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I have had lower abdominal pain, extreme fatigue, mucus in my stool, dizziness, and constipated. The doctor thinks I have a type of colitis and have a colonoscopy next week. For those of you who have colitis, can you take medication that is approved for the sleeve? I dont want to take steroids that will cause weight gain and I cant take anti-inflammatories. I dont know how I can go back to work with this fatigue and cramping. Does it ever let up?

Thank you- I'm 36 but I also have some auto immune stuff going on which really causes extreme fatigue. I don't want to blame that because that's not it totally but it certainly has been the reason for my recent weight gains. I'm SO happy to hear that you were approved. Bah! This is NOT fun. Thank you again

Ugh-good to hear as well (well not for those individuals). The only thing I'm nervous about is the constant weight gain. But then I think "r u serious? If I cold lose it I would". Don't want to wait anymore :( Having a bad day/night with this. Thank you as well for your support

Tuesday 07-24-2012 6:41 pm So although I've been a member of VST for a couple of weeks maybe and really, started my journey to WLS on March 4, I am first finding myself type something out to be able to reflect back at all of what I've been through. My first thought is- for pete sake- I'm a licensed psychotherapist who has encouraged LOTS of people to journal and where the heck have I been? Lazy. Story of my life My second thought is that I must first comment on my experience on this forum and the VST peeps I've been getting to know through their own journeys. I cannot tell you how inspired I am by so many others who have either gone through similar walks of life or who are going through it. I don't feel alone anymore which is so relieving in and of itself. In this career, I hear many reasons why we choose the profession we are in. For me, it really was nothing about my personal life as it was my true desire to know the brain and study human behavior. So, because of this, I feel my family and friends have highly underestimated my strength at times. Sometimes, even we need a little extra support. I'm probably the biggest person who will dispute this so to put so much emphasis on what others this of me isn't fair really. But it's easier. So, again, I have no major underlying issues. Sure, we all have our "stuff" but I can tell you that I have been through therapy many times with my marriage and honestly, have benefited greatly. I check in with close friends and colleagues as I believe that's just part of my life now- I need to do that...for me. Back to how I got here. Well, I'm not exactly sure HOW I got this so out of control. I do know that I have always struggled with weight but I really have carried it well in my life. I have watched friends and family go through surgeries for weight loss and always believed I ddin't need to do that. Then one day I was dx with autoimmune disorder which really- the only symptom that I have is extreme fatigue and with that comes lack of ambition to do anything. The process of finding the right doctor was exhausting but after years of battling this, I did. But he wanted me to go on a medication that could cause blindness AND he wasn't guarenteeing that this would help fatigue as this is difficult to control. (Have you heard of Plaquinil? I know some have as I have read other's posts about it). Well.....I decided not to do it. So the next year I spent extremely tired; no.... exhausted. Heck, if I didn't know better, I probably would have dx me with depression BUT I WASN"T DEPRESSED. I gained probably another 30 pounds (that was my last straw- I could have cared less that I didn't clean my house like I wanted to or do more things...it was the weight)....So my husband convinced me to try the med. "Just try it". Wouldn't you know it- it was a matter of 2 weeks and I had some of that energy back. I was on it for about a year and I did lose about 15 of those pounds. Then I gradually took myself off. Dr. asked to decrease so I just kept forgetting and then before you know it, I'm off. Then I'm gaining weight again. One would think an educated person such as myself would put 2 and 2 together. Common sense isn't necessarily a subject in college or grad school I didn't want to go back on the med. My doc had told me that exericse was really good too. Yeah, I hate exercising and try convincing someone who has absolutely nothing to give.....to give. It wasn't easy. THEN it happend. I got a new job and found out insurance did not exclude WLS. I cannot tell you how elated I was. I had my appointments all lined up as soon as insurance kicked in. All they require is a 6 month professional weight loss program documented. R U KIDDING ME? I've been through EVERYTHING at LEAST 1,0000000000 times. But nothing recording for 6 months consecutively. So here I go. But who cares right? My benefits at my new job don't kick in until I'm there six months anyway so no worries. Well, I've hit the six month mark at work. My last NUT appt (actually with the PA) is August 13. I told her I have a date in my head of Sept 10. She was excited and told me that they will have everything ready that day so all they have to do is print out her note and send it on. Insurance has 14 buisness days to respond. That quite possibly will be the longest wait of my life. We will see (because these days are long as well). I can tell you I've gained weight at every single appt with the NUT. I'm trying things they say and I KNOW I will follow through after. Remember my energy level is nothing. I didn't have them document the autoimmune stuff (although they do know) as I don't believe it's life threatening- I went to have my fatigue treated and it was totally up to me and nothing more. My feeling is that I want to see how weight loss effects my health rather than relying on meds so I'm dealing. I was worried about the weight gain but the PA tells me not to be concnerned. I'm going to go with that because if I don't....I'll drive myself crazy...... So the countdown begins....to my new life....on this new journey... I know life will change for me drastically. I'm ready....for whatever that means. And I will journal through it---- because I know that it's helpful and I also know- I have a great support system with VST PEEPS. Thank you for listening..... Justine........

