My Journey

heather113076 · November 21, 2007

Hi everyone. I found this forum by a google search and I read some threads and signed up. I attended a seminar on lapband Saturday Nov 17 and am very excited to start this journey. I did find a Detour however, my insurance BCBS of AL requires a 6 month medically supervised diet. UGH! So I hope to start that beginning Dec 1 and finish up July 1 and hope to have surgery by August 2008. I really wanted to get the surgery after the beginning of the year but it wasn't meant to be. I firmly believe everything happens for a reason and I will not let this get me down! So I am confused as to whether or not I should actually attempt to lose weight while on the diet. Right now I am at 340 and my BMI is 57, I am scared that if while on the diet for 6 months I lose say 50 lbs then the insurance people will be like well you did well on this so no surgery for you-does that make sense? What do you guys think?

transformer · November 22, 2007

Hi Heather!

The insurance company and your doctor would probably want you to lose some weight before surgery so it is safer to operate on you. Use a BMI calculator on-line and calculate what your BMI would be at 290--if it's 57 now, I'd bet it would still be well over 40 even if you lost 50 pounds so you would still qualify for surgery.

Someone else with a medical background wrote in to this forum before saying that a pre-op diet is required to help detox the liver and shrink it so the surgery is easier to do laprascopically(would allow more room for the instruments to move around in your abdomen).

I'm a self-payer, so I can't help you navigate the insurance qualifications unfortunately!

Good luck on your journey!!! You can do this!!!

sleepygirl · November 23, 2007

I am with you. My insurance requires 6 mos and it will be june or july before I can get banded. My bmi is 50. So; hey, we're in this thing together

Sleepygirl

heather113076 · November 23, 2007

Transformer~ thanks for the info!

Sleepygirl~ Keep me posted on your progress. One good thing for me is that my sister works at the same place I do so we have the same insurance and she is wanting to get the lap band as well. So we will be doing the Weight Watchers together and getting surgery sometime around the same time as well. As a matter of fact we have our first consultation on the same day(Jan 16) with the same doctor.