snowbird

Is Clynn in GH?? holy moly. I love that...if so, she is 10 minutes away from me. My aunt lives in Port Orchard. Now clynn has no excuses to not get together with me!

FYI on the plastic surgery thing, check the Plastic surgery section of the board...apparently a Dr. NYTE in Maple Valley has GREAT prices AND he has done Lisal and Queenie

Yup, she is a GH girl. Lived there all of her life. Have you ever gone to the Port Orchard support group? They are somewhat affiliated with Fill Management Northwest, I think.

I saw the PS thread. We are actually down in Arizona more than in Washington, so it is just as easy for me to get it done in Mexico. I'm going to do a little price comparison and see what I can afford to get done. Arms are #1 on my list right now, then legs, then chin, then boobs (maybe boobs are actually #2) then tummy then . . .

......yes I'm working out..at least 3x a week.....and no I haven't been counting my calories. I hoped I didn't have to!!!

so....I will start with that! thanks for all your advice, I'll keep you posted!!

Working out three times a week will help your muscle tone, but it will not help you lose weight. Remember, one pound is 3500 calories. With most exercise, unless it is extremely strenuous, you are burning under 500 calories per hour. You can undo it all with two cookies or just a little extra food.

I always have to count my calories if I want to lose weight. And regardless of whether I have great restriction or not, I can't eat bread easily, so that's not a good test.

Good restriction should make you eat much, much less than a normal person--not just bandkiller foods like bread, but everything. My band takes care of how much I can eat at one time, but not how often I eat or what I eat. I have to take care of those things myself, and must be very mindful of what I put in my mouth. Good luck. This is an incredible learning process we have to go through, but the band is a great tool to help us along.

Dr O usually says to stop drinking 15 minutes before eating, not an hour. Warm drinks will relax the stoma and allow more food to go through, while iced drinks will close up the stoma so you can't eat. However, he has gone on to say in one of his videos, I think, that the before eating rule isn't really that important.

If you are feeling weak and shaky a couple hours after eating, it sounds like your blood sugar is dropping too low. If you are eating something high in carbs, that will happen. Increase your protein and decrease your carb intake, and the weak and shaky feelings should stop.

My husband was feeling a little weak and dizzy last week, and checked his bp, and it was pretty low. He has weaned himself off his Atenolol that he was taking twice a day, and his bp is 112/72 without his meds. He has been on meds for hypertension for years and years, so we are really happy!

My blood sugar is down to 88, and my husband has been able to get off his blood pressure medication that he used to take twice a day. Yay for the band!

Husband is going in for dental work on September 22 around noon, so I will probably be there too. Right now I am trying to contact Dr Quiroz for a plastic surgery consult which I would like to schedule for the same day, but he hasn't replied yet.

CaraMBA, we are down in Gig Harbor right now visiting clynn, and are going over to UP tomorrow to have dinner with friends. Glad to hear someone else from this area is going to see Dr. Ortiz. Does your aunt live around here too?

I would go back and read the pinned topic "Plagued by Internet Trolls?" because that is what you were all dealing with. Some people are poison, but they are poison only if you ingest what they give out.

I am arrogant enough that if someone says something mean, I wonder what their problem is, not mine! Why let an unpleasant person who is TRYING to upset you drive you away from good people and good information?

Stormy, I'm wondering why your mother's medications cost so much when she is on SSI. Does she have Medicaid? Has she applied for it? In Washington state, you automatically apply for medicaid when you get SSI, but I don't remember how it goes in Oregon. Anyway, Medicaid should be covering the cost of her medications.

Talk to someone at Social Security, as the others have told you. If you are willing to take on the responsibility, you should check out being your mother's representative payee. You will need to know your mother's doctor's name, as Social Security will need to get the doctor's statement that your mother needs help handling her money. Also, talk this over with your mother too. She may be afraid to complain about your sister because she is so dependent on her.

This isn't going to be easy because your sister will not be happy about it. You need to be ready to find your mother another place to live, because your sister may not want her there if she isn't making money off her.

However, keeping track of your mother's money is easy; just pay all bills with an ATM card so you can track expenditures through the ATM transactions. Social Security just asks generally how much you spent on her necessary living expenses like food, clothing, and shelter expenses, and then what else you spent the money on. Generally, if someone is on SSI their income is so low that everything goes towards the necessary living expenses.

It sounds to me like your sister is trying to emotionally manipulate you, trying to make you feel guilty so you give her money. Don't let her do it.

I know some of you Lap Band Nazi's will really beat me up for this but It's too late; I already ate it. So get over it.

And if you were able to do this liquid phase without slipping...more power to you.

I have been generally good , except for the above but how exciting that in just 4 days... I don't have to feel quilty about a burger and croutons in my soupl

Did I mention I was down 13 lbs? So there you lap band nazis!