I agree. I have hypothroidism. Low thyroid hormones which makes your TSH levels high. Synthoid is a synthetic hormone to replace what your body isn't making. Weight gain is just one of the symptoms.

Hi my name is Bonnie I'm 23 years old and I've been struggling with my weight all my life. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was held back in the first grade, from there they put me on Adderall and I was gaining 10 pounds every month, I didn't understand because I wouldn't eat breakfast or lunch at school because the medication it would make me nauseous. By the time I would get home it would be dinner time and I would be hungry. This continued through my high school years where I couldn't even stand to be in the lunch room I would just go to the library and hang out til' lunch was over. I was still active and try to keep up the best I could with all my friends that were three times smaller than me. Finally when I was 17 years old the doctor told me it was rare but a side effect of weight gain on adderall. I stopped taking my medication and I lost 30 pounds right after that. I still suffer with the same eating habits and I've gained more weight over the years. Oh I'm ready to take this next step and better my life I can't wait and I'm so excited.

Hi, No, I never had any weight gain like you. I do want to say, honestly you think your are hungry and it is what we call "head hunger." You actually couldn't eat the food if they gave it to you, because right now your stomach will only hold about as much food as the size of your thumb because your stomach is swollen. Head Hunger is this biggest challenge we ALL had to face. It is more like you want to eat not that you need to eat. You will lose that extra weight pretty fast. It is a big step and most of us have had the feeling that you are having. They will go awat once you start losing the weight. If you could have lost the weight on your own honestly you would have by now. The problem is for most of us we would regain it back after losing it. You have to make a lifestyle change--not think about being on a diet. A lifestyle change is something that you can do for the rest of your life. I never feel deprived. I eat small amount of food, and for the most part I make them healthy food choices. Yes, I have a small amount of desert now and then, but only a sliver of what I used to eat. And I do not eat it everyday. Just now and then. I have learned to bake some things that I can have that are not loaded with sugar and carbs. There are some great low carb cookbooks out there. The 1st month is the hardest month you will ever have to do. After that it gets a lot easier. These boards are a great place to come and say what is going on and how your are feeling I am out here if you have any questions or issues. I live in Eugene, and I went to Mexicali to Dr. Aceves 4 years ago and had Sleeve Surgery. Take care, Suzanne

I had extreme swelling too but I was able to get liquids down, slowly, by only sipping through a 1 ounce med cup and I could get very little in at first. Do or did you have any sort of chronic inflammation issues or have you seen a rheumotologist in the past? I assumed my swelling is the fact that I get chronic inflammation throughout my body due to mixed tissue disease / Lupus. You could visibly see that my stomach (about 2 inches above my belly button) was extremely swollen 5 weeks after surgery. It does get better every day. Hopefully they do a blood test on you since they are actually starting you steroids to check for inflammation and check for positive ana's. In case you are worried about the steroids/weight gain don't. Steroids will not make you fat. They do increase the appetite which may help you get liquids down and they actually can give you extra energy, something I am sure you are lacking right now. Since you can't get liquids down you aren't going to overeat. If you aren't using a one ounce med cup try using that to take slow sips, and realize this is temporary. I am so sorry you are going through this and I'm sending you my thoughts and prayers.

