Dolittle

Did anyone see the Webinar for Men on Monday 9/6/2010? I missed it and was wondering what it was about. For some reason, the past 3 months Webinars haven't been posted. I'll check on this.

The OCC and the Cosmed Plastic Surgery Clinic are located in the commercial district located just across the border. Not much goes on in this location other than Medical, Dental, Banking and Retail shopping. Most of the hotels and restaurants are located in this area. If you know where the Lucerna hotel is, the OCC is half way between the Lucerna and the border and Cosmed is 1 block west of the Lucerna. In fact, there's a police station located half way between the Lucerna and Cosmed. The OCC has their own transportation van. Cosmed can be easily found via a cab. When I stayed at the Lucerna, I just walked to Cosmed. The most dangerous thing when walking to Cosmed was crossing the Avenue of the Hero's, which can be an exciting experience. LOL 99.9% of the drug related stuff is in the seedier parts of TJ. TJ is like any other big city, there are places you don't want to be or be out walking after dark. If you have any questions concerning safety, you should contact the OCC coordinators, Lori or Carolyn, or Cosmeds coordinator Joyce.

When clicking on Pammies Snapfish hyperlink, you need to have an exsisting account with Snapfish in order to view her Plastic Surgery pictures.

Gastric Sleeve and By-pass procedures are fairly new to the OCC. We're hoping more of these patients will come to the forum and start posting their experiences.

This surgery is fairly new at the OCC. I know its for the patients that have diabetes and the surgery is supposed to eleminate diabetes. I'd suggest talking to Lori, she's one of the OCC coordinators. Here's her phone number, 1-866-376-7849 ext 81. She might be able to hook you up with other patients, plus give you more info concerning this.

The above hyerlinks give you very good instructions on how to take the bus/trolley to the border and cross the foot bridges. Dan did a damn good job on this presentation,, Thanks Dan

Cosmed is a one block West and one block South from the Lucerna Hotel. It's about 5 minutes walking distance from the hotel. It would be faster, but you got to cross the Avenue of the Hero's,, which can be scary. LOL Cosmed is in the process of building a new Plastic Surgery Center, but an completion/grand opening date hasn't been set. Hopefully it will open next spring. Here's a link to their new website Cosmed Plastic Surgery Clinic

Price quotes can be obtained by calling one of the OCC coordinators. That number is 1-866-376-7849

All newbies and wannabes go through this ANXIETY thing, its NORMAL. The best thing you can do is go to the photo gallery and look at "OCMikeys" and "RevyD's" new photos. They'll inspire you!

This happened to someone I know and it ended up that they were too tight. A couple days after a fill they couldn't even swallow their own spit at night. They'd lay there gurgling and trying to go to sleep and the spit would keep backing up,, till you almost drowned in your own spit. They had to sleep seating up. Not a good sign,, get to the fill doctor and see what's going on.

As a forum moderator, sometimes forum policies are made instantly. In the case of “before and after” plastic surgery pictures that contain nudity, Dr. Ortiz thinks that it would be best if forum members post their “before and after” pictures at an off site photo website, then add a hyperlink to your OCC Forum post leading members to your Plastic Surgery pictures. An example of other off site photo websites would be, Snapfish, Photobucket and others. I know there are several forum members already doing this and have had good results. Dr. O’s biggest concern with posting them directly on the OCC forum website is with the new OCC forum website design, all pictures that are uploaded to the forum are “parked” on the very front page of the forum till new pictures are added to the photo gallery. Some members and visitors find the candid plastic surgery pictures a little too much. I’ve had several members ask why any picture in general is “parked” on the front page. I’m checking with the IT guy as to why this happens to new photos and if we can give members an option.

By-passes and Sleeves are relatively new at the OCC and here at the Forum. I don't know how many patients that have had the By-pass, Sleeve or revison surgery. So you might not be able to get those questions answered or find that many that want to offer you their experiences concerning those surgeries. We'll just have to wait and see if any come forward.

Can you get enough B12 if you take an over the counter supplement instead of the shots?

I noticed there is some sort of problem in the photo gallery, the secord row of member files are stacked. I'll email our IT guy and have him look at the gallery. Also,, if your photo's are large in memory, the upload process will not work. If I remember correctly, photos have to be 55k to 100k in memory in order to upload them to the forum website. But, I'm going to check on that too.