So I guess you are including Dr Ortiz as a lap band nazi. Maybe you should take a look at his video about slippage--the link is at the bottom of the main forum page.

PS You aren't out of the woods yet.

I'm thinking of doing the same thing when my husband goes in for dental work in September. But remember, they charge $100 for the fluoro, and the fill is free, so I would expect to be charged $100 for this service.

I've never done any of the weight tickers so I can't really help you there. If you use the search function of the forum there's been several topics about pictures.

Here is the link for the weight loss ticker site:

http://www.tickerfactory.com/ezticker/ticker_designer.php

When you have created your ticker, copy the text for pasting it on bulletin boards and forums, and paste it into your signature (go into the My Controls section and create a signature if you have not already done so.)

I think there are more extensive instructions elsewhere under Forum Policies and Technical Help:

http://www.lapbandforum.com/index.php?showtopic=5317

:lb11:

Hope this helps.

Snowbird AKA The Queen Mother

I'm 10 months out and approaching my goal weight. I just got back from a dinner buffet--I ate what I wanted, but not much of anything. Had dessert too, and I feel fine.

The reason for the "no snacks" rule is that the band stops us from eating too much at one time. If we spread out our eating, we are more likely to overeat because we won't have maxed out the pouch volume with our food.

Now, if you are really truthful with yourself and don't fudge on the 1200 calories, it doesn't really matter when you eat them (except for eating all your protein at once, which doesn't work--another issue entirely). But if we were able to stick to a 1200 calorie diet without the help of the band, we would lose weight too. The problem is that most of us can't do that, which is why we were banded in the first place.

By the way, I snack quite a bit, and I have been fairly successful with the band. I just wanted to point out the reason for the rule and the necessity of being careful not to go over the calorie limit, since the band won't stop us from exceeding it if we snack.

I understand no willpower. Boy, do I ever. But I don't understand eating right after surgery, which is doing something that can, in a very short time, cause physical harm to myself. It would be like eating a really tempting pizza that I knew had poison on it. Why would I eat something I know will hurt me? Maybe you should think of solids that way: as a tempting, but poisonous thing. I would advise you to watch Dr Ortiz's video about slippage, which should cure you of eating too soon.

You don't feel your band. However, you do feel the port. It is stitched into your abdominal wall, and it can pull and twinge if you twist or move your abdominal muscles very much. I can also feel it pinch against my ribs sometimes when I bend over.

You feel the effects of the band when you feel tightness and restriction. That is what the band is supposed to do, to limit your food intake, so I don't really understand your question. If it didn't make you feel any different, you wouldn't be getting any results from it, after all. You feel what it does when you eat, but you don't feel the band itself, ever, as far as my experience goes. I feel totally normal when I am not eating, unless, as karenlynn says, I have eating something I shouldn't have and have just puked it up. Then my stomach aches a bit around where the band is. But again, I don't really "feel" the band itself.

I flew a couple of weeks ago and didn't really notice anything different, except I may have been just a bit tighter afterwards for a day or so. No big deal anyway. I have driven to northern Arizona (over 7000 feet) to the coast to the mountain passes driving up through California to Washington. I noticed absolutely nothing from any of the elevation changes.

My first bites are killers....I'm too preoccupied with eating that I forget to chew so food get stuck and it hurts like hell, I think my body is trying to PB but I have such an aversion to up-chuck that my body keeps it down and it hurts soooo bad...kwim. HELP!!!! I need to learn how to PB....I know this is such a retarded question...but honestly this is the best way I can explain it...

I do know what you are talking about. When something gets stuck, I find it helps to get up and walk around briskly. If that doesn't work and the food doesn't pass through within 15 minutes or so, I lean over as far as I can and press gently on my stomach. That will usually bring the food up. Remember, it is potentially damaging to your band and esophagus to pb a lot, so do this as a last resort.

You might want to keep some papaya enzyme tablets on hand and chew a couple at the first sign you are getting stuck. Sometimes they help, and other times that just means the first thing I PB up is papaya enzyme tablets. They taste good, so that isn't a major problem.

Another thing you might try is putting your plate on the counter, taking one bite and going to a chair and sit while you are chewing. After chewing thoroughly and swallowing, wait at least 30 seconds before getting up and taking a second bite. Repeat this process until you are sure you are in the habit of eating slowly and chewing thoroughly.

This is all about teaching ourselves new habits. I have had enough "stuck" incidents that the pain is about the first thing I think of when I start eating, so it is easy to remember to chew and eat slowly. It takes some time to get to that point, though. I still get stuck frequently on the first couple of bites, so I have to stop eating and wait til the food goes down before resuming my meal. I have a nurse friend that told me that some people form a mucus "plug" in their stoma between meals, and they have to get rid of that plug before they can eat comfortably.

