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Ok... let me clear up all the unknown's I thought i had said this all before but i will say it again just so everyone is on the same page. I have had 8 fills at most 2cc and the least .5cc at a time i have 7 cc in there right now. And i do not have a leak, he's checked. when i was too tight at one point he only took out .5cc and ever since then I have not gotten enough restriction which i don't understand bc if i was so tight before why then am i not now. when i have at least 3 cc more then what i had when i was too tight! i dont get it. so that's what that's all about. I can eat anything, everything, and a lot at one time. I have to stop myself!

They make me sick to take them, I hate it. They are from diff dr's my reg dr. nurse called me to make an appt bc she hasn't seen me since nov idk why she has to see me anyway I have an appt for the 6th and I called the hosp pharmacist to tlk about all those pills. I pray I don't have to keep taking them all. a lot are for pain but the pain been ok, I take them everyday even if im not in pain bc I guess I have to, that's what the bottle says take everyday 3 times a day Hope to stop them all soon

I must be a horrible person bc I'm nearly 4 wks out and ate like 6 Cookies (over the course of two days), a couple Hershey kisses, and a couple bits of a tamale. Yes I know, not good....but I'm not going to stop living life bc I have the sleeve or I won't stop my progress bc I had those treats. I'm not sweating it, bc I know my goals and my determination to get there. I will not be defined by food or by my sleeve. that said...don't beat urself up! What's the use either way...what's done is done, just continue eating right and ull be fine. Don't let it shake u up or give up. Ur human and u are some sweet stuff on a holiday. It's ok!

Well I'm worried bc I just found out today that I have a big infection in 2 teeth on my left side and the dentist put me on 2 antibiotics today and pain meds bc I'm going to need a root canal or possibly 2 !!! AND I'm suppose to have surgery on Monday the 26th so there's a possibility I will have to reschedule my surgery due to the fact that I'm in pain n need to have this fixed and I'm taking antibiotics a week before surgery... I'm worried about my approval time running out (might sounds silly) but does anyone know if once you get approved by your insurance if there is a time frame in which you must do surgery by?? anyone ever had to reschedule their surgery bc od something similar?? so annoyed !! I'm in my last week of the liquid pre-op which has been hell and to think that I would have to do it all over again...aaaahhhh..and that's another thing with these strong meds I'm taking and nothing but Water and shakes..my stomach is a mess. Just upset over this complication :frown1:

Same ole BS. Well, actually new BS. I was told it would be unethical for this doctor to do my fills if my doctor was still practicing. They all sure have excuses dont they?? She said on rare occassions Dr. Stewart would see a patient referred to him, but not on a ongoing basis, I needed to find a fill center. Well, duh, thats what I wanted someone who would do fills on a cash basis.

How much did you pay for surgery? I've met my deductible but can't figure out exactly what I'm going to owe and when (I know the 85/15% but am still confused). Thanks! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Well, my surgery date of Jan 5th is no more. University of So Cal required patients covered under their BC Administered ins to complete a "Lifestyle Redesign" program before surgery. I completed the 4 month program when I was interested in GB in 2003. Because it's been longer than 12 months, I have to recomplete the classes to be eligble for coverage. The classes are pretty much like Weight Watchers except they follow a plan called "The 5 Day Miracle Diet" (as if). Basically it's high protien low carb. Last time I lost 25 lbs and kept it off, so I know it won't HURT, it's just a bummer. I have a lot going on right now anyway, I'm building a home to be completed in mid-late December, so I'll have my hands full of life changing events for a couple of months. I'm not going to let the hold up bring me down too much, I know my coverage shines compared to other plans. And I was already working on losing weight before surgery, so I'm going to stay on that path as well, and give their "miracle" another go.....after pizza tonight! Thanks for listening....this place really provides a great sense of support and commeraderie. I'm lucky to have found it!

