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Hi everyone, I am not yet banded but after thinking about it for the last year, I want to do it and I am working on insurance approval right now. I am doubtful that they will do it, so if I have to self pay I am sure that won't stop me. I have a 37 BMI with Acid Reflux, depression from the weight gain (I am sure that covers a lot of us and I was gestational insulin dependent diabetic when I was pregant (3yrs ago). I check my sugar and I have had numbers in the 200's-300s at time but it goes pretty low like 78 after eating too so my A1C is I belive .1 away from being considered Type 2 Diabetes but I am taking the Glucophage to keep it down currently. I have Priority Health and you have to have <35BMI and two comorbidities. I am not real hopeful that I will be approved, although my Dr. is.... Anyway I was wondering if anyone is in a similar situation and my biggest battle with keeping the weight off is hunger - the glucophage is helping with that - but I feel hungry all of the time and fighting with that is very hard. Do you feel the banding does a good job with reducing hunger after a while? I have a son turning 3 and a supportive and loving husband that I want to be able to keep up with. I find that my body image/self esteem keeps me from doing so many things that I did before. Well, I hope to learn a lot from everyone here. Thanks and I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend:laugh:

I think it's so insane that one little post upset so many as it wasn't intended to. First of all I commend a doctor who doesn't take anyone's money to do this surgery. It shows he has some scruples. It's not only doctors who have strict criteria it's the insurance companies that are dictating who gets this surgery and it's very common for an insurance company to expect you to have a BMI of 40 or have a BMI of 35+ with multiple comorbs. Mine did and I'm sure there are plenty others. I met that criteria without a problem. I admit there was information I was lacking before getting the lap band and it didn't work out for me as planned. Mistake made. Lap banding may not seem as drastic or invasive as RNY etc... but it's still surgery and there are still many risks and there are still chances it may not work or eventually you'll have complications and have to have it removed anyway, possibly struggle with weight gain again and consider revision surgery. I feel bad for self pay people also because I can't imagine what happens when you have complications and have to pay for that down the road. Anyway it was a simple poll posted by Froggi and possibly made people think about what they were doing especially with such low BMIs. Maybe a bit of work on learning to love ourselves at a heavier weight is more important and constantly struggling to be a certain size dictated by our society and shoved in our faces constantly. And having surgery for that purpose might be a bit extreme even if it is only a lap band. Just a thought Nancy.:smile:

I went to the doctor's today regarding the medication. Here's what's up. I wrote the name and doseage of all six drugs on a large index card. When compared, it was apparent I had four drugs that could cause weight gain. I can't say there was a hunger issue because my appetite has been so tame compared to what it use to be. We switched the medications and right now I am transitioning to one new medication, the one for depression. It's a new drug that WHO WAS IT RECOMMENDED IT? it's late and I can't remember at this moment. I was taking Inderal and this is a drug that she said, "given your age I never would have put you on this." I take this for migraines. We switched that one too. Lesson learned: Check your medications yourself on the web. Search the drug name and side effects then see if it applies to you.

I would be having a heart to heart wil your doctor!! If you are gaining weight because you are eating too much, you need a fill. In fact, weight gain is one of the indicators that you need a fill. Don't forget, you are a consumer that PAID for him to assist you in losing weight. You did not pay him to chastise you for eating too much. I think journaling what you eat is a great idea and you should do it so you are more aware of what you are putting in your mouth. Don't be afraid of disagreeing with your doc and questioning his decisions. ( I am married to one and disagree with him on a regular basis : ) ) If you are not pbing regularly, push for the fill. I felt no restriction at 6 cc, I now have 9 cc in a 10 cc band and really could use more!! Good luck!

I feel like such a failure. I'm at 6 cc's in a 10 cc band and have gained approx 10 lbs in the past 2-3 months. Was supposed to get a fill 2 weeks ago, but after learning of the weight gain my doctor has made me keep a food journal for the next month to track of exactly what I'm putting in my mouth. I'm supposed to be eating 1200 to 1250 calories per day. I'm eating healthy, but too much still. Has anyone else gone through this aggravation? I'm mad at myself more because I'm self-pay so it feels like money going down the drain - hard earned money! I just want to get back on track and lose this stupid weight.

