DVYW

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 Before weight loss surgery I didn't have a problem losing weight until it started  having children. Now I have been over weight since a doctor gave me pregnisone when I was 22 years of age.  Before pregnisone that I was 180 lbs at 6 feet tall.  After that I have never seen 180 again (complete goal wight with cosmetic surgery to remove 50lbs of skin).

Don't get me wrong,  I could exercise and lose weight when I worked hard at it was impossible when I developed diabetes after being taking a prescription blood pressure/ diuretic pill.  After this medical therapy of six months the doctor apologized and stated that he doesn't know why this pill effected me this way because I wasn't even boarder line diabetic before, and he looked at my medical records for the last ten years before he prescribed the pills.   But high blood sugars are the side effects of this diuretic.

 That pill just ruined my health.  The medicine never even lowered my blood pressure and this was the sixth blood pressure medicine that didn't work.   I started researching for a holistic way to lower blood pressure and I found Dr. Perricone on PBS.  

 www.perriconemd.com/Diet  

He had a concept that if you reduce the inflammation in the body then you should be able to reduce the chance of taking on certain diseases and look younger, because if your  skin is looking good then your organs should be looking good also .  He had a list of supplements and life style  that people should follow for various reasons and ailments of the human system.  I took them and I have focused on the ones that did make a difference in my system for the last 10 years.

To begin one day I ran out of Tylenol in 2001, I took it everyday because of what I thought was a bad tooth but after root canals I still had pain in that right back molar until last year,  the ten year on again/off again toothache went away after the cyst in my brain was removed in 2010, strange why no dentist could figure out why I had pain in that tooth with no nerves and medical doctors don't even want to consider hearing about ailments in the mouth.  So the connection can only be made by me in the end.

Anyway, the day I ran out of my Tylenol I was in so much pain and stress from it.  But I took my blood pressure and  it went down from 150/100 to normal but it fluctuated from then on there around 140/80-90.  After it wore out of my system I realize that Tylenol was helping me feel sick by raising my blood pressure.  Even today if I take it my blood pressure before a pain killer eliminated it will pop from 106/60 to 150 / 100.  Reducing the inflammation reduced and eliminated my pain so that's where the Perricon diet came in.


The supplements did help me especially in my heart function.

1)  Omega - 3-6-9 - helps with heart function and digestion (any store)
2) DMAE pills - there is - topical and sveltethe cream tightens your skin like a miracle, I wish  could bathe in it.  But the pills helps me get vitamind athletic looking all over in no time.(I gt it from vitamine shoppe)
3) CoEnzyme Q10 - ( I took 30mg but they come in 30mg,50mg, 100mg, 75mg, 200mg, 300mg, and 400 mg) any store but Costco has the best deal)
3a) lowered my blood pressure to 106/60 after a yearthru10 years but from 150/100 to 126/72 after the first pill I ever took.
3b) lowered my cholesterol from 240 to 180 (after a year)
3c) caused my triglycerides to go to extremly good levels
3d) cause my good cholesterol to be twice the value of my bad cholesterol which is why even though my cholesterol might be considered still high at 180 my bad cholesterol would be 60  and my good cholesterol would 120 (for example) and then my triglycerides supecedes both readings.  This was not the case before I started this supplement.  If interested read the results of the case study about kidney patients on dialasis and those who were off dialisis after taking this supplement for a period of time.
4) plenty of liquids, no sugar - washes the fats and sugars out of your system (two quarts a day)
5) Green Tea pills - weight loss/maintenance
6) acai berry pills - digestion/weight loss
7) exercize - cardio increases the production on your own human growth hormone and tightens your skin and helps your organs also.
8) Cranberry Pills - because kidney disease runs in my family I take this to kill anything that might attack my kidneys causing damage to them.
9) ester c - a vitamin c that absorbs in the system more efficiently.
10) acidophilous  - digestion and kidney protection from disease

I started this to protect my heart and kidneys and before my weightloss surgey my Cardiologist(who cleared  me for weightloss surgery) was very impressed with my numbers especially since I hadn't lossed any weight, that threw her.