Hi SBlue I'm struggling now! Its 4 weeks post op and I'm starting to get really hungry. Managing to get things down much easier - I've been eating a lot of chilli and spaghetti bolognese (Blended). Tried toast - nearly killed myself! Getting fed up of Soup for lunch and really need to try and think of something else to eat at lunchtime. I'm craving sweet things terribly, but I'm having a little low fat chocolate mousse every now and again. I've lost about 18lbs which isn't bad, but I thought I'd have lost more than that (being very unrealistic)!! Otherwise I'm doing very well -I've been getting a few comments about my weight loss. The only thing is constipation (sorry way to much information) and my skin is starting to sag EEEKKK!!! Went for a 4 mile walk on Monday - going for another tonight. First fill 6th August - can't come quick enough. LOL xxx PS - No Regrets either! xxx:thumbup:

Totally normal. Try the dissolvable fiber in your water every day. I know I struggled with this in the beginning, but now it's normal to go every day to every other day. Drink lots of fluids too bc it can be painful if your dehydrated.

I had a TERRIBLE TIME. I ended up on Zofran and Reglan and nexium. Then they warned me off the reglan and increased my nexium. It took a while. Make sure you eat bc if you don’t the acid is worse and makes nausea worse I think. Good ick to you it’s really hard for some people in the first couple months after. It DOES improve! It’s just so individualized.

I am post op about 2 weeks for a lap band removal/revision to rny gastric bypass. I have Anthem bc/bs. I had them for the original surgery in 2007. Really didn't have any trouble, once the communication was open from my Surgeon's office and Anthem. I don't recall any lifetime max on my plan, but maybe others do.

Mert, At the time of my surgery (July 04), I had First Health/MHBP insurance. They were awesome to deal with (easy approval and paid something like 90% of everything) - but they didnt have dental insurance! ~~with 3 kids, dental insurance is MORE important then Moms LapBand~~ So, in Jan 05 we switched to BC/BS La.:biggrin1: :biggrin1:

That is a good letter. I have to go to another psych doc...what an idiot...I'm so mad..I feel like calling him back and telling him. I'm on Xenical also....hasn't worked yet. I have BC/BS in New Hampshire...I hope that I get approved...my surgery date is set for sept. 20th.