Michelle, sounds like you are definitely too tight. The weight gain may make you even tighter. Have you not checked with your doctor in two years? I have heard of several instances like yours. Tight is good. Too tight is NOT. You can't eat properly when you are too tight, as you know. Small portions, SMALL bites with an annoying amount of chewing, should allow you to eat fairly well. I didn't lose weight for about 3 months...got two unfils, just a smidgeon at a time, and immediately dropped 5 pounds. Like you, I got hungary but ate band friendly foods, or did the Pbing. Don't risk a possible erosion from being too tight. See your doctor as soon as possible. Good Luck

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I was able to post so thought I'd say hello and share my good news. I had to go back into chemo for a few months but everythiing is ok now. I have hair again so my hats don't slip around !! I gained a lot of weight during chemo but have now started to lose again and feel so much better. I have lost 35 lbs and have 37 to go to reach my goal. Was almost at my goal when I went back into chemo, darn it. But it's looking good now. This weekend I am going to go "shopping" in my closet for the clothes I bought before my weight gain so I'm looking forward to that! I'm glad to see so many people are on track and doing well with their weight loss and I hope you keep it up. Good luck everyone! :)Laura

If your not happy forget about it....He should be taking care of you...to an extent!! You are a new person and about to go into college!!! I am so jealous! I just graduated college this month and I wish to God I would of had the lap band done before I went to college...I had alot of fun and you met sooooooooo many new and exciting people...and boys...but I wish I was in your shoes and had the weight off before I went instead of gaining 55lbs....oh watch out for the college weight gain...it happens to the best of us even though I promised myself it wouldn't happen...it did...there are alot of late night pizza and breakfast eating...and drinkin :tongue2: Just make sure you walk walk walk walk around campus and to class if possible and you will keep the weight off!!! Also, Have lots of fun...it goes by really quickly.

I went to my PMD today and lost 3.5 pounds this month. I spoke with him about my concerns and we had a long chat. During my wait for insurance approval, I am going to attend some WLS support groups in person and I also scheduled a second appointment with the nutritionist to discuss some things. As far as my mother and sister being anorexic - I am not afraid of ever going there. You are right though, an eating disorder is either stuffing or starving...I guess I have a tendency to stuff:blushing::tt2: I haven't had weight problems all of my life, just the past 8 years. I know some things that have triggered my weight gain, i.e., fertility med's, grief, and changing careers from being busy to sitting at a computer all day. I agree that I do need to talk with someone about emotional eating and I plan to. I, by no means, think that the band will "make me skinny." I know I will have to do the work and the band is just a tool - I really do know this. I am just wondering if I will be hungry just like if I were to be on another diet. I worry that I will be one of the posters that will be starving and have my band filled to the max. How does everyone else deal with head hunger. Is there anyone out there that has problems with emotional eating and the band helped them?

Hi all. Thanks for sharing so much of yourselves in your posts. I am humbled to read your stories. Why am I fat? I have never been fat or struggled with it. My mom used to tell me I ate like a bird. That was until the age of 31 when a switch on the back of my neck flipped and I started to eat like a Hoover vaccum cleaner. I packed on 80 pounds in 2 years with no change in diet. I exercise and still gain...23 doctors and 5 years later...I am 36 and almost 100 pounds overweight. I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and IR (insulin resistance) both of which are being put in 'remission' with WLS. I will be self pay, have done all the tests, and have my first mtg with the surgeon next week. I am very excited. I have to share that the weight gain while painful in different ways...has also been a blessing. I am very empathetic and literally being in someone else's shoes...who is overweight is interesting. How things change for us that once were taken for granted...has been a helpless feeling. I WILL PREVAIL. I will run a 5k this fall. I will run a half marathon in the spring. :smile2: PCOS/IR SUCK!! We can do this!!!

