Welcome to my blog.
This will be a place for me to share and keep friends and family (and those interested) involved in my journey to the new me. If you have the link to my blog you will know that I am going to be having the Lapband Weight Loss Surgery (if you do not know what this procedure is you can visit this link, or keep reading for a brief introduction - http://www.lapband.com). This is a decision that I have not made lightly. I have done a lot of research, spoken to a lot of people who have already had the procedure and given it a lot of thought.
Many people who do not or have never struggled with being overweight and with obesity do not understand why people chose to go the route of something "drastic" like surgery and will tell you that if you just "watch what you eat and exercise, with a little will power..." you would not be overweight. Would it be easy to explain to people that think this way that it is not that easy? No, it really isn't. It's way more than that. It is about the personal struggle that we have that we face daily, it is about the "demons" in our head that cannot be easily overcome by "watching what you eat and exercising, with a little will power...". If you have never been there you may never understand exactly what I refer to but with this I hope that I can help share my experience with friends and family as well as perhaps provide some support or insight to those who are looking to have this surgery themselves.
This surgery for me is about becoming healthier and feeling better about who I am as a person. It is about being comfortable in my own skin. It is about no longer being the person who worries about if they will fit into a chair, airplane/bus seat, and being treated differently by people in general. I bet that if you have never experienced being overweight you didn't know that larger people receive less customer service and will be "looked over" to help someone else who is standing beside you even though you were there waiting to be serviced long before they showed up. I did not chose to be this way, I have been heavy my entire life and I have tried many things before to lose weight and yes some of them worked but none of them were successful in the long term. I know I am beautiful on the inside, this journey is about helping me to feel beautiful on the outside and feel more comfortable in social situations and to be able to go out and experience life rather than sitting at home. It's about no longer hearing hurtful comments made by both people who know me and people who don't that even though they may not realize it at the time, it hurts and I remember them.
So - What is the Lapband Weight Loss Surgery?
"The LAP-BAND® System is an adjustable gastric band designed to help you lose excess body weight, improve weight-related health conditions and enhance quality of life. It reduces the stomach capacity and restricts the amount of food that can be consumed at one time.
The name “LAP-BAND” comes from the surgical technique used, laparoscopic, and the name of the implanted medical device, gastric band. The LAP-BAND® System is a silicone ring designed to be placed around the upper part of the stomach and filled with saline on its inner surface. This creates a new, smaller stomach pouch that can hold only a small amount of food, so the food storage area in the stomach is reduced. The band also controls the stoma (stomach outlet) between the new upper pouch and the lower part of the stomach. When the stomach is smaller, you feel full faster, while the food moves more slowly between your upper and lower stomach as it is digested. As a result, you eat less and lose weight.
The Minimally Invasive Procedure - During the procedure, surgeons usually use laparoscopic techniques (making tiny incisions rather than a large incision and inserting long-shafted instruments through “ports”), to wrap the LAP-BAND® System around the patient’s stomach. A narrow camera is passed through a port so the surgeon can view the operative site on a nearby video monitor. Like a wristwatch, the band is fastened around the upper stomach to create the new stomach pouch that limits and controls the amount of food you eat. The band is then locked securely in a ring around the stomach.
Adjustable Weight LossOnce placed around the stomach, tubing connects the LAP-BAND® to an access port fixed beneath the skin of your abdomen. This allows the surgeon to change the stoma (stomach outlet) size by adding or subtracting saline, or salt water, inside the inner balloon through the access port. This adjustment process helps determine the rate of weight loss. If the band is too loose and weight loss is inadequate, adding more saline can reduce the size of the stoma to further restrict the amount of food that can move through it. If the band is too tight, the surgeon will remove some saline to loosen the band and reduce the amount of restriction.The diameter of the band can be modified to meet your individual needs, which can change as you lose weight. For example, pregnant patients can expand their band to accommodate a growing fetus, while patients who aren’t experiencing significant weight loss can have their bands tightened." ~quoted from http://www.lapband.com
So without further adue, with this blog I plan to update with my progress, and share my thoughts and experiences along my journey to those who are interested. If you've gotten through this entire long post - then thank you and welcome. If you chose to follow along on my journey I am delighted to have you. If not, well thanks for stopping by anyways.
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