Laurel E.
Well, like many of you I have been overweight most of my life. As a Junior in High School I was already 180#. It seemed I just added approx 10#/year. I would occasionally go on a diet (tried Nutrasystems, and most fad diets) and would lose some, then gain more.
It wasn't until the 90's (yes I am now 52) that I seriously tried to lose weight and had the most successful weight loss I ever had. I was on the Phen-Fen and started at 280# and dropped down to 195# right before my wedding in 8/97. I was on the Phen-Fen for about a year and a half and would probably have continued on it except that they took it off the market. I had already gone off it because my DH and I wanted to try for a child. (I was 43 and he was 45). Lucky us, we got pregnant one month after we got married and we have a wonderful son. I ate anything I wanted while I was pregnant and went back up to 260#. Didn't really lose any weight after our DS was born and actually put on more weight during the next two years while we were trying to have another child. To no avail, our DS was my last good egg. I didn't realize at the time just how depressed I was that I would not be able to have anymore children and I ate nonstop and gained more weight.
In the last 5-6 years I went up to and over 300#. I have lost the same 20-30# since that time getting up to my all time high (if I can believe my scale) of 330#earlier this year. I realized I HAD to do something, I was 51 with an 8 year old and I want to be around to see him grow up as much as I can, since we are starting out as older parents. I had two sister-in-laws who had both had weight loss surgery (one lapband approx 6 years ago as part of an experimental group - she actually had to gain 10# to be at the 100# overweight and one who had the RNY approx 5 years ago) and had always rather smugly thought I would never do anything like that, I should be able to lose it on my own.
I finally got real with myself and took a really good look in the mirror and decided I was just kidding myself, I can't do it on my own, I needed help. I spoke with my sister-in-law who had had the lapband and she was thrilled I was thinking of getting one. I have to add here that my other sister-in-law who had had the RNY died in 2/06 at age 53 due to what we in the family think were bypass related issues. She had lost over 100# in about a year as most RNY'ers do (my sis-in-law who had the lapband was very jealous of her rapid weight loss) and all was well for a few years. Then she started gaining some weight back as many do and she was not eating correctly. She would eat chocolate and then drink slim fast to try to compensate. She had developed hypoglycemia and had absorbtion problems, and problems with her electrolites. She had some other medical issues, but her eating/bypass problems were a large part of the reasons behind her death.
Anyway as you can probably understand my DH was not enthusastic about me getting the RNY. I was really not interested in that either as I have always had a bad feeling about rearranging and permenetly removing any body part. After talking with my lapband sis in law and going on line and reasearching I decided to try to get the lapband. As my insurance is through Kaiser, I was not sure they would cover it, I knew they did the RNY. I had received some money from my mothers estate (she died in 6/06 at age 87) so I believed that that was her gift to me, to be able to get the lapband even if Kaiser would not approve it. See above for my journey, thanks for reading through this!
