. But my muscle mass is lacking, I'm sure. Really have to work on that. I just noticed that I weigh about what you do now and I'm 5 inches shorter than you. So that sure tells me something. Are you a revision from the band? You're getting sleeved 7 days before me. I'm getting excited and you must really be feeling that way too. Is your doctor stateside or south of the border? Mine's local. Good luck with your surgery! I hope you'll feel like checking in after a couple of days so we can know how you're doing. I'm excited for you.

patty didn't write it. She really isn't all that clever. But a law student did, supposedly. And that explains a whole lot, right? I could tell a bunch of "lawyers are sharks that feed on people" jokes but I don't think that's necessary. We all read it for ourselves. And that thinking is the reason for the division in this country. That kind of radical, hateful, selfish mindset that keeps us from negotiating or compromising or doing anything at all for the good of the country. So thanks for sharing patty. Now go resume your regularly scheduled right wing programming.

stcyt, do you mind me asking how tall you are? I read your weight goals at the bottom of your post and noticed you have 130 as a goal. I've been trying to figure out what is reasonable for my height. My dietician said 130 to 135 but I'm thinking that may be too high a goal. I'm only 5'2" Ugh, maybe she's considering my age and cutting me some slack.

Oh yeah, let the economy go totally down the tubes and we can all stand in bread lines like our parents did. Makes so much sense. We need to allow the government to step up to the plate and regulate business instead of allowing the greedy folks to run us all into the ground. Which is what they nearly did.

I totally agree with you!

Her musings aren't any more extreme than some of the things that the anti-choice people say. As for women regretting having abortion, I believe more of them regret having gotten pregnant and are devastated at the prospect of having a child. While obtaining an abortion isn't the most delightful prospect, it is quick and final and can save women's lives. Children are very important - perhaps the most important thing we can ever do. So why would we have one in this world that we can't take care of and don't want? Just to make some person happy that can't have children? Giving babies up may be the answer for some women who can deal with pregnancy and the birth and the fact that they have a child that they gave up. But for many, many women they could never give one of their children away. They would be traumatized far more by giving up a child than to terminate a pregnancy that was unplanned and unwanted. So for them, abortion may be a necessary choice. They might regret having become impregnated and regret having to have an abortion, they don't regret having had one. In fact, they are flooded with relief afterwards.

I haven't gone back to see if posts have been deleted soif they are missing I understand your post. But if nothing has been deleted, Nicolab did you just scan all the posts instead of actually reading them? It took me an hour to read the ones who had experienced complications. It would have taken much longer to read the entire thread in one sitting. If you had first-hand experience at the aforementioned clinic by the same doctor and your experience was a totally different one, i.e., the place was spotless, they only performed 3 surgeries a day, the place you stayed after the surgery but before you came home was comfortable with every santitary precaution taking place including everyone wearing gloves when they checked on your wound, then you have some credibility and a reason to question the criticism we've read on this thread. But if you haven't any first hand knowledge that disputes the criticism and you obviously didn't read all the posts, it seems that perhaps your protest is one that we should question.

First I'm no doctor. But from my own experience and years of participating here on FB, I believe that what you're feeling is the gas they use in your body that allows them to see your organs during surgery. You need to walk and move around - a lot. The more you move around the quicker you will get it out of your system. This usually only lasts a couple of days but you can speed it up by walking, walking, walking. I know you don't feel like doing it but that was the advice I was given and when I started walking around the house for 20-30 minutes at a time, I started noticing an improvement in the pain. No, they don't put any restriction in when they do the surgery. There is a swelling of the area that takes place from the surgery. That takes a while to go down and they shouldn't be putting in any restriction until after several weeks. I didn't want to eat much at all during the first week. I think that's fairly normal. Just take it easy on the shakes and don't worry too much about it. Just walk, walk, walk. You'll feel better soon!

Here's an idea for you. Get taxed on the number of children you have. Get taxed on how healthy you are. The rich do have their money and if they have to pay their fair share and the jobs go away, that's no worse than your idea of allowing General Motors and all the banks go bust.

Oops, I mean tweet. I'm a twit.

I don't twit but I am glad to know that there's someone out there talking about this stuff!~

ariscus you're the one who is naive! I can't believe that you're going to bat for corporate subsidies - you and all the wealthy lobbyists... that's some sweet company you keep!

Well I'm really dreading the nausea and stomach spasms but I'm mostly worried about the depression and feelings of having made a mistake. I can tell you this, I am grateful for your posts and honest feelings. It will help a lot when I go through it. I won't feel like the lone ranger and I'll know I can come here and do some venting. Keep on doing well and if others are the norm, in 6 months you will be very glad you had the surgery and you'll be totally involved in the new you! Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

phat, I think the same thing about me and the low carb thing but I'm having a hard time actually getting started!! gatorman, interesting that your doc advises a sleeve if possible. That sounds good to me!

Joanie, I hope you can take your time and figure out how to best handle your situation. I would be uptight too if I were in your shoes right this moment. Hang in there and please keep us posted. We're all pulling for you and we care very much about how you're doing!

