Old Disgruntled Failure Forum

[3loves 0]

Allow me to add my 2 cents....

I just love all you old timers that refuse to fail and who refuse to face the truth without fear!! You are my inspiration!!!

I know I can face whatever the band (or myself for that matter) throws my way. This place gives me the confidence I need to make it work for me.

THANKS from my heart!!!

:hug:

[DeLarla 22]

The truth SUCKS! But it beats denial hands down, any day of the week.

[Telly 4]

Well, as you can see Delarla, everyone gets involved in things in packs so to speak. Reinforcement emails? It's all kinda the same. But I'm glad that's over with.

I'd like to reiterate that... what happened yesterday and today was not pretty or a good thing but as I am reading in this particular thread, I can personally see a new form of bashing. I'd hate to see this one turn out like that.

I'd really like to move on though.

[Alexandra 55]

Let's back off the assessments of other people's posting styles, EVERYONE.

Thanks.

[mrycrltn 2]

Receive and provide support for Lap-Band

This is what we are supppose to be doing. When I joined lapband talk everybody was so nice, now it seems there has to be sides to everything. Are we not all going through the same thing? We are all here to offer support with this thing in us, or not in us? We all have the same goal, we want to lose weight and look hot.

So many different people have motivated me and have helped me along the way. So I think if somebody starts a thread, let them speak there mind without bad mouthing or making them feel bad for what they think or say. (This is not directed towards you Delara, you are one of the people that have helped me in more than one way).

If my mother was on this board reading any of this, her first words would be.....If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. (I learned something from you mom).

[Penni60 45]

Alexandra I second that emotion.

[leatha_g 4]

I very purposefully created my post here to be positive and grateful in nature. I, too, would like to keep it that way. I think since I fall into the old, disgruntled and failing sector I can post here and be understood, perhaps.

I would like to ask that those of us who fall into that 'category' strive to keep our conversation within the boundaries of being 'old, disgruntled and a 'failure' (or not). Not everyone is required to participate.

[Penni60 45]

I am "OLD, DISGRUNTLED, AND A FAILURE" since I lost my band to erosion.

[leatha_g 4]

:think ((((Penni)))), but you don't LOOK like a failure to me. Stick with us old woman. Least we can do is listen to you moan and groan and still show you love..

[DOC 0]

Lisa, Penni, Leatha, Paula, Sue, Betty, ..... and many more.

I thank you for your honesty......

I thank you for staying around and helping newbies.....

I thank you for sharing your mistakes with us to try and steer us down the right path.....

I thank you for your wisdom which you earned going down some difficult roads of your own....

But, most of all, I want to thank you all for your foot lovingly kicking me in the "a**" when I wasn't following the bandster rules...

LBT wouldn't be what it is without you!!!!!!!!

Kisses,

[leatha_g 4]

Thank you Donna, what a sweet thing to say. I think each one of us here have something to offer and I know that most of us wouldn't have been around as long as we have without sincerely caring about helping others. Like you, I learned SO much from those who'd gone before me. I don't know what I'd have done, or if I'd ever have been banded at all if it weren't for the message boards.

DeLarla!! Tripolar?? too funny...

[wavydaby 1]

We are not failures, we are dyslexic... dyslexic anorexic.

[DeLarla 22]

I am not old. I am not disgruntled. I am not a failure. I am vibrant (and fat) and loving (and fat) and intelligent (and fat) and a fat laugh a minute. Penni, take it back ~ you are NOT a failure. Fat does NOT equate to failurehood or failurism or failuropotrolomopetry. If being fat is synomous with being a failure then every member of LBT falls in the same failing category.

Donna, Donna, Donna, what will we do? I'm logging off now to design my new light-sensitive-kitchen. Sensors detect darnkess causing a big Iron door to slam shut. Nobody comes in - nobody goes out. Damn kitchen.

[NewSho 20]

Leatha, I almost PB'd my Taco Bell when I read your post, and I don't even have a band. Sorry for running with your idea, but it had to be done.

I'm loving the Taco Bell part of this quote - was I the only one who caught this? Hilarious.

For the record, I don't feel like a failure, and I'm certainly not disgruntled over the loss of my band or that I've gained a few pounds.

Failure? None of you even come close.

Oh please, if we measure failure by pounds gained/lost then I'd win the North American Disgruntled Failure Trophy. As we now know, I've been officially banded for more than five years - since the US FDA Clinical Trials. And only just in the last month did my BMI now dip down low enough again for me to be considered 'overweight' and not obese. That's almost comical. But still I don't let ANYONE label me a failure with the band - its a device and devices fail. I don't let myself fail, I go down fighting. If anything, Inamed, my surgeons and anyone who knows my medical history - all admit the band failed me for years.

To recap: Just after being banded I lost weight spectacularly and then immediately suffered nearly every known and unknown medical complication before there was a protocol, treatment or a faintest idea how to handle it. This was way back in the pioneer days of 2001 before approval. And it was complications like you wouldn't believe. Come on, a near-fatal disease, organ failure and more? And still yet I was still technically banded - never filled, mind you, but still banded. The doctors didn't know what they were doing, somehow manage to pierce/knock/stab the stupid band whilst trying to figure out how to save me (or it, I was never sure) but what did it matter, since I never got a chance to get it filled anyway.

Failure? How to ensure failure is to never fill a patient as long as they keep losing on their own. Ever.