Hey all, Well since news of my surgery date I have had dinners everynight and gained 12 pounds in 3 weeks!! YIKES! Today is day one on my pre-op shakes before surgery for 2 weeks. My question is - how much weight did you gain during Last Supper Syndrome and how much did you before surgery. I only have 2 weeks to lose this and hopefully more. Were you able to exercise? I was 255 and now 267. :cursing:

:cursing:Ok fellow bandsters, I need to vent a little. I had my surgery on the 29th of July and have been doing very well with the weight loss (15 lbs) so far, but now I've gained 5 lbs the last 3 days, I was so close to 299, but now I'm back up to 305! It's been 3 days and the scale hasn't moved. My first fill is Fri in the AM. I hate this, I don't want to eat that much, but it's hard to ignore a rumbling tummy that won't shut up! I know I've lost 3 inches off my hips & thighs, and 1 inch off my neck so I know I'm doing well so far, but this is just so discouraging!!! Has anyone else had to happened to you? Can anyone relate? Thanks for letting me vent a bit.:huh2:

Judy big hugs for what you are going through!! Purple power and hugs to you, Ethan, and the Bobster!!! I too am way up in weight, but slowly but surely will take it off. Reading the books, thinking about weight loss and weight gain. It is more of a head game than the actual weight loss. Jenn who knows about the army guy? He sounds like a nice guy to keep after you with niceties! BB just came on and want to watch, had a sliver to preview this morning thanks to Tracy and Pam!!

AHHHHHHH!!! I was reading an article in O magazine today and it was on medications and do they cause you to gain weight? I am currently on six medications ( two more for the back ) and guess how many of my six cause weight gain????? Of all the medications I take, half of them cause weight gain. Four of them cause sleep disturbance. My band is definately doing it's job. As I whittle away and rehab and recovery on the back I find more and more things popping up. Needless to say, I'm stopping two of the medications and switching to Tylenol. I have an appt. with the doctor to review the other four. I am going to begin going off of one of them. The one for panic disorder. I'm changing the Effexor I take for depression because there is a viable option with lesser side effects. Something tells me once the meds are squared away I will give Dee a run for her weight loss money!!! (grins)

You know that you struggle with emotional issues of confidence & esteem that comes with being fat. But you may not know that you could be what are called as an avoider. This is due to the turmoil that comes with public & private dislike for obesity and you avoid confronting your situation at because of the fear of not being able to beat it. Here is how an avoider thinks – once you deviate even slightly from a diet or healthy eating you figure you might as we drop the whole thing – this stars a cycle that avoider can’t find a way out of – We are fat we try to lose weight we deviate just a little we feel rejection for the perceived failure we isolate ourselves from people we stop talking about it, we stop the diet we eat a pound of candy – we get fat then we try to lose weight and the cycle continues Instead of avoiding bad foods avoider tend to want to avoid other things like the people who want to help them and the disciple of trying to eat healthy. Avoiders try to separate themselves from these 2 strong emotion associated with dieting. The minute you ban any food from your diet you are setting yourself up for failure. If you eat half a cookie or a couple of fires from that banned food list – the diet is dead and that’s where the guilt sets in and now you feel that you lack the strength to succeed. This shame spins you back into the cycle of avoidance When you reach an obstacle you decide that instead of trying to find a way around it you might a well turn around and go back to the beginning – four fry’s leads to a handful then the whole bag. One way to handling emotional eating is you live & eat in the now – not being upset about what you are in the past and not obsessing about what you will eat in the future. The very thing that’s designed to help people lose weight is the very thing that promotes this harder – diets promote the all or nothing mentality. In our lives we allow for a margin of error – which we should also do when trying to eat healthy – if you are eating 1000-1200 calories a day – allow for some of those calories to be used for a little bit of something you really want - you need wiggle room in your diet to make it work – the all or nothing practices has to be thrown our of your mind. You can learn to reprogram your mind to strip away the guilt that comes with dieting. You have to realize that it’s not that the first slice of cake that will doom your diet – it’s the second or third or whole thing that leads to weight gain. You have to listen to your body & respond smartly to your cravings and emotions but over time you will learn how to eat right and mange your craving and that’s when you’ll train your brain to stop obsessing about eating right and punishing yourself – If you stop overthinking you’ll stop over eating..