Today I still take my vitamins, protein and supplements for 300 dollars a year  - no prescriptions - and  is a heck of a lot cheaper than the 4000 dollars a year for insulin and High blood pressure medicines.

This is just my personal experience and testimony.

The authorization or approval for my surgery (RNY) was revoked/denied while I was on the table during surgery.  

  Where one Primary Care Physician wouldn't even talk to me amout weight loss I changed doctors and for my first annual visit my new doctor took a look at my statistics and then my weight.  He said," you exersice 3 hours a day?"  I said, "yes, I have a trainer (a special low cost program with North Western Univiersity)".  I told him, "I know how to lose weight I did it before giving birth to my daughter without thinking."  But now on insulin I just swell and getting bigger and more lethargic."  He said, "have you thought about weight loss surgery?"  I said, "Oh yes my last doctor wouldn't even look at me and talk about it, she just said no!"   Well he referred me to my surgeon and everything was great until a few hours after I got home from surgery....

I did everything right.  I got all of my approval letters, I passed all of the physical/pre-surgical tests and I had my approval from my insurance for 6 weeks, I put off the surgery because I needed to get my affairs in order(will, power of attorny, etc.)  I doubled checked and triple checked the approval/authorization from my insurance because I never won anything and this was like the Lotto, so life changing.   The night before the surgery the secretary assured me, like she had for the entire six weeks, that the  authorization for the surgery was valid...Then I woke up from surgery and they did all of the blood tests and ran my blood sugars to prove that I wasn't diabetic anymore.  After I got home I got another call from the secretary that said that the insurance faxed a denial and cancelled the authorization on the surgery, specifically at the exact time while I was on the surgical table.  It would have taken years but I would have saved the  30k.  That was six years ago.   Except for that I have been happy with the progress and lifestyle.  I especially love the fact that the last skirt I bought was a size 12, not  size 4x or higher and not even the size 18 I have baggily and safely stabalized myself in since 2 years after the surgery.  You follow the rules you maintain.  I am now thinking about removing the 50 lbs of skin.

As a result the insurances/states policies have changed on certain levels, at least I know they have in CA.  It's cheaper to pay the negotiated 19k for a surgical procedure for weightloss than to pay 4k year in prescriptions( costs of insulin, high blood pressure meds, etc.) plus medical maintenanece and complications of a diabetic patient.  It was also the state laws that allow them to do that, Illinois State law.  Not many states have this law but check on your state insurance laws for this legal power to deny service after authorizing it and while service is being performed.  This is for all types of insurances I believe but I have never had the same experience with my other insurances.  Except that my uninsured motorist wouldn't pay for my pain and suffering for my back/neck pain.  The haggling/begging was stupid, with your own insurance.  But I never investigated that and hope to not ever have another accident let alone with and uninsured motorist.  But I digress.

I want 100% of my nutrients from my vitamins and let the food that I eat be the supplement.  That's what's happening anyway and I can't eat any better while I keep getting the malnourishment reports that I have gotten. 

I have been looking for a vitamin that has 100% DV of everything and I found it  "Trader Joes Womens High Potency" $10.00 / mo

I have been looking for specifics like:
Calcium 1000 mg = 100% of DV
Magnesium 400 mg = 100% of DV
Iodine 150 mg = 100% of DV
Iron 18 mg= 100% of DV
Vitamin D3 400 IU= 100% of DV
Etc.  everything else is 100% or more

You have to take 5 of the pills to get th 100% of everything  but atleast I am getting 100 % of everything and not more of what will hurt me.

I have been taking the vitamins for a week and visibly in a week my hair and nails have shown a significant increase, as if I was pregnant, but I am not!!!  With my regular vitamins my nails haven't grown hardly at all in weeks.

I have had so many problems. where I have tried to fill in the vitamin deficiency by taking several supplements but obviously I had been missing something that is in the super complete multi vitamin I mean really when they make 600mg pills of calcium plus vitamin D they should add 400mg of magnesium to that pill.  But now the problem is solved with the  100% complete multivitamin.