7/24 - 10 weeks out, 30.5 pounds down, from 271 to 240.5 Well, I'm truckin' along, and although it SEEMS slow to me, I just realized it actually hasn't been all that slow since I got my first fill. I just looked back at the calendar, and my fill was 2 weeks ago, on 7/10. On 7/10 I weighed 249, and I now weigh 240.5. So, that's a little less than 10 pounds in 2 weeks!! That's actually fantastic!! Wow, all of a sudden I'm counting how many weeks till we go to the beach for our summer vacation, and calculating potentially how far down I COULD be if this restriction holds out!!!!!!! I could be a svelte 210 pounds by then if I play my cards right! Ahhh!! Can't even let myself hope for that, because I don't want to end up feeling discouraged. I've been telling myself that I'd be happy if I could be somewhere in the 220's by September 6, which is the day we leave for the beach. Haven't seen the 220's in several years. Haven't seen 210 since I met my husband in 1999. Under 200 - haven't seen Onederland since I was in college in the early 90's!! The last time I was able to squeeze into a woman's size 12 was when I was in either 9th or 10th grade, and I was able to wear one specific pair of my mom's jeans. They were a size 12, and I have no idea why she had them, because she has always been a size 8 her entire life. But for whatever reason, she had these jeans that were a size 12, and I BARELY fit into them, but I could button and zip them, and that's all that mattered to me. It made me feel so good about myself for that brief period when I could wear them. Funny how you remember things like that. So, getting into a size 12 again someday is going to feel like a HUGE milestone for me. Anyway, so since I got this fill 2 weeks ago, I have noticed that I experience what many other bandsters have described on LBT - my restriction seems to fluctuate day by day, sometimes hour by hour. It's weird, there doesn't seem to really be any rhyme or reason to it? Some days I can eat breakfast and lunch, albeit carefully, but with no problems whatsoever. Some days I can hardly get yogurt to go down without a whole lot of gurgling and noise and burping (non-productive) and other fanfare. On most days, I've found that it's much easier to eat dinner than lunch, and breakfast, forget about it. By the time I get all my pills and vitamins down in the morning, I'm full and don't have any time left for breakfast anyway. That makes me feel guilty, because I know it's bad to skip breakfast, but I really can't help it. Sometimes I'll bring a yogurt along to work with me, and I can eat that at my desk, although it takes a while. Several times I've tried to eat lunch and ended up having to throw it away. I know that SOMETIMES it's because I take too big of a bite right off the bat and don't chew it enough, and then whatever it was gets stuck, and then I'm just done - can't put anything else on top of that bc that will just make it worse (learned THAT the hard way) so I just have to give up and wait till the next meal. But sometimes even if I'm following all the rules and being very conscious about it, even the smallest most chewed-to-liquid bite won't go down easily at lunch time. It's very strange! Every few days I find dinner is challenging as well, but most days dinner is easier than lunch. Mind you, I'm measuring my food intake in bites now, not cups. Lord, I never thought I'd say that. I'm amazed at how my sense of portions has changed. I still have food envy when I watch my husband take a gigantic bite out of some big juicy cheeseburger, or gobble down a bunch of crispy crunchy salad vegetables. (never thought I'd say THAT either! LOL) But when putting food onto my own plate I've gotten very, very good at taking the smallest possible servings of things. And then after I eat, I'm constantly worrying in my head that I've eaten too much, that I'm ABLE to eat too much, that I'll never lose any more weight if I eat this much, etc. And then I remind myself that I only ate, for instance, one tablespoon of mashed potatoes, or something like that. It's weird how your brain processes this phenomenon. Mostly what I've read on LBT is from people saying that they are still ordering the Extra Large Value size of everything, even though they can only eat a small fraction of it. With me it's been the opposite. I automatically order or plate-up the smallest portion, but then have some sort of dysmorphic thing happen where I panic I've eaten too much. I think part of the problem is that I never really feel hungry anymore - and I also never really feel full. That is to say, I never get the feeling of full that I got pre-band.....which was a sickening, oh-my-God-all-I-want-to-do-is-unbutton-my-pants-and-lay-on-the-couch sort of feeling. I regularly ate up until I felt that way at dinner time, almost every night. Not so much at lunch, because I had more distractions from food during that time of day, I guess. I wouldn't say that I MISS that awful stuffed to the gills feeling.....but maybe psychologically I miss having a full belly feeling?? I don't know. And I can't really say that I have ever really recognized true stomach hunger - certainly not pre-band, bc I ate all the time. And not so much post band either. I don't know, maybe I'm just not skilled enough to recognize the feeling yet? So, without being able to discern those specific feelings - hungry vs. full - I think I have a tendency to panic and to STILL think that this surgery is not going to work for me after all (present evidence disregarded) and that I'll end up sabotaging myself, despite my best efforts, as I have always done in the past. I know I've got to work on that. In my ideal world, I wouldn't have to think about, worry about, panic about, plan endlessly for, or obsess over food a-n-y-m-o-r-e. I dream of a day when I can just live my life - and eat whenever it's appropriate to do so to feed my body. Period. I think I'm on my way. I'm amazed to no longer be compelled to nightly binge sessions in front of the TV. I'm incredulous that leftover cookies or bbq chips from weekend cookouts will stay in my pantry, unmolested for weeks. Pre-band, these foods would have literally called out to me over and over again, every time I was in my house, until I either devoured them, or in a fit of fortitude stoicly dumped them down into the gargage disposal so that they couldn't torture me any more. Now, I FORGET that they are even in there. Now, that's not to say that I don't still have a weakness for junk food, and believe me, if it's in a basket somewhere at a party, I'm definitely going to eat some of it. But I don't feel like it has a power over me anymore. That is really quite remarkable. This band certainly requires it's share of sacrifices, but so far, I'd say I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. Thirty pounds, no longer weighing me down, gone forever. Amen!