Back then, during the FDA pre-approval you only got filled if you didn't lose weight after the band was placed, I was losing - so they rewarded me with never filling the band. So I had to work harder to lose weight with no restriction. Nice system, eh? No wonder the FDA Trial stats were so mediocre. ) Seriously I never once had a fill - not once - until they filled it just to check and see if it would hold and to realize it was leaking. So I toted around 'a nothing' on my stomach for years. Not connected, not able to hold Fluid - but still there. And people wonder why I considered myself unbanded? They wonder why I call my band the Silicone Freeloader?:phanvan

Failure?

Another way to ensure your patient becomes a Banded (or virtually unbanded failure)? Try this one. After I get sick, they put me on prescription steroids and then a wacky high-calorie/low phosphorus dietary regimen that manages to put almost every pound back on. Takes time, mind you, but the weight came back on, in time.

Jeez Louise, Inamed ought to put me in the stupid brochure - with a quote "Person to have band longest in US in face of impossible situations." It was like I wasn't banded, except for that pesky near fatal illness. OK, the band stayed in (in whatever condition it was) and I recovered - but the scary thing was that THEY DIDN'T KNOW what the heck was wrong with me.

And yet I got to be re-banded in a "Less-prone-to-kill-you-outright-we-swear-well-we-think" surgery over a year ago - this time featuring the newer, Lower Profile access port and tubing. Even my own original surgeon had me pretending to be newly banded after I had the band repair, because he realized I had not one single normal post op moment of help during the FDA Trial. And that's the truth.

See this is why I should be allowed to subtract those unworking band years from my years of banding, and not pummel myself for being banded so long without success. He wanted me to feel like I could virtually start over - except in my mind, the clock has been ticking and I've got every right to put the pedal to the metal to get me across the Finish Line to weight loss success.

After all this, I've been: called (on this very forum) 'negative about the band' (I'm actually haven't been that bad, but if I was, I deserved to be negative!), a naysayer, anti-Lapband, and repeatedly people have repeatedly questioned my credibility about the band. That's funny, ask Inamed - my serial numbers definitely check out, and no one could make this story up even if you paid them. But I always say that although LapBanding is certainly not perfect now, it's much better now than in the pioneer days of US banding. But to paraphrase the old Jack Nicholson movie, "(People) can't handle the truth."

So if people think five years of BUD ( Banding Under Duress) makes me a failure, they can think it. But they are wrong. My band is (fingers crossed, knock wood, spit a full moon or whatever the heck works) working and for the first time I've actually seen incremental weight loss. And I deserve any bit of success I'm experiencing now that I'm losing - I've literally gone through blood, sweat, and tears for every ounce lost. Does that make me disgruntled? If so, so you guys aren't close.

I'm more disgruntled with the band (to hear some folks tell it) than all of you are without your bands.

DeLarla, and the other FU's - of course you guys are fabulous. I am too, at any weight. (I can just dress better with less weight, but I'm fabulous either way.) You have every right to say it, feel it and broadcast it. Let me join you. What the heck, I wasn't that fat before the band (my Pre Op BMI was well below 40, more like upper 30's) and five years later I've whiddled myself down to a BMI under 30. So even if obesity - or slow loss of obesity - defines failure, I'll still never let myself be labelled as what I don't consider myself to be. But Guess what - newbie, veteran, or in between: everyone's band journey is different. I realized that early on, and I definitely try to reinforce that concept. Each and every post I make on this forum is ends with me wishing people luck on the banded - or de-banded - or unbanded journeys. It's sincere, even if their comments about what I say are not positive. Their comments don't affect me - I'm doing what I can to make this Silicone Freeloader works for me. I take no prisoners and accept no half-steps towards my goal of getting to a lower weight. If they don't like it: Good luck. The world's most stunningly fabulous Band Failure has better things to do!

I don't think there's even one person at LBT that lost their band while blaming the world for their unhappiness.

I never thought that. I read the dedicated forum because there are some great quotes, ideas and inspirations there. Doesn't matter the band status, to me. Yes, I'm less likely to think the newly banded have experienced the lengths and breadths of a band journey - but that doesn't make their opinions less valid. But as for being Disgruntled - I've never even seen a hint of that here among the FU (no don't be offended, it's what I call the Forcibly Unbanded). I've seen the most positive, upbeat, while still realistic - attitudes among the F.U. than I've seen around in a while. It ain't from here that the negativity seems to be spreading. And believe me, people who point fingers and sit in judgment are doing so out of ignorance.

Just because somebody shares information it doesn't mean that person is unhappy. I hated that contraption inside me while respecting its ability to control my caloric intake. It was a love/hate thing but I'm certainly not a failure.

You're reading my journal, honey! You already know my take on it. My nickname for it, Silicone Freeloader says it all. Only now is it earning its keep, and this sucker owes me big!

as if their assignment in life is to take hold of every new bandster that joins LBT and shove their rules, opinions and advise out before anyone else can get to them, and then argue when others have different opinions. That, to me, is a failure in progress.

I suspect that sadly there are a lot of Failures in Progress around, and not just in this forum. It's the nature of the beast, but the Forcibly Unbanded aren't any more prone than any other online denizens.

Welcome to the Disgruntled Failure Forum.

Oh, please. None of you qualify. I'm no longer a Closet Veteran bandster, I'm out of the closet and feel no failure on my part. Hopefully others will feel empowered too.

As always,

Happy Band (and Life) Journeys To All...

[DonnaB 3]

Wow! That's quite a story. I can't imagine anyone calling you disgruntled OR a failure. I've always known that a positive attitude can compensate for almost anything. You've just reconfirmed that notion. Congratulations on your ongoing band journey and thanks for sharing it!