Now I am on the search for a complete protein drink, I will try the complete Protein Diet drink.

As  far as the Fiber, "Trader Joes" has a great line of high fiber cereals that you can't find in abundance in a regular store and definitely not for the price.  I love "Joes O's"  High Fiber.  It's so good it's the first thing that leaves the shelves as soon as they get a shippment.  Our doctor actually recommended the regular  "Joes O's" as a healthy snack for our baby.   But the High Fiber version has whole grain and all of that but has 10 g of fiber and tastes good.  It's $1.99!!!  They also have a whole protein bread that I am trying right now.

That has been my diet for 6 years; Vitamins, 2 Quarts of Water, High Fiber from beans and cereal and vegetables.  That is and was 230+ pound ago.

DVYW

How my Gastric Bypass helped me receive better health care!

These stories are pertinent because without the Gastric Bypass I would have never gotten diagnosed correctly because of doctors prejudice about weight they like to attribute every symptom to a weight issue. 

Well all of my life I have had a series of health issues that doctors blamed weight on and new issues recently still kind of blamed on my 30 lbs over weight.  I had fallen down every once in a while inexplicably(at 10 years old they told me it was because I was growing too fast and at 42 they said it was because I was 30 lbs over weight. My answer was I rarely fell when I was 250 lbs over weight but now I fall weekly.)  Also, I lost part of my hearing at 4 years old when I took my first plane ride.  I was treated for an ear infection(It was the worst pain than giving birth it was like a balloon blowing up in my head and pushing on my ears from the inside of my head) but my hearing never came back on my left side.  Plus I was always hard to stick and draw blood. Oh and the last problem I have never been able to get an answer for was why was it was that every new doctor I met would grab my neck and say I have a thyroid condition but after taking my blood test only to say they were wrong yet I was always cold like an older lady. Let's put it this way for that year while I walked 5.5 miles a day I never sweated nor huffed and puffed.  In 2008 the front of my hair fell out in on day, they said Thyroid(that was negative), they said extreme weight loss(but I had a full head of hair yesterday, it was not a gradual loss), Then they finally said that they didn't care about sudden hair loss even though my scalp felt like it was on fire all of the time from the day my hair fell out (this was a really bad hospital affialiatted with the hospital where I gave birth to my son in).  Oh, and not a problem but I could never get drunk it was physically impossible.  As a college student I could drink the best under the table then ask why do you drink it doesn't do anything, it's not worth it?  So I didn't drink before nor past my 21st birthday.  There are other embarrasing women's issue that are topically treated.

I fell down a lot while I was breast feedingfor a year with each child(during that period never while holding the children).  I would often fall down the last stair of my apartment and I lodged a complaint that something was wrong with the stair but when we bought our house with 3 stories and I would fall on the last stair again, I realized it was my imbalance problem that I had while growing up.  Drinking all of the liquid for the weight loss per day started to cause me to see flashing lights in the peripheral of my vision.  When I drank electrolytes the dizziness and lights went away.   When we changed insurances to a PPO  (we have always had a HMO) and I had just had a car accident I went to an Ears Nose and Throat doctor.  I told him that I am using this as an excuse to get an MRI. 

I have been getting treated for infection in my mouth close to my sinus area that has been haunting me for over 15 years.  I have had a root canal but the infection is above the tooth and it flares up and make me sick with sinus problems and dizziness periodically, but this time it's just not going away.  The Endodontist had a very power digital X-ray machine for teeth, the best I had ever seen.  They had to X-ray my sinuses in order to get a picture of the infection.  The doctor said you need to go get a CT scan, you had a car accident and you can get one that way. 

I told the ENT Doctor this and also I wanted to explore the possiblility of getting all of my hearing back.  He sent me for Audiology tests and and reported to me that I have nerve damage because they don't respond to sound, and nerves don't heal but if he did a CT scan to look for a certain tumor that might be the cause of my hearing loss.  But he would get a CT scan for the car accident and the dizziness and the sinus problems.  I also told him that I know I have something in my head and since my Gastric Bypass I had promised myself that I would come in and get a scan to find out what is going on.  He retorted well you do have a few reasons for further examination but no one has ever been able to walk in off of the street and say they have something in their head.

