Hello, I had surgery on Nov 25, 03. I have always been an emotional eater. I would eat when I got upset or had an argument with my husband or when work was going bad. I wondered what I would do when I couldn't use food to build up my injured ego or dull my emotions. Well, guess what? I would talk back and yell back and get upset and sometimes be nasty. It took me a while to figure out that I was using that as an outlet instead of food. I started concentrating on how good I felt and how wonderful life was because I was happier with myself. Each day and each week is a new discovery. I am discovering what I was missing when I was fat. I now find that these little things don't bother me as much because they are not as important as I was making them to be. This is the year of ME and I am a moth that is in a cocoon waiting to turn into a butterfly. Losing the weight is wonderful, but learning to be happy with myself is my journey. You must love yourself first. I hope this helps. PS, sometimes just talking with a friend or someone who is in your support group is better than taking drugs. Janet

I had my done about 3 weeks after surgery. I could not swallow water. It was not fun. The drugs they have me prior to the procedure did not work and it was a horrible experience. It took about 30 minutes. Afterwards, I could swallow just fine. I had a bit a a sore throat for a few days. Hope I didn't scare you! Cecil 338/223

This was sent to me in an email Join the resistance! BUT LET'S DO IT I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, unitedaction. Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.97 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost! of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace.....not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!! I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and ! pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am ... so trust me on this one.) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK Copy and paste this in an email and send to at least 10 other people and see if we can make a difference. What do you all think about this?? rny 11/04/03 230 lbs /-50lbs

I have been on Effexor for about two years now. For me, it does not have sexual side effects. I do take the extended release even as a post-op. My surgeon and all the pharmacists I have talked to said it is fine for post-ops. Good luck.

I have been in the midst of this plateau for about a month. Needless to say I am somewhat frustrated. But something will have to happen at some point. John