I attribute a lot of my success with the band with becoming negatively conditioned to eating too fast and too much. It hurts, and my head has finally learned that it hurts, to follow bad habits, so I have lost the desire to follow them. But that means I had to go through a painful and uncomfortable number of experiences before I reached that point. You may have to do this too before it becomes second nature to eat slowly and carefully.

I'm curious too. I need a new crown on my front tooth just because the color is not right. I've had it for 10+ years and it never was right. Keep us posted.

I got a crown from Dr Orvieta in the OCC clinic, and was very happy with her work. My husband has had four implants done by the specialist in the OCC dental clinic, and is also very happy with the results. I also had a zoom whitening there and a cleaning.

It isn't really a liability issue; it's a greed issue. US doctors are pissed they didn't get the big bucks for your band. Think about it: you have a serious illness and move to another area. Does your doctor say, "no, I won't treat you because you were treated by someone else first" ? Heck no. We are a mobile society, and doctors generally do not refuse to treat anyone who had surgery done by another doctor. What if you lived in Europe and moved to the US? Would a doctor here refuse to treat anyone who had surgery overseas, if it were anything but this?

I bet if you went in with your mother on her next appointment and confronted the doctor himself, you might get a different answer. Good luck.

Thanks for sharing this with us. It's funny because when I heard Dr. Miranda's diet rules it occurred to me that it is really low carb because when you get to the carbs alot of the time you are full and don't finish them anyway. I'm going to watch the carbs even closer now.

Cheryl

My thoughts exactly. I do eat carbs, and sometimes I eat bad carbs. But I do not plan my meals around them. No potatoes, no rice, no pasta. I don't have room for a lot of food, so why eat the stuff that has no nutritional value?

Since all vegetable have some carbs, carbs aren't all bad for you. I try to stick to complex carbohydrates rather than simple ones. But I'm not averse to a treat now and then. Of course, I'm only five pounds from my goal, so a few months ago I was more careful about avoiding the "bad" carbs.

You are probably taking in a lot less salt than your body is used to, so you are excreting the water much faster than you used to and need to replace it.

An added benefit of drinking water I found is that when I think I am really hungry, I will take a drink and my hunger pangs go away for a while. So if I feel like I need a snack desperately, I take a drink instead and often that satisfies me.

Bread is one of the "white carbs" I usually avoid. It has very little nutritional value and as a starch, turns to sugar almost immediately after you eat it. It is hard enough to get in the amount of protein and fiber I need each day, so why use up my calories with something that hurts and doesn't do anything positive for me? Yes, I nice buttery roll can be delicious, but as was said above, it isn't worth the pain and trouble. I used to love bread, but it just isn't worth eating much anymore.

If you can't find anyone in the US to do it, have you called the OCC? You can get a round trip flight from Florida to San Diego for $313 on Southwest. It wouldn't be a cheap trip, but probably a lot cheaper than flying back to the UK.

This isn't a diet. This is a device that physically stops you from eating indiscriminately. However, do you have to watch what you eat to make it work.

I can eat just about anything at this point, but I still can't eat that much and whatever I eat, I must eat very slowly. SOMETIMES I can finish a hamburger, but not often. Eating steak is possible, but often it is more work than it is worth. The thought of a donut is a reaction of potential pain, not pleasure.

I am 53 and I have lost weight with Redux, Atkins, weight watchers, and just plain old dieting. I have gained it all back and more each time. I don't have the fear this time that I will regain my lost weight. I truly wish I could have done this 30 or 40 years ago, but I'm still happy to get a new life now in my fifties.

Hey, that's the spirit. One thing that is "interesting" is how other people who know you have been banded watch everything you eat. I have gone to a couple of potluck barbecues, and people actually walk up to me and stare at my plate and ask, "Can you eat that?" My answer is usually, "Maybe not all of it, but I'm going to get a taste of everything!"

Yes, my husband and I did it together. There have been other couples, too. We were banded the same day, one after the other. He has the larger VG band, while I have the older style 4 cc band. We had very minimal pain and felt fairly good right after surgery, and it was not a problem that we were both post surgery together. It has worked very well for us to be on the same page in buying food and cooking meals, although so far he has had much less restriction than I have. We share meals when we go out or plan to have leftovers for several days. We occasionally buy the larger size frozen meals and split them. We stop each other from buying bad foods, because we don't want to create temptation for each other.

However, we do not have small children. Keep in mind that you probably won't be able to lift your child for up to 6 weeks after surgery. It sounds like you don't have family to depend on to take care of your child, so that might be a reason for the two of you to space out your surgeries rather than getting them together. Otherwise, having both members of a couple banded works out wonderfully.