He called me after my scan and had me come into his office as an emergency.  He said you are making history and you don't have a Aeriola Tumor(however it's spelled) in the nerves of your ear.  But you do have a fluid filled mass over your hypothalamus.  He said, "I honestly can't believe this, but this is out of my territory and I have to send you to a Neurosurgeon.   This was the same hospital that I gave birth to my son, and the Neurosurgeon talked to me three months later just to say he has never seen a case like this before in his life and he can't find a doctor that has.  (First of all I don't know why he took three months because he has no patients because he says he doesn't know anything while bragging about his credentials and pointing at his placards on the wall.)  But he did say that he would like to play with my head and go in through the back and see how he can solve the problem.  But something had to be done because th fluid filled cyst is pushing my eyes forward and will eventually cause me to go blind. The doctors at this hospital watch me deteriorate because the cyst would cause hydrocephalus and malnutrition in my system.  Not many nutrients(vitamins or certain gland secretions (Hypo thyroid gland for instance) were getting to my bloodstream. 

Suffice it to say in order to see what I am typing today I had to pray and thus in a series of emergencies.  The first emergency was when my eye sight went blurry and distorted in one day and when I went to a very popular Mall Vision care provider.  The doctor there told me that the 30 lbs that I had to lose had to be in my head because it was pushing my eyes forward but as he stood up with his big potruding stomach( he was not being funny he was being cruel in my distress of not seeing well at all) he wrote out a refferal for me to be put into contact with brilliant doctors in their field.  One Dr. Myers-Powell did the same eye dialation and pictures that every doctor had done ever since I started wearing glasses at 15 years old.  Only when she looked at the picture she said, "You have something pushing on your eyes"  And she knew nothing of my MRI results or history as such"  When she got the CT scan results back I expressed to her my plight in trying to find a doctor ( A Neurosurgeon) that won't look at me and say, I don't know.  (Don't get me wrong, Thank God that othe Neurosurgeon scared me away but he should have scared me to a competent Doctor).  So I asked her can you direct me to a doctor that knows as much about this type of cyst as you obviously know about eyes? 

She referred me to Dr. Gregory Foltz of Swedish Hospital Neuroscience Center.  I went in for my consultation and he walked in with a presentation that had my and my Mother doing a High fives when he walked out to get his nurse.  The First thing he said was that I invented this Laporoscopic Craniotomy that takes 15 minutes total to do and I have successfully done over 5000 of these surgeries.  It's all that I do and I know exactly what I would do in your case I would go in at your hairline then send a camera and scalpel between your frontal lobes to siphon the fluid and then remove the material that is forming the cyst in your Ventricle releasing the Cerebral Spinal fluid into your system, and all while taking 15 minutes and you will be walking in an hour and home in 24-48 hours not after 6 months like in traditional Craniotomies.

My brain surgery was March 4, 2010.  I haven't fallen once since then, I haven't seen the lights or experienced dizziness from drinking too much water or washing out my electrolytes.  But I know to replace my electrolytes from this experience.  (Without the proper flow of cerebral spinal fluid in the system muscles didn't activate properly which is why my foot just stopped working and I fell without knowing why. As for not experiencing pain during child birth coupled with not being able to feel my stomach because of severed nerves from a Gall Bladder Surgery and muscles not being activated  that causes child birth pain I just never had the spasm to create the pain or spasm in that area to make me scream.  I am not hard to stick anymore they draw blood directly from the arm instead of my hand now.  For a minute after the Cyst was removed, when they were doing analasys of my blood a flood of secretions from my thyroid gland came rushing into my blood stream.  It initially presented as high hypothyroidism (The symptoms are the inability to efficiently maintain the body temp. along with tiredness and loss of hair but after six weeks my blood levels were normal.)  And while I was in the hospital I wasn't trying to turn the heat up.  The final kick in the pants, unexpected by both me and my medical care team was that I asked every time someone spoke to me, "Why are you yelling at me!" in the past I periodically had to say speak up because things sounded muffled.  I got my hearing back,  The hydrocephalus pushed my brain onto my ears at 4 years old causing me to hear less (Like covering my ears with my hands).