My dreams are only positive. I really want to be healthy and want to start my new journey with the band. I look at all the possibilites that will come back from years ago when I lose some weight. Not just looking better, but actually being more productive to myself and to my family. And prednisone has a way to help you breathe better but also give you much weight retention. My dearly departed wife was on 60mg of prednisone and she gained about 55 pounds. But being older and almost 5 foot 10 inches tall, she could carry her weight gain. Lose weight and you will breathe easier, then the familoy doctor should wean you off slowly prednisone. Best wishes Best wishes on your new journey.

I am nervous about my appointment on s Monday! I have had a couple dreams that I get there and after talking...the doc tells me he can't perform my surgery. I have struggled with weight my whole life. Even as a child. I was bullied....which made it worse. I am tall so I carried it well as I got older. I dated with no problem. Even had really georgous boyfriends!! But in the end I was cheated on by all with a skinny model looking girl. Think that made it worse. I now have an amazing husband and 2 beautiful boys ages 2 and 4! I have lots of medical problems and have been on prednisone for 4 years. I weighed 205 this time last year. I now weight almost 300!. Can't breathe...no energy but I force myself to for the kids. I have severe RA and its gotten worse with the weight gain. I need to get this weight off so I can get my life back and have a healthier me for my family. Has anyone had nervous dreams about not getting approved? Scared

Hi my name is Bonnie I'm 23 years old and I've been struggling with my weight all my life. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was held back in the first grade, from there they put me on Adderall and I was gaining 10 pounds every month, I didn't understand because I wouldn't eat breakfast or lunch at school because the medication it would make me nauseous. By the time I would get home it would be dinner time and I would be hungry. This continued through my high school years where I couldn't even stand to be in the lunch room I would just go to the library and hang out til' lunch was over. I was still active and try to keep up the best I could with all my friends that were three times smaller than me. Finally when I was 17 years old the doctor told me it was rare but a side effect of weight gain on adderall. I stopped taking my medication and I lost 30 pounds right after that. I still suffer with the same eating habits and I've gained more weight over the years. Oh I'm ready to take this next step and better my life I can't wait and I'm so excited.

I have a friend who had sleeve surgery a little over 2 years ago. She took on an "all things in moderation" point of view after she hit about a year out. She regrets that decision now because she is starting to see weight gain. Seeing her go through all these different phases in front of me, has let me learn from her mistakes. I'm not saying I'm going to eat like an angel forever, I'll have a bite of my own birthday cake, but I'm not going to allow myself to eat just anything. I don't want sweets right now, the idea of eating them kinda disgusts me, which is weird because I used to be the cupcake queen! For me personally, I really wanted sleeve surgery to be the tool that helped change me. From the inside out, I want food to be fuel, not food to be comfort or reward. I don't want this surgery, and struggling I'm doing now in the beginning to be in vain. Its just so easy for us to start out with good intentions, of all things in moderation to turn into self-sabotage because its so very easy to fall back to the way we mentally were before. Just my two cents.

I spent most of my life thin. I was a thin and active kid, thin through my 20s and early 30s and then BAM! my metabolism slowed to a virtual standstill and I gained weight effortlessly. I had it tested several times - if I ate > 800 cal a day I'd gain weight. I had test upon test to see why and nothing came back abnormal. I never ate much, rarely cleaned my plate. Not a big fan of sweets (only on special occasions), not a snacker - I could walk by the office candy bowl and not even think about it. Don't like Cheetoes. If I ate fast food, it was maybe once a month and then it would be a Happy Meal. People would assume I was a closet eater, but I wasn't. Didn't drink sugary soda or beverages. My SO and I could eat the exact same thing, I'd eat less and STILL gain weight. I ate only because I had to, no to fill some emotional void. I've frequently gone all day without eating just because I wasn't hungry. My point is genetics play a huge role in weight gain. My mother was overweight and didn't eat poorly either. There is nothing that I can look at in my eating habits and say "that's it! That's the problem!l" except eating out, an unfortunate byproduct of my career and lifestyle. With the sleeve that will change (and I'll save a ton of money!). But seriously, genetics do play a huge part in weight - don't discount that.