I have BC/BS and was approved in one week. Like others have said here, I think it depends on your individual plans. As for the psych letter, (my psychiatrist is the one who referred me to my doctor, he just had his done, BTW) Here is the text of mine. To whom it may concern, The patient was seen for evaluation prior to scheduling her gastric banding surgery. Upon mental status examination, the patient's mood was euthymic (had to look that one up, lol) with logical thought processes. She has suffered from obesity since early childhood. She reports trying multiple diets and weight loss supplements each time with no positive results. She understand she is at risk for developing medical co-morbidities due to obesity. She was able to discuss the procedure and was able to state the risks versus the benefits of having gastric banding surgery. She understands that she will need to make major adjustments to her lifestyle and eating habits both prior to and after the procedure. At this time, there are no contraindications in terms of mental status for she to consent to gastric banding surgery. There is no history of addiction or substance abuse and she had adequate family support. Any questions contact blah, blah, blah. I also had letters from a nutritionist I saw saying that we disucussed my necessary dietary changes and how I will counter my emotional eating habits. And a letter from my regular doctor briefly describing how he monitored some weight loss programs with me. For example, I was on Meridia as well as Xenical and Phentermine. So BC/BS was bombarded with recommendations. My surgeons office knew exactly what each insurance company would need for approval and gave me a list of what I would need. I followed that. Good luck to those appealing...

I’m scheduled to have my VGS March 19th but I’m reading everyone’s posts about being consistently hungry. I want to do the sleeve so I’m not hungry all the time! I thought the whole point was to not feel so much hunger. Can I drink fiber between meals to not feel so hungry? Does anyone have words of advice for this bc im considered not doing the VGS since I do t want to feel hungry for the next 30+ years!

Hi, I'm Brenda and I have Premera BC/BS in AK. I was denied by Blue Cross 5 or so years ago to have this surgery done. I gave up. I researched and spoke with a great group up here about surgeries in other countries. But, never followed up. I see people who are 1/4 or 1/2 their original size when I met them 5 years ago!! Now fast forward to August 2006, I'm ready to have this surgery done with the blessing from my Orthopedic Surgeon whose the best in our state. I'm pending a fusion and scared to death to have it done. I'm 40 years old, and have a lifetime of back problems if they don't want to pay for it, instead they may have to pay for my back -- that is how I see it. Say positive prayers for me on my new weightloss journey.

Yeah, many people from here often end up going elsewhere to Mexico. There was an agency here WLS now bought by a company in BC that used to send patients from here to see Dr Pompa . Sent from my SM-G950W using BariatricPal mobile app

I called the doc about a week after surgery bc I hadnt heard that we couldnt use straws. He said that I could give it a shot. He said for some people it gives them a "too much air" feeling, but that it wouldnt hurt anything...just might be uncomfy. I dont drink from straws though...so I can't tell you how it makes me feel.

Hi! I just went to my information seminar last week, and am starting my 6 month medically supervised weight loss program BEFORE surgery, which is required by my insurance. I hadn't realized that was required, and wish I'd started long ago- I had thought and thought about this so by the time I went to the seminar I was ready to do it NOW!!! But I know that a structured process is best. Just wondering, so I might know whether to anticipate any difficulties with insurance, anyone have experience with BC/BS? I know the procedure is covered, but am just wondering if they are easy to deal with. Nice to be here!!!:laugh:

Wow that's interesting that drs won't see you bc of that..I'm about 6hrs away so its not too bad ill most likely be driving back to him for fills is there any advice you can give me about the testing or how its all done with him or what I can take with me? Thanks again for replying Btw how was your weight loss process?

you should know and will learn, and please understand a loss (any) no matter how small or big.....counts please give yourself a break and not go into this with expectations you feel are needed as if you dont meet those, you may hinder your excellent progress...judge your true/accurate loss by clothes getting smaller, better fitness as inches lost means you are losing weight... hang in there sounds to me as if you are doing just fine ps get rid of the only lost this bs.....you need to talk nicer to YOU

So I went for my yearly and have a new dr. she asked what I was taking for BC and I said nothing and she stressed how easily I can get pg if I'm not on BC... I explained my infertility and at the end of the visit she said well I guess I will see you when u come in pregnant... I was like uh huh That will be in 2000....never! But if its meant to be it will happen and if it isn't I guess it won't. I'm not stressing over it anymore!