Other muscular issues that are the women's issues they say come with giving birth and/or age haven't been a problem since the brain surgery.

Oh Yeah!  I forgot that I was dianosed with Fribromyalgia in 1998.  I haven't had any symptoms since the fluid filled cyst has been removed from my third ventrilal of my brain that blocked that CSF flow on my right side.  Fribromyalgia was a diagnosis for the falling and the medication worked but no one ever looked at my Cerebral fluid system since my imbalnce problems was coupled with cramping(the rushing of fluid out of the muscular area or tissue (from my perception when fluid wasn't able to get to my foot.  My foot would stop working I would fall not feeling it.  Anyway the cramping or Fribromyalgia was very painfull and left me internally bruised(in constant pain at times).  An extreme example of the cramping is when I would go through because of the blockage in my brain would be that sometimes my hand would just empty out of all most fluid.  It would look like a ballon deflating to the bones( this was rare but painfull).

I am now fully affected by  anesthesia  and I would imagine alcohol because in the hospital they walked me around like I was the walking dead and I can't recall a thing, scary to someone who wants to be in control all of the time.  Me, who have awaken too soon after surgery or just as they closed me up talking scaring the heck out of my nurses when they were trying to prep me post op before I got to the recovery room for prior operations or simply listening to them talking about the assesment of the surgery.

My hair is all back and there is no burning of my scalp from the hydrocephalus(that I feel caused my inflamed swollen scalp) because I don't have Hydrocephalus anymore.  This was diagnosed as Areola Alopecia by a Dermatologist but at least she gave me something to cool down my scalp untill I found out what was really wrong!

It's also like my immune system had incapsulated all of my infections and I had 4 tooth problems pop up after surgery when I had just been to the dentist the week before brain surgery, with a good bill of health prior.

I have been enjoying the last 12 months saying to my kids to "be quite" instead of "what did you say?"

Where I had Lasik surgery in 2006 to get rid of glasses my Dr. has reported to me that my vision is better than the lasik surgery left me with because of the healing of my retinas.

None of which would have ever been achieved without a Gastric Bypass.  Because everything to my prior doctors was because of weight. 

DVYW

My Pregnancy was perfect except again for the experience with the doctors.  Except growing to over 400 lbs(from 270lbs-430 lbs) during my pregnancy with my daughter I didn't gain an ounce this time, so I didn't look pregnant.  But I am 6 feet tall so I still carry a lot of weight and I can't get below 210 lbs with all the extra skin.

With no diabetes and knowing my body I gave birth again exactly 40 weeks after conception.  Each time the doctors thought I was crazy when I went in on for my first 6 week appointment and announced that I was giving birth to a girl on April 30, 2003 and to a boy on December 10, 2007.  The dates weren't foreseeing (knowing within 24 hours of conception that I was pregnant and to whom I was going to give birth to was the psychic part),  The date came from putting dates and cycles into the pregnancy calculator on yahoo.  I guess the doctors were really tripping because I knew what gender my child was going to be.  And in both cases I was right 100% correct on both dates and gender. 

If I had a perfect pregnancy, why did the doctors mess up the experience?  Because on my 6 week appointment I walked in and stated the previously mentioned information, that particular doctor dubbed me as crazy and ran 2 more pregnancy tests on me even though I just took a test in their lab the week before officially with the hospital and he read the results on the computer system.  The second pregnancy was not in the great hospital in Evanston, Il. (ENH).  I have to account the fiasco following towards that fact.  The same doctor I saw for my 6 week appointment (not my regular obstetrician)  was on duty Dec. 10 2007 at 3 am.  I called in to make sure I was coming in because I was having discomfort and it was every 5 minutes.  The admitting nurse put the doctor on the phone  to explain to me that I can't possibly be in labor because I am only humming every 5 minutes and not screaming bloody murder.  In their view I shouldn't have even been able to talk on the phone  calmly while humming intermittently.  I told them that I went to sleep last night uncomfortable to wake up with pain enough for me to express my self like this, and the humming and breathing was relieving!  I am coming in by 6 am!

