From my old profile.....

Jan 15, 2009

I am a morbitly obese female (234Lbs) who has attempted for the past two years SERIOUSLY to loose weight, with diet and excercise, with no luck. I have over the years done all the diets known from Atkins to WW and even drugs like Phen/Fen and Meridian. Lat two years I have absteined from all sugar, wheat and flour products while excercising still no weight loss. After long reseach I believe LAP-BAnd is the answer, I pray. Let me start the process
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08/24/2004
My insurance company, United Health Care Choice Plus, has a exlcusion for WLS so I will need to be self pay. After endless time spent online reading I decided to fly to see Dr. Aceves in Mexico. The process took only a week and I got my tickets for Sep 14 to fly to see him. I can not wait to start this. DH could not get the time from work and I feel better having my 6 yearl old stay in school so I am flying solo.

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09/02/2004

We are bording up for Frances. I can not believe that there is actually something else on my mind, besides WLS. Well since we are in direct path, it is a wait and see situation. Well it would only take an act of God to keep me from getting my Surgery 09/14/2004, I truly hope this is not it. Well what happens is meant to happen. Life is too short to make mountains out of molehills. I will post after the strom.

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09/11/2004

We finally have power again. It was a humbling experience to go a week without power and running water. I truly feel blessed by all the advances in modern technology. I am getting very excited by the approaching date. I had all the conviction of eating right before the hurricane but it was peanutbutter & jelly sandwiches for a week with a limited amount of water. Totally a horrible experience. I hope Ivan will not stop me from getting on the plane on Tuesday.

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I am banded.

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It took me a little to be able to post this. I wanted to totally absorb the situaition.

I went to mexico and I went alone. Only thing I regret is the alone part. When I initially got there I had to overcome the predjudice I had to having surgery done in a county that I will not even drink the water at. I was very nervous yet anxious. I had decided after careful research to have the lap-band, and felt that the surgeons in Mexico had far more experience than in the states. The hospital was modes compared to the standars here but everything was very clean and proffesional looking. I had my fist surgery on 9/14/04 and something did not go right. I woke up with severe pain and went into shock, this is not normal after a lap-band surgery. My doctor stabilized all and I proceeded to recover. Over the next several hours I kept on vomiting, and feeling like an elefant sat on my chest. The next morning I vomited so much that the bathroom floor along with my self was bloody, now I finally felt much better. My doctor brought me in to have an x-ray and realized that my band had slipped. This is when I had to be operated again. When I woke up from the 2nd surgery there was no pain, I felt so much better and proceeded to recover almost immediately. I was a lucky one. My surgeron was skilled enough to fix this problem, not all would have been. He has over 5 years of experience performing this kind of surgery, in the states it has only been approved for last 3 years. I believe that I made the right choice and that I had the best possible care, regardless if it was done in Mexico.
If I had a choice I would have all surgeries that I ever need done there. The hospital was comfortable and the nurses were totally wonderful, beutiful people from the inside out. I feel that this was a great experience, only thing I do regret is going solo. I felt scared between the surgeries and it would have been nice to have my hubby there. In the end he felt even worse then me for not having taken the time off to join me.


Here the link to som pictures, including one showing the x-ray of the slipped band

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09/29/2004

Ok so it has been awhile, I will surely blame it on Jeanne, since this time we had no power for 3 days. SUCKS. Well I took my sutures off and my incisions look great. I have put neosporing on them and cleaned them so they should be ok. I visited my RA doctor and I had lost 11lbs according to his scale in the past two weeks. I can not wait to start some exercise. I now have a ok to get back to my Humira injctions and we added Methodextrate this time in injections instead of pills, due to the band. I am so glad, I was getting tired of chewing advil chewables. (ok per Doctor) Anyway I am beginning to get normal now. NICE. After the two hurricanes hitting us and the banding inbetween I can not wait for life to resume itself. I like the band and the restriction it gives me. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to loose the excess weight.

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10-05-2004
I am so happy. I feel so good. I wish I could bottle this and share with everyone.
I finally started exercise again, not a moment too soon. I was feeling my muscles deteriorating. I did start slow. 20 Minutes on my Pilate's machine and 30 minutes hopping and jumping doing TaeBo with Billy Banks tapes. I am not hurting anywhere, I have severe endorphins running around loose in my brain. I do recommend this to everyone. guess I am a endorphins pusher. Totally awsome feeling.
I keep on hearing " I feel good da da da da da, so good, so good..." in my head.
What a feeling.

