Stormrider

Thanks for your kind words, Lorraine Ann. My comments were a long time coming, and I hope they were as therapeutic to read as they were for me to write! :biggrin: Best of luck on your upcoming surgery - it will be fine. Stormrider Start: 275 12/31/2009 Banded: 252 09/21/2009 Goal(?): 165 Someday! LAP-BAND® Surgery in Indiana - Bariatric Surgery - Morbid Obesity Surgery - Keith McEwen M.D.

Disclaimer: I have already posted this comment earlier in a previous thread, but after looking through some of the posts on this thread I thought it might provide some use here. Hope it helps. Hello To All, I'm a very long time lurker, and first time poster. I had my surgery on the 21st of the month, and am just wrapping up my first day home post-op. So far everything has gone smooth sailing. No stomach discomfort, no major abdominal pain, no trouble swallowing liquids, pills - no problems at all. To be honest, if it wasn't for the bandages around my chest, and the X-ray showing a band in there, I wouldn't have noticed anything different...well maybe my abdomen is a little sore. I like to take a moment to add a little advice, and a word of encouragement to those of you who still have an upcoming surgery date and may be a little anxious or having second thoughts about it... I haggled with my insurance carrier for over seven months before finally being approved (and this is from a supposedly top-notch one - BC/BS!). During that time, I read practically every thing I could find about the LAP-BAND® System, especially on LBT, and greatly increased my knowledge about the strengths and the weaknesses of this type of weight loss surgery. The point I'd like to make is for those of you still contemplating on having the procedure, realize that while you will find a gold-mine of great information on weight-loss surgery forum sites such as this one, but also be very mindful not to base your own upcoming surgery on somebody else's posted experience. Always keep in mind that generally what you are going to read about are problems or worst case scenarios, which do not reflect the majority of LB patient outcomes. This is to be expected to some extent, I guess, since generally people do post in online forums to find some help or resolution to their questions or problems - and this goes for every subject under the sun, not just gastric banding, to be fair. In a nutshell, a person who limits themselves only to what they read online concerning LBS will hardly ever hear about the countless procedures performed every day that have positive outcomes with no issues at all - just like mine. I point this out with the hope that those of you who are still waiting on your surgery and might be now be anxious or wavering in your decision to go through with it (as I was, right up to the last second I had the anesthetic mask put on) might take comfort in the fact the the odds are actually with you, not against you. After seven months of waiting for approval and filling my head with online horror stories of failed pre-op diets, tyrannical doctors, surgeries gone wrong, post-op problems, etc, I was ready to call the whole thing off. And if it wasn't for some last minute encouraging advice from an old acquaintance who had the surgery, I might have done just that. Now I'm glad I didn't. Wrapping it all up, learn all you can about this valuable weight loss tool, but base your experiences on your own experiences, and learn to separate the golden nuggets of online info from all the late night horror shows floating around in the ether land. I'm now 15lbs down from the pre-op diet, post-surgery, and well on my way to goal. Hope you will all soon join me on the journey. :smile2: Stormrider Start: 275 12/31/2009 Banded: 252 09/21/2009 Goal(?): 165 Someday! LAP-BAND® Surgery in Indiana - Bariatric Surgery - Morbid Obesity Surgery - Keith McEwen M.D.

Hello To All, I'm a very long time lurker, and first time poster. I had my surgery on the 21st of the month, and am just wrapping up my first day home post-op. So far everything has gone smooth sailing. No stomach discomfort, no major abdominal pain, no trouble swallowing liquids, pills - no problems at all. To be honest, if it wasn't for the bandages around my chest, and the X-ray showing a band in there, I wouldn't have noticed anything different...well maybe my abdomen is a little sore. I like to take a moment to add a little advice, and a word of encouragement to those of you who still have an upcoming surgery date and may be a little anxious or having second thoughts about it... I haggled with my insurance carrier for over seven months before finally being approved (and this is from a supposedly top-notch one - BC/BS!). During that time, I read practically every thing I could find about the LAP-BAND® System, especially on LBT, and greatly increased my knowledge about the strengths and the weaknesses of this type of weight loss surgery. The point I'd like to make is for those of you still contemplating on having the procedure, realize that while you will find a gold-mine of great information on weight-loss surgery forum sites such as this one, but also be very mindful not to base your own upcoming surgery on somebody else's posted experience. Always keep in mind that generally what you are going to read about are problems or worst case scenarios, which do not reflect the majority of LB patient outcomes. This is to be expected to some extent, I guess, since generally people do post in online forums to find some help or resolution to their questions or problems - and this goes for every subject under the sun, not just gastric banding, to be fair. In a nutshell, a person who limits themselves only to what they read online concerning LBS will hardly ever hear about the countless procedures performed every day that have positive outcomes with no issues at all - just like mine. I point this out with the hope that those of you who are still waiting on your surgery and might be now be anxious or wavering in your decision to go through with it (as I was, right up to the last second I had the anesthetic mask put on) might take comfort in the fact the the odds are actually with you, not against you. After seven months of waiting for approval and filling my head with online horror stories of failed pre-op diets, tyrannical doctors, surgeries gone wrong, post-op problems, etc, I was ready to call the whole thing off. And if it wasn't for some last minute encouraging advice from an old acquaintance who had the surgery, I might have done just that. Now I'm glad I didn't. Wrapping it all up, learn all you can about this valuable weight loss tool, but base your experiences on your own experiences, and learn to separate the golden nuggets of online info from all the late night horror shows floating around in the ether land. I'm now 15lbs down from the pre-op diet, post-surgery, and well on my way to goal. Hope you will all soon join me on the journey. :smile2: Stormrider Start: 275 12/31/2009 Banded: 252 09/21/2009 Goal(?): 165 Someday! LAP-BAND® Surgery in Indiana - Bariatric Surgery - Morbid Obesity Surgery - Keith McEwen M.D.