You know that you struggle with emotional issues of confidence & esteem that comes with being fat. But you may not know that you could be what are called as an avoider. This is due to the turmoil that comes with public & private dislike for obesity and you avoid confronting your situation at because of the fear of not being able to beat it. Here is how an avoider thinks – once you deviate even slightly from a diet or healthy eating you figure you might as we drop the whole thing – this stars a cycle that avoider can’t find a way out of – We are fat we try to lose weight we deviate just a little we feel rejection for the perceived failure we isolate ourselves from people we stop talking about it, we stop the diet we eat a pound of candy – we get fat then we try to lose weight and the cycle continues Instead of avoiding bad foods avoider tend to want to avoid other things like the people who want to help them and the disciple of trying to eat healthy. Avoiders try to separate themselves from these 2 strong emotion associated with dieting. The minute you ban any food from your diet you are setting yourself up for failure. If you eat half a cookie or a couple of fires from that banned food list – the diet is dead and that’s where the guilt sets in and now you feel that you lack the strength to succeed. This shame spins you back into the cycle of avoidance When you reach an obstacle you decide that instead of trying to find a way around it you might a well turn around and go back to the beginning –4 fry’s leads to a handful then the whole bag. One way to handling emotional eating is you live & eat in the now – not being upset about what you are in the past and not obsessing about what you will eat in the future. The very thing that’s designed to help people lose weight is the very thing that promotes this harder – diets promote the all or nothing mentality. In our lives we allow for a margin of error – which we should also do when trying to eat healthy – if you are eating 1000-1200 calories a day – allow for some of those calories to be used for a little bit of something you really want - you need wiggle room in your diet to make it work – the all or nothing practices has to be thrown our of your mind. You can learn to reprogram your mind to strip away the guilt that comes with dieting. You have to realize that it’s not that the first slice of cake that will doom your diet – it’s the second or third or whole thing that leads to weight gain. You have to listen to your body & respond smartly to your cravings and emotions but over time you will learn how to eat right and mange your craving and that’s when you’ll train your brain to stop obsessing about eating right and punishing yourself – If you stop overthinking you’ll stop over eating..

Oh, that's SO true. Me too. I was always always always going to become obese. I managed to hold it off for a long time, but having a couple of babies was the final straw for my body, the weight really began to pile on after that. As it was I really DID get banded to prevent future weight gain but this little band would have been a big help to me earlier on. I just dont see it as "so extreme" the way others do. I just cant understand why its OK to have fake tits and cut your face to bits and inject yourself with botulism, all in the name of looking better but a lapband is suddenly EXTREME. There's pills to lower our cholesterol and our blood pressure and its OK to take drugs all your life to prevent health problems related to those, and to start them when you're not already so far gone that the damage is done, but to get a lapband at a BMI of 35 is EXTREME? It does the health prevention job of about six drugs in one drug free solution! One can never be sure, you dont know what's round the corner, but in all probababily getting on top of this problem now will improve the quality of my life for 50 years to come. I'm going to be that marathon running granny! I just think its completely blind not to be able to see the virtue of preventing really serious obesity in the first place.

froggi you are absoultely right - i have no frame of reference of those in the higher BMI range. being 5'2 and 198lbs as joy states, puts her BMI at 35.2. that's obese. your surgeon would ask her to leave? i just have such issues all around with parameters put on Age or Weight and who deserves surgery. i gotta tell ya, if i could have had the band placed in my 20's to PREVENT weight gain - more so than weight loss ; i would have paid the coin to do so, like i did when i DID get the band and insurance thought i needed to diet. i read the previous posts about young adults/teenagers getting banded; i think the parents of these youngsters are best equipped to decided their childrens mental health to handle WLS. i must say the mental anguish of being the "fat" kid must certainly far outweigh learning to deal w/the tool...MO only,

wait a minute ... hold everything including the burger patty?? that's different.... btw - mayo bread is what started my weight gain ... when i was 6 or 7 my mom used to feed me 3-4 sandwiches a day of just a thick glob of mayo on it... then 5 years later wondered why i was fat ??? gee - wonder why i dont talk to her anymore... ??? :thumbup:

Yea, I would have to say the weight gain is from the "last meal syndrome." lol. I'm usually able to loose weight pretty quick so I'll just try to loose it before the surgery. Yea I had to get off of the birth control due to the higher risk of blood clots.