I have BCBS and VA coverage- NEITHER of them would approve my surgery because of my BMI only being 31. I'm actually in great shape, and an athlete but my weight has always been on the obese side, and now I have so many complicating factors it's gotten ridiculous. I've been on insulin meds, hormone meds, stomach ulcer meds, etc. I also have Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome which causes huge amount of weight gain and stomach issues at various points in the month. Every doctor I've consulted with have said this surgery will fix 99% of my problems, but NO insurance will cover this surgery because I'm not Morbidly Obese- so if I gained 30 more lbs and became full blown diabetic then they would pay... my logic is- why wait and torture my body, fix it now by a reputable doctor and save the last year of my 20's as not being miserably over weight. And maybe, just maybe I can get into the athletic shape of my life again and actually play my club sport like I use to 10 years ago minus all this extra baggage. :/ And yes, I'd love to be in the Alabama group- and of course and War Eagle!

Something is taking over me and it is called change. This is my second attempt to weight loss. I had weight loss surgery in 2009 and it did not work. I had Lap Band surgery at the time and now I am waiting for 8.23.12 when the defective Band will be removed and I will be Sleeved. So, what is the changing and believing in me stuff all about? Well, the LapBand started off ok...that is if you call vomitting all the time and feeling dehydrated because I could barely sip water. I lost weight that way until one day it stopped. Each time thereafter when I went for a fill, nothing happened. Not enough fluid, let me go back.....still nothing. Hmmmm, let me change providers because "they" don't know what their doing. Hmmmm, same problem, different place so it must be..................me. Not only no weight loss, I experienced weight gain. Needless to say it took me too long to figure it out I wasn't the problem.....the LapBand was. I internalized the failure as my own. In June 2012 I became empowered about my health. I went back to my original provider and the LapBand has a leak. Geez, it did not take a rocket science to figure that out but I was mentally in it and I made it my failure....it had to be "my fault." If only I would have been empowered and proactive before.....I could have save myself the mental knockout and the beating my body is taking for added weight gain. June 2012 I decided "no more." When I was told the band was the problem I also realized I was the problem for not believing in me. For not even thinking the Band was defective.....it was easier for me to think I was defective. Enough. Since that time, I have been proactive with getting my insurance to approve having the Band removed and getting Sleeved. I did not take a back seat and wait for things to happen, I played what I believed to be a significant part in making it happen. I called the provider and insurance company constantly to make sure my name was in their "head." I wrote a letter to the insurance company, had it notarized and all so they heard my story regarding my failed LapBand. I told myself if I got denied for Sleeve it would not be without me doing all I felt I could do. It may not played a part in their decision making but it played a huge part in believing in me piloting my aircraft. Enough insecurity. I wasted so much time and what I realize is that I don't have that kind of time to lose anymore. I'm calling myself out. This website has become a part of my voice. I did not use support systems. I tried to figure it all out myself. I mean, I am successful taking care of my family. I am successful being a good friend. I am successful following through on the clients I serve at my social services job. Yet I fail me. It seems like I should have seen this but when you are immersed into yourself, you cannot see yourself or maybe I refused to look. Whatever the case, I am moving forward. I believe. I am empowered. I am motivated. I will be intentional about my acts. I will achieve weightloss. I see it now because as excited as I am about my surgery in August, I am taking necessary steps now. I am watchful of what I eat. I am reaching out to people on this site instead of be a voyeur of this site. I need this site. I am thankful for it. I read the stories of where I am, where I was and where I am trying to go.......it all energizes me. Anyone reading this who is doubtful.......believe. If you never believed in anything....if no one believes in you.....take all of that and believe this time. Believe you have a right to happiness. You have a right to be heard, to be seen to be acknowledged by all those who made you invisible including if you did it to yourself. I will say this always. I've seen beautiful, fashionable and confident heavyweight women. Women who are comfortable in their own skin. I don't believe the world needs to be skinny. I do believe we should love ourselves and if we don't, we should do what we need to do to bring about change. This is my change and my newfound belief in me.

Hi! I'm new here but I can attest for the weight gain. I had RNY in Feb 2004 starting weight was 320 and lost down to 190. Well, slowly but surely, I gained weight and began taking up bad habits and not exercising and ended up back to 274. I went to my surgeon and was able to have a revision on 6/28/12..... So I am starting this journey again and for the last time. It isn't easy and I am scared sometimes afraid it won't work or I won't lose anything. I'm trying very hard. I'm glad I found this group because I will need lots of support.