I came in the doctors put the monitor on me for 3 hours the the same doctor that dubbed me as crazy came in to tell me that I wasn't going to give birth for a week.  Then he had is whole crew come in to tell me that even thought they see 5 minute activity on my belly that it wasn't in active labor and I am only dialated 2 cm after 3 hours of monitoring. (I would like to add that not one of those doctors had ever given birth but the nurse who had helped me had.)  I said that I was dialated 1 cm on Friday with my last obstetrician appointment before birth.  Still they repeated to me that I would probably give birth in a week, "Definitley not today!!  We have to discharge you."  I told them that I will go and lay down in the waiting room because I am not going home with a baby hanging between my legs and because I had strep B in my system and my water bag can't be broken or the baby would have to get iv antibiotics!  So a nice beautiful nurse with the longest silver main of hair said that she would put me in a room but when I am about to give birth I would have to come back and check in again.  At this point she had to wheel me to this post natal room,at 9am, while I sat on one leg, I couldn't sit on my butt.  I laid down on the bed she told me to relax because obviously I hadn't been getting my sleep because of the discomfort that I didn't know was labor pains at the time for a few days.

I had fallen asleep for 5 minutes, it seems like, and after an hour I jumped up out of bed and went to the bathroom with no Urine to come out.  I turned around and looked and there was blood in the toilet, not my baby Thank God!  I came back to tell my Doula that I have a bloody show and she needs to go look.  My beautiful Doula, who was also an R.N. and my Mother came back and took over.  I whimpered, "they said that I need to walk back over there to labor and delivery room."  I still wasn't in pain but the baby was now literally hanging between my legs.  My husband, who I told not to go anywhere, was out getting my daughter a sandwich.  My mother got all five doctors in at the same time within minutes and an hour after they told me to go home.  They were surprised I was still in the hospital and surprised that they saw th baby sack between my legs and I still wasn't screaming, I just showed mild sophisticated anger towards them and the absence of my husband.  They stared at me without touching me while my daughter and husband came in from their Togos run and my husband ran out to get the cord blood kit, leaving again stating I thought it was safe because you were sleep!  Then my 4 year old child got in front of the 5 doctors staring at me with gaping mouths and said,"Don't just stand there my Mommie is having a baby, help her!"  Then they moved.  Once they got me prepped they had the nerve to tell me to push.  In my head I said, "Oh NO! Now they want to run the show".  I said NO!!!  Where is my husband!  Then he came running in with the cord blood storage package and pulled my leg back and with one push my son was born in less than 30 seconds and I kid you not, he was 7.9 lbs birthed still inside the water sack fully intact,  therefore he was totally healthy at 10:15 AM on Dec. 10, 2007!  WITHOUT AN EPIDURAL!!!!   But I had no pain so that was alright.  It wasn't alright to be treated as a crazy.

Did the doctors apoligize to me?  Not to me but to my husband in the hall?  The head doctor said I don't know what's wrong with me because my wife had the same symptoms with our 3rd child.  My Obstetrician said that this is expected with women who had given birth more than once.  But she couldn't explain the lack of pain.  I told her that I ate 2-3 an electrolyte ice pops so I would have no muscle spasms, and I didn't.

Next ... "The real reason I didn't have pain"

I am pregnant!  It has been over 2 years post op.  We found out that we were expecting 15 days after  my weight loss surgery anniversary.  I promise the doctor to wait in order to reach my goal. 

When I was pregnant with m first child my diabetes was out of control I had an HGA1C of 10.87, until finally controlled .  Now my HGA1C is 5.2.  I am actually experiencing low sugars, not high sugars.  Low for me is when my sugar tries to get into my 70s.  I found out because my husband asked me why I was so agitated and to my surprise, that was it.   

I was high risk last time and I can't believe that so far I am having a normal pregnancy, with constant morning sickness.  I  guess since I don't get hungry that this is the perfect indicator  to tell me to eat, nausea and burping,