I'd call one of the OCC coordinators and see if there is any fill specials being promoted at this time. To save money you can do the trip from the airport to the OCC on your own. There are several posts here at Forum explaining this under the topic of taking the bus/trolley and walking across the border and catching a Taxi to the OCC. It's really easy to do.

I live in the Midwest too. After my surgery I knew I'd be looking for my first fill in 6 to 12 weeks. I started shopping before my surgery and the next thing I knew I found a great deal on air to San Diego. I went back out to the OCC 10 weeks after my surgery. Since you live in the Minneapolis area, you should be able to find an airfare sale to San Diego. I like using a website called www.airfarewatchdog.com. Type in your "depart" city and you get email alerts everyday on what's on sale. The same goes for Southwest Airline, they have a web based program that you can download from their website called "Ding". I really love the "Ding" alerts, I've got some hellacious deals on that website.

The summer is flying by, our lives are flying by, you've decided to to do something about your weight. Well, your not alone, when you go to San Diego, some of your on-line friends will be there too. This topic is where you can meet your new friend. Lets hear from those who have scheduled their WLS in the month of October.

I was diagnosed with Hashimotos thyroid back in 1998,, I was banded in March of 2007,, lost 100lbs. The band will work if you want it to.

Just see what happens. Everyone is different. You'll know after the 48 hours is over and you eat some solid foods if you'll have some sort of restriction.

Congrats,, good job. We all can't wait to see the results of the plastic surgery too!

A lot of patients have restriction from the beginning. I guess it depends on which band was placed inside of you and how much internal fat is wrapped around your stomach. As you lose weight, that internal fat is the first to go, that's why patients need several fills the first year after banding. As you lose weight and fat, the band will loosen up and require more saline. This problem is rare but normal. I think this is one of the reasons why bigger bands are the norm now. I think when you go for your first fill, don't be surprised you don't take much saline. I was in the same situation as you, I waited till my 10 week before having my first fill and I only took .4 tenths and every fill after I only took a half of a cc. I don't know where your going to have your first fill done, but it would be wise to have it done under fluoro. Number 1,, is to see that every thing is in the right place and working properly. Number 2, so the fill doctor can watch the flow with the barium swallow and make sure they don't over fill you. Being tight you could easily end up over filled on a blind fill. I don't get paid to say this, but if you had your surgery at the OCC, your best bet is going back to the OCC for your first fills.

I don't know why there's such a delay on posting these. I know the webinars have to be recorded and then sent from the OCC to Chad our IT guy. He then does his magic and puts them in a form that everyone can just click on them and view. Hopefully it should be soon.

Having surgery sometimes does that to you. The bowels lock up. Milk of Mag,, works wonders. LOL

my sweet spot is 2.0cc's to 2.2cc's in a 4cc Inamed band. Half of my fills were done at the OCC and half by a WLS surgeon in Chicago. I had restriction from the beginning, my first year I had maybe 4 adjustments. They were all small amounts, like a half of a cc. From my experiance of dealing with lap band patients that had the surgery done here in my home area. Most had blind fills and it took 6 or more adjustments before they had restriction. I ended up not going to any more local support group meetings because of this. I drove me nuts seeing patients complain about paying for the band and the doctors dragging their feet in giving them restriction. When they could have given them restriction from the first or second fill by using the fluoroscope. Hands down,, your going to get a better fill at the OCC clinic.

They decided to do a partial unfill because of all the IV's they pump into you during the lower body lift. Dr. Martinez pulled .5cc's out of me. I have the 4cc band and only had around 2cc's in it at the time. I didn't have any restriction for the next 4 months and I ate like a little oinker. The theory behind the unfill is that during a big surgery lke the LBL, you might swell up and have to much restriction. Personally, I wish I would have waited to see if that would have happened or not. Since I was in TJ recovering for 10 days after the LBL, I could have ran over to the OCC and had them pull some saline out if needed. But I went with Dr. Martinez's expert advice and did the unfill before the LBL surgery. I couldn't wait to get my restriction back after the 4 months.