I told my husband, but do not plan to tell anyone else. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to tell my boss. So far, I'm going with - I'll be out for a few days because I am having elective surgery for a minor medical issue. If pushed, I will say it is of a personal nature. Thoughts? Omar from Dr. Kelly's office just called me and was giving me pre-surgery instructions. My son overheard and asked - "Your having surgery? When were you going to tell me?" He's not great a keeping secrets, so I told him I just told him I was having surgery on my stomach. He kept pushing so I said the doctor was going to remove some things (non cancerous in nature). He kept pushing - so I said like cists and I added that they may be the cause of my weight gain. He's 15, so he was kidding around and said, "Eww. You have pimples in your stomach?" Oh well, I'm not sure if him telling people I have pimples in my stomach is that is much better than just telling people about the WLS

Has anyone gained their weight back after surgery? I was 294 and went down to 180. I am now back up to 196...but is this normal? I'm 18 months post surgery.

Ok so this is a WAY fun topic. Secretly hoping to get down to 135 pounds. I could care less what my ex thinks about how I look. With the exception of my weight gain, my life has FAR surpased his pathetic existance, I am happily married, have a nice car, home, and a good job. Here goes my secret fantasy....my husband has a friend, well she has become a friend of mine as well, but lets just say she is fabulous! Gorgeous, rich family, so whitty and charming, ....and Australian to boot . Even her name is cool. I imagine meetign up with her and not feeling so out of place!!!! I want to fit in with her! LOL

I am 58 and have been fighting weight gains since age15. I have tried many different diets, WW,Nutrisystem, hypnosis as well as accupuncture. 6 years ago with the help of TOPS (Take off pounds sensibly) and my local YMCA I took off and kept off over 100 pounds. My BP and blood sugar returned to normal and I had so much more energy. Then my Mom died 3 years ago and 40 pounds crept back on. My usual weight loss strategies didn't work despite my best efforts. So last December I went to a WL seminar. Because of other surgeries I have already had the band was my only option. I decided to start the process and the fight with my insurance company I barely qualified based on my BMI and they wanted me to lose 10 percent which would have put me below the required BMI. So with the help of letters from 5 different doctors I was approved and was banded June 5th. It wasa great decision for me and I feel I am back in control. I really like it giving up body parts that can't be returned. I already live without a colon so know what that process is about.......no turning back

I am the queen of soda! Literally drank nothing but soda for years, Water rarely if ever passed my lips. A friend once drew a picture of me and it included a pepsi bottle in my hand. I literally would wake up in the middle of the night and go to the store to grab a coke sometimes. This is despite chronic dehydration, kidney stones, weight gain, and being Pre-diabetic for ten years. I was ADDICTED for realsies. So, when the time came I realized I was gonna have to give up pop for keeps I went balls to the wall with it. I didn't mess around with diet. I didn't mess around with carbonate calorie free juice. I just decided I had no other choice but to nip it in the bud and say sayonara. So what I did was I went out and bought a huge box of bottled water, but half in the fridge and half in my car. I also bought four of the naglagene (or however you say/spell it haha) bottles and kept them on a constant rotation. I basically just tried to keep as much water around me as possible at all times and forced mysel to drink it. I didn't chug it or anything I just drank it through the day. And found that I was drinking close to 80 oz a day. In the first few weeks it was excruciatingly difficult. I felt awful, had some killer headaches, felt like all that good in life was being deprived of me. But hey that's the nature of drug withdrawal (and believe you me caffeine and corn syrup are drugs) This was about a month and a half ago. I since can't live with out water, I don't really crave soda at this point, feel soooo much better, my face looks way better, I sleep better and I've lost 15 pounds (I was banded a little under two weeks ago.) I drink crystal light in an emergency. I have an occasional ice tea at the bar (I don't drink booze). Also, a friend in trying treat me brought me a coke slurpee today, I literally took two sips of it and felt sick. It didn't taste good and I couldn't believe I've been drinking that crap for years. So yeah, from the former Empress of Cola - you can do it! It may suck for a while but trust me you'll learn to love it. I say ditch it and the caffeine pronto cold turkey and you'll be surprised to find how much better you'll feel.