It spread to my neck. They started me on a steroid pack today - I don't feel like I am banded at all - I am starving - and eating like crazy. I feel very little restriction. I am super swollen - I hope that is what the weight gain is. I had gained 7 lbs when I went to the dr. today. I am trying to eat healthy. Okay - so the brownies weren't healthy - but they were low fat The steroids make me feel like I am running out of my skin. I feel like a humming bird. A huge freaking spotted humming bird. :-) The steroids are helping. I take 6 doses today. Everytime I take a dose - the bumps go away for a couple of hours. Hopefully it will get rid of them totally soon. Funny - at the Dr.s office - little kids were pointing and talking about me - and I knew it wasn't because I was fat! I guess you had to be there - in the elevator - I got in and everyone moved to the other side :-) too funny. I almost wish I was contagious!

It spread to my neck. They started me on a steroid pack today - I don't feel like I am banded at all - I am starving - and eating like crazy. I feel very little restriction. I am super swollen - I hope that is what the weight gain is. I had gained 7 lbs when I went to the dr. today. I am trying to eat healthy. Okay - so the brownies weren't healthy - but they were low fat The steroids make me feel like I am running out of my skin. I feel like a humming bird. A huge freaking spotted humming bird. :-) The steroids are helping. I take 6 doses today. Everytime I take a dose - the bumps go away for a couple of hours. Hopefully it will get rid of them totally soon. Funny - at the Dr.s office - little kids were pointing and talking about me - and I knew it wasn't because I was fat! I guess you had to be there - in the elevator - I got in and everyone moved to the other side :-) too funny. I almost wish I was contagious!

I have been reading through these posts and its really irritating that people are making judgments based on whether your 300 pounds or 205. I'm 28 years old, and I weight 218 and I'm 5'4, but I have serious health issues. I had post partum Congestive Heart Failure at 25 yrs old, I'm insulin resistant because of my PCOS, and I have high blood pressure. I may only be 37% BMI, but I have health conditions that have prevented me from losing weight despite everything I've tried. I am not someone who has eaten themselves to being fat, or overweight, but have had health conditions that have contributed to my weight gain and my weight retention. 6 years ago, I was competing in Figure Competitions, and was at my peak fitness and health until I was in a severe accident, then taken off my birth control...that became my downward cycle of my PCOS symptoms and the weight started piling on. Now I'm 85 pounds overweight, and despite my efforts I can not lose it. My doctor says I am a perfect candidate for this type of surgery because I have good eating habits and I work out 5-6 days a week. I think that WLS is for all types of people, not just the 300+, or for the people who have been overweight their whole lives. All of us have different reasons and stories as to why we are chosing to take this route, and I believe that if you have weight issues and have been fighting it for 6 years or your whole life you shouldnt judge why others are making the same choice as you to better their lives. There's enough judgment in this world, and if you dont like being judged by your looks or weight, then you shouldnt judge someone for making the same decision as you, but their weight is not where YOU expect it to be to qualify!

My doctor did not put me on a pre-op diet. My only orders were that I had to quit birth control and start taking a B-complex vitamin. I have pre-op on Thursday at the hospital and I'm wondering if it may be a problem if I've gained 5-8lbs since my first consultation on 7/16. Anyone know???:smile2:

I had the last supper going on also. My surgery is 9-9. I had gained 7 lbs. since May when I went to see my surgeon 2 weeks ago. My liquid diet starts tomorrow officially(8-26) but because of my weight gain, they put me on it two weeks ago. Just told me to up my portions some, which I did. So...I've been doing liquid during the day, but eating supper (just moderately) until tomorrow. It has worked though, because I haven't felt completely deprived. And.. I have lost some of the pounds I put on. The bariatric nurse told me as far as liquids, to go by the "stage 2" diet but that I could also have eggs with cheese and oatmeal.