Evening on the River Boat with Bariatrics Advantage

Thursday October 26, 2006

 

My Evening on the River Boat with Bariatrics Advantage

 

http://www.bariatricadvantage.com/

 

I was invited to a dinner cruise by the Deaconess Dieticioness and Patty the Deaconess Insurance Lady that was sponsored by Bariatrics Advantage. I guess that either I am the favorite patient or biggest pain in the you know what with all the questions I ask. So, I looked at this as an educational opportunity. I have heard that Deaconess will be offering their products soon and I have many questions that I've been researching and have not yet fully found answers to.

 

I currently take three things daily, a medicine, a vitamin and a supplement:

    1. BP Medicine

    2. Centrum Chewable Multivitamin

    3. Benefiber Chewable.

 

Patients who choose ByPass have tremendous malabsorption issues and need to take many supplements. In last week's Cincinnati Enquirer, there was an article on weight loss surgery and eye health - vision problems. Apparently some nutrients are not absorbed in proper levels and tremendous vision problems can occur. I wish I had saved the article as I have not been able to locate it on Google. I'm also facing another issue that I've not been pleased with and have the blog drafted for that, but have not published it yet. That problem too can potentially be addressed by vitamins and supplements, so I will be doing more research on it the next few weeks. Check back for details. I do know that my vision HAS changed, and I often have my right contact lens easily pop out now. I think it is due to the weight loss and perhaps the change in the shape of my eye or the surrounding tissues. I'm hoping that the vision change is due to that, or that I'm over 40 and nothing worse.

 

The guest list was for 35 and perhaps 25 showed up, most were dieticians. One elegant lady from Christ Hospital was there- She would be a shorter blond clone with a great smile of the prettiest brunette I ever went out with, with the blond hair of an ex fiancée's best friend. (an interesting combo) She was also very inquisitive and asked many of the questions of the Bariatric Advantages folks that were running through my mind.(However in a much more medical and technical manner). I wish I had asked her for the weight loss and eye problems article.

 

Our hosts were three women. The founder- Dr JJ (again with the anonymous thing), an elegant woman from North Carolina and a woman who has lost 170 pounds and is now beginning to have plastic surgery (which she discussed at great length and I am now much more knowledgeable on Boob jobs - Lord help me- I never wanted to hear that!) But she did laugh at my plastic surgery joke. "A very depressed woman called her doctor and said she wanted to kill herself. She said she wanted to shoot herself in the heart to have it happen quick and hopefully painlessly. She asked her doctor where her heart was-"Well your heart is under your left breast". So, she shot her self under her left breast. She ended up having to get a knee replacement! HAHA). 

 

The founder was the extremely knowledgeable Dr JJ, and the company seems to be about 5 years old. She is stressing quality and strength and shelf life for all her products. After hearing the tip of the iceberg, I know I am going to be doing more research on vitamins and supplements and do wish that blood work was done for LapBand Patients. ByPass get those, and they are REQUIRED ANNUALLY, we don't and I wonder if that omission is a mistake. I know I'll be researching the Bariatric Advantage web page and a few others over the next few months. 

 

When we started our LapBand process, we were simply told to take a Multivitamin daily. I already took Centrum. Bubba's doctor suggests a Calcium supplement, but as I eat lots of cheese and yogurt daily, our dietician said I don't need one. (But no tests were done- so I wish to discuss this later with the office) Bariatric Advantage makes a "LapBand Starter kit" and offer follow-up shipments. We were given a bottle of 8 chewables from Walgreens and then left by Deaconess to fend for ourselves. The Benefiber was mentioned for if we have any "regularity" problems, and Bubba strongly recommended it (and I've had no problems as I do take a Benefiber daily and eat a cup of Activia Yogurt daily as suggested by the school marm).

 

In the talk done by the elegant NC woman, she spoke more of the business side- product lines, shipping, automatic shipping, web sights, fliers, advertising. One of the things I spoke to her about was having SEPARATE web advertising pages for LapBand and ByPass patients. Many times in our support groups, before I convinced the Deaconess Dieticioness to put LapBand on the Left and ByPass on the Right side of the support group room, I would be told by a friend "Oh, you don't have that issue". I'll be talking to the folks at Deaconess about separate  web pages for each. Bariatric Advantage can do it easily- their web geeks can set it up from the templates easily.

 

We talked of how some medical offices are simply "slice and dice them, and toss them out to fend for themselves on their own". Perhaps this added level of help from Bariatrics Advantage will be of great help.

 

I'll see how the new Deaconess web sight looks next week. I will be contacting the Bariatric Advantages folks and hopefully the Deaconess Dieticioness can get them to come to a support group meeting, and have one talk for ByPass folks and one talk for LapBand folks.

 

Luckily the Deaconess Dieticioness has been of great help, but I do see that I will be having many more questions for planning and helping me to be able to enjoy the rest of my Life With a LapBand.