Hi everyone, This is going to be a long post, so apologies ahead of time! I'm new to VST and thought I'd introduce myself and tell a bit about how I've wound up here. I'm a 39yo (very soon to be 40!) married female, who is an American expat in Australia. I've been here nearly 10 years now. I'm a bandit who will be revising to the VSG. I got my band May 2008, in Perth, although lived remotely at the time. I really wanted to have the RNY but as I was desperate to get pregnant, I didn't want to "waste" 2 years, so I opted for the band. (it goes without saying that I am still childless and largely out of time now :-(, sad but nothing to be done about it but move on I guess). I didn't know about the sleeve. I think it might not have even been around at that time? Not sure. The surgeon didn't discuss any other options, pretty much just said "yeah sure we can band you". There was no pre-op counseling, no meeting with a dietician or a psychologist, nothing. Having read so many tales of having to jmp through hoop after flaming hoop, I thought, "wow this is great!" Of course that said, there was also no follow up care either, except for when I needed adjustments. I had the Internet for support. And of course my husband, who really wasn't all that keen on the idea but went along with it. That was pretty much it. Adjustments were a nightmare to organize. It was a 5+ hour drive one way to Karratha, or a 2 hour flight to Perth to get adjustments, so not only was it inconvenient, I also had to arrange time off work, plus it cost a fortune in travel. Until I learned the new GP could (begrudgingky) do adjustments. More convenient, but also belittling GP who apparently didn't mind letting all and sundry know what you were there for. Shed just announce it loudly so that everyone could hear (very tiny office & surgery). Anyway, I started at 131kg (by my scales, they didnt even weigh me before i went into surgery) and got down to 111kg, for about a minute. Then went zooming back up to 114. Stayed there for weeks, despite following my doctors advice to e letter. The only solution ever offered to help break the stall was "more fill,". It got to the point that I was so restricted often couldn't even get milk down. I would fluctuate between 114-116kg, and constantly told that I simply wasn't complying and that if i would just put as much effort into the weight loss as I did making excuses and lying to myself (word for word from that horrible GP, who took over for fills/removals and stats monitoring after the implant), that I'd have already been halfway to goal. I thought that was a little harsh considering that at that stage I was working my a** off. Not to mention that at that time I hadn't yet learned to eat around the band. She refused to look at my food diary, preferring to just make baseless assumptions about the fat woman sitting across from her (me). If she'd have looked she have seen that yes, I tested the waters and made mistakes, tried to learn from them, but mostly I was extremely compliant. As I said, my band fills got to the stage that even hot peppermint tea would sometimes not go through, nor would ice Water. So you can imagine how painful it was to eat solids and they'd get stuck. chicken, steak, pork, lamb, tuna, any kind of bread, fruit (especially those with skins or membranes), salad veggies (lettuce became an utter nightmare)....all items that would consistently get stuck or rise and fall in my esophagus. dairy products that wouldnt go through made me bring up these great huge globs of slime (honestly, it looks like a mucous plug! Gross!) when you cant get anything to go through, after a while, you get hungry! And being unable to get anything healthy down added to my frustration as well as well as the hunger. I was crazy with hunger some days. True hunger, stomach aching hunger, not just head hunger. Eventually I just got to the point that I let myself eat whatever I felt like, since it almost always all came back up anyway. Never a huge socialiser to begin with, I began to decline social invitations because invariably I'd wind up spending so much time in the ladies room that people would get put off by it. It was embarrassing and hard to explain. People just can't wrap their heads around it. The human auto response to issues, is to just stop doing whatever is causing the issue. Well, you can't just stop eating. Eventually the invitations just stopped. Partly blessing, partly lonely. In Dec 2011 I relocated back to Melbourne, and as such, I'd like to try to make some friends and get a social life back. Since a lot of social activities involve/revolve around food, and I wasn't getting anywhere with weight loss, I went to a doctor who agreed to take out half my fill. ahh, the relief! Oh, the weight gain! I'm back up to 120kg. :-( So 22 June, me and the husband are heading to our farm, and I'm talking about going back to Weight Watchers. AGAIN. I'm pretty sure I've trial tested every version they've run since 1981 (first formal diet, thanks mom! Not). My husband, my dear, sweet, long suffering husband says "Babe, why don't you just go and have the gastric bypass? Just end this battle so you can stop dieting and we enjoy our life together without