So I did not ask my surgeon prior to surgery which boughie size he used. In my research people said he used a 40 fr which I thought was a reasonable size. On the day of surgery I spoke with the other surgeon on his team and asked her. She said that he typically used a 60fr which freaked me out. I told her I was really concerned about it being too big etc. she said she would talk with my surgeon and use the size that he thinks is best for my body. When I spoke with my surgeon before the surgery I reiterated my concern that it would be too big. Then I had surgery and completely forgot about it. The next day there was some concerns over my leak test. His assistant surgeon came to talk to me about it and mentioned that he had used a 34fr boughie on me. I was surprised bc that is really small! A big difference from 60. She told me to take the Water trials really slowly and I did. After a couple of daysI really have no problem tolerating liquids. I think I'm being paranoid, but I'm wondering if she was lying to me to make me think it was smaller so that I would mentally feel like I could be more successful. During the leak test, the stomach didn't look that tiny, and I am able to drink a Protein shake in like 20 - 30 minutes. What do you guys think? I don't feel any restriction really yet with liquids. Which size do you have? Does it make a big difference?

Just sharing another complication story in case it helps anyone out there. This one involving a miserable band experience, gastroparesis, and a suspect vagus nerve. My dad was banded in 2009. Despite numerous fills in his 10cc band, he never achieved what I would consider good restriction - he was constantly hungry, didn't have portion control, had no food type intolerances, or any of the 100 other indicators one might look to as a gauge for proper restriction. But he would say he was "PBing". Which, after questioning him, was not "PB" at all but was bona fide vomiting. (I no longer feel like a linguistic school marm for insisting there's a difference, and an inherent danger in not understanding the difference). I think he was banded about a year, and in that time he probably went in for 30+ post-op visits. He'd have some trouble and they would unfill him. He'd do ok for a while and they would give him a slight fill. He'd have more trouble and they'd take more fill out. Up & down & around. So finally it gets to the point where he's just manifesting really strange symptoms, like super delayed vomiting: eat peas on Mon, feel fine Mon - Wed, and Thu out of the blue vomit up peas. Violent, wrenching vomiting. And then he eventually got to where he'd vomit even if he hadn't eaten, and was starting to bring up the ubiquitous coffee grounds. I told him enough BS, demand a swallow test. Dr. agreed, he had one done, and he passed with flying colors. Esophageal motility on track, no prolapse, no erosion, pouch cleared in under 5 minutes. They scheduled him for an endoscopic procedure and he was absolutely riddled with ulcers. Poor guy looked like a pizza covered with white pepperonis on the inside. AGB Dr tried to say "need unfill" so I had a talk with him, during which time I reminded him that the band doesn't work on a vacuum concept & you can't take out ccs from a band that's already empty. (Note to people out there -- never, ever, ever feel sheepish about advocating for your medical care). So he put my father on a 2 week liquid diet to see if things would calm down. 2 days into that diet the exact same symptoms are occuring, and now we're vomiting 24/7 with virtually no liquid/solid intake. So he calls me and I tell him to go to the ER, get hydrated, and don't leave until they tell you something. I drive out to see him in the hospital and they have him forcing liquids down because "maybe" they'll stay down. Uh uh. We switch to IV hydration, and the vomiting continues. He's now afraid to swallow, and vomiting on a pretty regular 45 minute schedule despite being chock full of antiemitics. After 4 days in the hospital he's diagnosed with gastroparesis & xferred to AGB surgeon's care for immediate "let's see what's going on" surgery. During surgery, a significant slip is noted (that apparently was not there during the tests about 2 weeks prior) and the band is deemed irrepairable & removed. As soon as he woke up from surgery he felt 100% better, and has not had a single problem since. This includes the past 6 - 8 months during which he was rebanded. The best guess out there is that something in his band positioning was irritating the vagus nerve, which caused all the problems up to & including the onset of gastroparesis. Slippage was attributed to the vomiting attributed to the gastroparesis. AGB surgeon says "he had the problem before banding, and the onset/worsening is coincidental." Everyone else says it's the other way around. I know he had no problems, ever, before his first banding. And I'm probably forgetting a couple things in there. My reliable memory is about 8 minutes, and we're talking months & months. The end.