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10/19/2004

I finally went on the same scale as before the surgery. I try to avoid scales since I had a serious issue on weighing myself constantly. Jippiiii down 22.5 lbs in a little less than 5 weeks. I'll take this anyday, escpecially since I am convinced that it will not come back. Good bye forever.
I also added the firm tape to my exercise regime, I was doing tae bo daily and now the firm adds weights. I was so weak. Before I worked with 20lb weights now the 15lbs are killing me, next time it will be only 12lbs, I must start slowly. I plan on doing the firm every other day and continue tae bo daily.
"11 consecutive occurences becomes a habbit" someone said this and I try to live by this
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11/04/2004

Man am I in bad mood. I am eating junk like it is going out of style. I am mean and grazy and so moody. This is really not like me. Well I have the period AGAIN. This is the 3rd time since the surgery. I flow every other week, I wonder if this could be from the blood thinners. I sure hope it stops soon since I need to control what I eat so I can start loosing weight. I am down about 25 lbs and I feel like a pregnant cow. I could not go to Mexicali for a fill so I am seeing Doctor Rosenthal in Weston on 11/09/2004, I hope he can do the fill then. Man I am mooooooody. Please forgive me all that I have offended or will offend.
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11/05/2004

Something totally amazing has happened. I had the hardest time finding a doctor to do my fills locally since I had my surgery done in Mexico. Well I finally found one and he wanted $658 for the fill. I found out that he was on my new insurance plan. I had United Healthcare before with a WLS exclusion. I had my surgery in Mexico as self pay on 9/14 and 9/15/2004. on 10/1/2004 my insurance swithced to Aetna who would have covered the WLS, not the band only RNY. Well they will cover my visits to the doctor for lapband adjusment. I got my primary doctor to get the preauthorization for the procedures (codes are the following in case someone needs them 99499, 43999,76000,74246) I just received the fax and I am so thrilled that they will cover my fills. All together 12 visits, amazing. I wanted to share this information with anyone else in the same predicament. All this time I believed that if you had the surgery done in Mexico, you would have a hard time getting a fill. I found someone to do them and I got insurance to cover it. Jipppiiiii. I so believe that everything happens for a reason. I strongly think I was not meant to have RNY but the lapband and this is why things worked out this way.
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11/11/2004

Had my first fill on tuesday. I was so lucky that my insurance covered the fills. Cost me only $25.00 can you imagine this. I was also impressed with the credentials of the fill Doctor. He is one of the original FBA trial doctors and when he did the fill it was like wham, bam, your done. Fist he filled it totally up and this was weird like being a thanksgiving parade balloon. Then he took some out and it was like deflating a tire. I have now 1.3 cc in my band. I am excited since I now have no desire to eat anything...well for now. I am to be on softfoods for 2 weeks, man that is long. Anyway we are leaving on a weeks cruse on 11/21/2004 so I do want and need the restriction. I sure hope I am restricted once this is done. Oh yeah and the fill did not hurt one bit.
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08-26-2005

As I sit here bored from another hurricane, Katherine, I realized that I have been so bad at updating my profile. I had a second fill on Dec 29, 2004 and it has held me until about now. I should go in but I am on prednosol and all kinds of meds and figured that I would be better off getting of the stereoids before stressing my body with a fill. I still have restriction and it is controlling some of this ridiculous appetite that the stereoids is giving me. I have lost about 40+ lbs, depending on the scale I choose. I have gone from a size 22/24 to a easy 16 and some 14, so I must be loosing something. I have been exercising like grazy ( Bikhram yoga 5 times a week) and this is probably tightening me up witout the scale showing it. I am fat and fit, not so bad. I love the band and I have come to the realization that I probably will take 2 years to reach my goal....no problem...better late than never and I know that it will not come back as I loose it.

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05/25/2006
I have been so bad at updating...shame on me. I have lost finally some weight and the weight is coming off again. I was on prednosol for so long time and it was making it difficult to make good food choices. Now that the stereoid monkey is off my back I am doing much better. I have great restriction from a fill I had in March. I eat a shake for breakfast, South beach frozen dinner for lunch and yogurt for dinner basically everyday. I do not deviate much. I know not to eat to late since that will give me acid reflux..nasty way to wake up in the middle of the night. I had an edoscopy in deceber since my doctor requires this from his 1+ year band patients. All was fine...some virus was found in the biopsy but antibiotics cleared it out. I love the fact that I can watch what I eat...prednisol was a enemy after all. I exercise daily either on my exercise bike, pilates machine or swimming. I feel healthy and I know that I am a slow looser but I am loosing. I have started to look for PS since I want some work done once this is all done. I will probably fly to Costa RIca for a LBL in Dec 2007, I need to loose 25 to be where I want to be before any plastics. I am so exited that I am almost only overweight. One more pound and my BMI will be that of an overweight person not an obese one anymore.. what a trip it has been.
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