Sandy you're really off base here. I did not call you names. As far as I know, no one has called you names. So why would you suggest that they have? And the reason percentages of all doctors doing surgery is irrelevant is because we weren't talking about all doctors, we were talking about Dr. Alamanza and his clinic. Now if you really want to go there, perhaps we can somehow get some verifiable data on just how many complications have been seen in his patients. You say a certain percentage - that isn't very helpful. What is the exact number? If we have that, plus the number of surgeries he does, then we would have more accurate information. And the other thing is that I never accused you of trying to make money. I never accused you of posting anything for profit. All I said is that you were doing damage control. What's wrong with that? Somebody's got to try to do it at this point or people will be bailing out like crazy. And lastly, I do not blame you for choosing to quit posting on this thread. You don't seem to be able to handle the heat. But I do hope that you don't take anything I posted as a negative toward you. I have no idea who you are or what you do for a living. I was merely commenting on posts that you have made here.

I'm not down playing the racist faction of the tea baggers but I remember all too well the things that they did to candidate Bill Clinton and later to President Clinton and he's a WASP himself.

I sure didn't mean to insiniuate that middle class Americans are paying more in taxes than they used to. What I was trying to say is that the middle class is paying more than their fair share when they're compared to the conglomerates that get government subsidies and tax breaks. And when the extremely wealthy have enough loopholes and deductions that they don't pay much either, guess whose taxes have to pick up that slack? As for the WASP members of the Tea Bagging party, I know there is some discrimination going about race. But I honestly think that the basis for the whole movement is that they enjoyed 8 years of Republican rule and they are delirious and frenzied because they are no longer in control. They're scared to death that they're going to wind up having to pay their fair share for a change either personally or through their businesses pocketbook. And another faction that makes up the Tea Baggers is the anti-choice maniacs. They will wave the no more govenrment banner and hold up signs about "Obamacare" and the rest but their agenda is simply to give the current administration a hard time because they are sure that the president is not anti-choice and it's killing them.

Donna's post is valuable for many reasons. And damage control is exactly what you are doing, Sandy. And that is understandable, of course. But to deny that it is your purpose for posting is disengenuous. And again, whether other doctors have complications is really irrelevant to this discussion. We're not talking about other doctors. We're talking about a very specific doctor and clinic. You are not denying it happened. So okay, let it go. It happened and people are talking about it. At this point I think you've probably said about all you can to defend the practice. More of the same just really doesn't sound good. It almost sounds like you're complicit in your posts. Or as if a leak is an expected and acceptable complication, which we all know it is not. Sure they happen. But there are ways and means to keep leaks from happening and they are infrequent or non-existent when doctors do everything possible to ensure that their patients do not develop a leak. I'm not saying that Dr. Alamanza didn't do everything possible but for you to say that complications are just a part of doing business doesn't help to instill confidence in him. People are glad that Donna told her story. But not because they want to see Dr. Alamanza fail or for his reputation to be ruined. They are happy to know the truth about one of the things that prompted all this chatter. People can handle the truth. It is the fear of the unknown that they can't handle.

P.S. My dietician today said that with most sleeve patients they do a very low carb diet for 3 weeks prior to surgery. However for revisions from band to sleeve, it isn't as important. And that's a good thing since I don't have 3 weeks. My BMI is at 35 which is probably lower than for most new sleeve patients.

Very cool. I hope you get your date set up so you can prepare, both mentally and physically. I hope you will keep us posted on how it goes. I'm going to try to give feedback after my surgery on the 28th for those of you who haven't been there, done that, yet.

And the tea bags just keep defending our subsidizing huge conglomerates like GE. All the while, if they are middle income folks, they're carrying the tax burden for GE. Why oh why aren't they demonstrating against that instead of bellyaching that they're paying too much in taxes??? They may be paying too much but as long as they support the way we tax (or don't tax) big business, they might as well shut their yappers for all the good it's going to do.

I read somewhere that the reason for that is because you're not eating solids and you're drinking so much Water, but I don't know if that's true. How long are you having to be on liquids or mushies? I found out today that I'm only on Clear Liquids for a few days and then just regular liquids for a few days and then mushies. By day 14 I'm supposed to be on regular food.

I'm not sure what Peak Nutrition is sweetened with. On the ingredients list it only says, natural sweeteners. I spoke with the dietician today and she told me that I can't use skim milk, at least for a while because it has sugar in it. I don't know how the natural sugar in milk is different from the natural sweetener that is in the Peak Nutrition, but that's what she said. I don't know if at this point you want to even mess with ordering it, but honestly it is the very best tasting nutritional supplement I've ever tasted. I've used it for Breakfast lots of times long after I got the band because it is so good. I only use the chocolate now although when I first got the band I bought vanilla and mixed it with various other things for a different taste. I always come back to choclolate.

We find people for companies who need to fill jobs. Many companies are now trying to hire one person for a job that would normally be done by two people. The people we place are working as much as 16 hour days sometimes and aren't going to last very long at the pace their employers are demanding. These are either high tech jobs, engineers or management to upper management jobs where we're seeing the problem. And the companies aren't paying higher salaries - they're paying as little as they can possibly get away with. And they don't want to cover all relocation expenses these days - only a percentage of the costs and they want to cut vacation time. So somebody is making some money - and it sure doesn't look like it's the employees.