Newbie

[MandyRN 11]

Hello everyone!

My name is Amanda, I am 25 years old and live in Ohio. My whole life I have been battleing my weight. I have tried WW, low-carb, low-calorie dieting over and over with little sucess. So now I am looking into GB. I am just in the very begining phase of this process. I have contacted my insurance, which will cover it thankfully:) My BMI is 52 which is high enough that my insurance company does not require me to to a 6 month medically managed weight loss plan. I also have done tons of reading and research. I am scheduled to go to a seminar on August 5th at the hospital which I believe I would go through. They have a very comprehensive program. I was just wondering if I could get some feedback from thos of you out there that have already went through the surgery or even the whole pre-op process......

How long did it take to get everything completed for surgery?

What types of medical testing was required?

What kind of diet are you on pre op?

Any thing else you wish to add feel free!

Just looking for some opinons .....if I do decide to go through with GB I would prefer this method.

[DonRodolfo 1,416]

Hello everyone!

My name is Amanda, I am 25 years old and live in Ohio. My whole life I have been battleing my weight. I have tried WW, low-carb, low-calorie dieting over and over with little sucess. So now I am looking into GB. I am just in the very begining phase of this process. I have contacted my insurance, which will cover it thankfully:) My BMI is 52 which is high enough that my insurance company does not require me to to a 6 month medically managed weight loss plan. I also have done tons of reading and research. I am scheduled to go to a seminar on August 5th at the hospital which I believe I would go through. They have a very comprehensive program. I was just wondering if I could get some feedback from thos of you out there that have already went through the surgery or even the whole pre-op process......

How long did it take to get everything completed for surgery?

What types of medical testing was required?

What kind of diet are you on pre op?

Any thing else you wish to add feel free!

Just looking for some opinons .....if I do decide to go through with GB I would prefer this method.

Hi Amanda - welcome!

Not mincing words here, but you said GB twice in your post. I assume this means "gastric bypass" - you realize that this is a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy board and these are two different procedures? The people who frequent this board are mostly pre or post op Sleeve Gastrectomy folks.

Anyway, I'll try to answer your questions:

How long did it take to get everything completed for surgery?

I started the process in January of this year with a "meet your surgeon" visit. Insurance required 3 months of Nutritionist visits (also called "supervised weight loss) where I could lose weight, or stay the same, but under no circumstances gain or I could lose coverage. My surgery was May 28.

What types of medical testing was required?

It was required that I have a cardiac clearance so I had to have an EKG and some sort of ultrasound done on my heart. It was maybe an hour visit and I was cleared.

I also had to have a psych eval. Again another one hour visit that seemed pretty routine.

I had to have about 12 vials of blood drawn the week before surgery for presurgery labs.

What kind of diet are you on pre op?

I had no prescribed diet beforehand except the two-week preop liquid only diet and Clear liquids the day before.

Other people here had different requirements than I did as you will see.

[MandyRN 11]

Thank you for the reply! I understand that this is different than GB I guess I should say that I am considering "weight loss surgery" due to the fact that I am unsure at this point in time, which route I will take.....I joined this particular forum because I believe that if I do decide to go through with WLS I would probaly choose the gastric sleeve.....but that would be for my physician and I to discuss at a later time. Thank you for sharing your experience! I greatly appreciate it!