you having to constantly be stressed.". Wha??? At first I was gobsmacked. Nearly offended. I mean, this is the guy who wasn't so keen on me getting the band. Then I realized what a gift he was giving me. (He didnt really know what bypass involves, that its not the easy way out he thought it would be). I thought about it for 2 weeks before I told him I was going to do it. But I didn't want the RNY anymore. Id been researching a different bypass, the Duodenal Switch. I know a few people with the RNY and they have all had problems with the anastamosis growing over, things getting stuck in the stoma, staple line leakage, and dumping syndrome just to name a few. DS doesn't have those issues, except for staple leakage if you're non-compliant in the first 3 months. Then I believe it just heals into a well formed scar? I'm not sure. Anyway, I started ringing around to Melbourne surgeons to find someone that did the DS. I found ONE. Dr Stephen Blaemy. Had my consult with him 19 July. Nice guy, a little more patronizing than Id like, but having always been a fat person I've grown accustomed to people being patronizing. He openly admitted that he'd not done a DS in the last 5 years, but that he would still do it. Some caveats first though. If I ended up with DS, it would be the last of a 3 stage process. First, lapriscopically removing my band. 10 weeks later, lapriscopically doing the VSG. One year from then, the DS, if it is necessary. He doesn't think it will be necessary. Naturally I was a little disheartened. I'd hoped to have the DS by end of October this year.....had envisioned Christmas photos with me actually IN them (I generally break my neck to get away from a camera). I must be honest here folks........I have a LOT of reservations and doubts about the effectiveness of the sleeve. I wasn't able to make the band (a solely restrictive process) work, and I don't have much faith that I will be able to make the sleeve (also a restrictive process) work either. I fully admit that I threw in the towel out of frustration and, well, hunger! I am really afraid that the same thing will happen with the sleeve. Although this time, I have access to more tools like: clean, nice smelling gyms (rather than a hole-of-a-building-gym stinking of BO so bad you can TASTE it) Therapists and nutrtionists that specialize in disordered eating Face to face support groups Safe places to walk and exercise (rather than the rocky, craggy snake and fly infested remote towns of the Pilbara) (the Pilbara is beautiful, just you must exercise extreme caution when leaving the confines of established areas :-D ) Complementary therapies like acupuncture, massage, and oddly enough, beauty treatments. I believe the Cancer Counsels Look better, feel better campaign can apply to even those of us not suffering cancer. If you look better, you feel better. Plus, it's good to just be back in "civilization"! So......dr Blamey gave me some info on the sleeve, told me to talk it over with the husband, and get back to him if I wanted to proceed. I did, and called the next day. Spoke with his secretary (who is a little lacking in friendliness....maybe she was having a bad week) and organized to have the band out 14 August 2012. If he's true to his word, and doesn't have a holiday planned, I should behaving the sleeve done around 22 October 2012. I am also really afraid that once I've got the band out, I'm going to lose my collective mind and have a stress binge, and balloon back up to 131 or higher. My plan is to go back to Weight Watchers (I do think it's a sensible approach) for the time being, then switch to Optifast for 2 weeks prior to sleeve surgery, and then go for the gold with the sleeve, following his advice. And I'm going to make the best of a less than ideal (in my mind) situation. If next year I havent been unsuccessful I can revise again to the DS. And that's my story in a (large) nutshell! Cheers!

P.S. tomorrow will be one week without Pop. It hasn't been a problem. It is all the food and the continuous weight gain (ooops). My brain thinks that because I'm having surgery- I can eat what I want. Totally backwards I know- but it does. So this 6 month for insurance has really done nothing positive for me. Oh well

P.S. tomorrow will be one week without Pop. It hasn't been a problem. It is all the food and the continuous weight gain (ooops). My brain thinks that because I'm having surgery- I can eat what I want. Totally backwards I know- but it does. So this 6 month for insurance has really done nothing positive for me. Oh well

I am one of these folks who doesn't run to the Dr with every hang nail. My questions are can you eat food with no problem, could be you swelled after the fill , could be warm weather and that caused the reflux. I would give it a couple of days and see if it comes back. At your weight do you really need that much restriction to maintain your weight loss I can tell you acid reflux over time cause serious damage so if you are refluxing every night STOP. And all those meds are nasty and should not be nesesasary. After losing over 100 lbs you have learned how to eat 3lb weight gain could be water and compared to sleeping upright it sounds like a better trade off.