Almost Famous

I'm very excited that the LapBand is becoming to be more popular. While not as widely used as it is in Europe and Mexico, it is slowly gaining ground against gastric bypass. For me, gastric bypass was way too invasive, way too severe. At least with the LapBand, it is adjustable and I can become pregnant with it, and even have it removed, if neccessary.

A lot of famous people have opted for this surgery. For instance, Sharon Osbourne had it done and lost about 100 lbs. She later had it removed to "address her bulimia". Muhammed Ali's daughter, Khaliah had the surgery done in 2004 and lost almost 170 lbs. She has since become a leader in the fight against obesity and authored "Fighting Weight", which tells her the story of her successful surgery. I personally recommend that book to anyone thinking about weight loss surgery or who already has had it. It's excellent!

I could list every celebrity that's had it done, but that would probably be boring. I do want to mention that the LapBand has recently become a storyline on Guilding Light when one of their actresses, Caitlin VanZandt, had it done in real life. They worked it into the script and it's nice to see a soap opera that doesn't just have "perfect" people on it. Caitlin has been successful so far in her weight loss journey and her progress was featured in People not too long ago.

Obesity doesn't affect one group of people. It doesn't discriminate against rich or poor, famous or not, beautiful or ugly, man or woman. It affects us all and it will kill us all if we don't do something about it. It certainly would have killed me eventually. And I'm not ready to go yet. :)

I really wish it was available to more people, though. I discussed this with my godfather, a well-respected doctor that was once on the board of a major HMO in Florida. He later resigned because he could no longer be responsible for denying treatments to people who really needed them (another story for another day). We talked about how much more cost effective it would be for more insurance companies and HMO's to cover the LapBand surgery. It would prevent diseases caused by obesity that are MUCH more expensive to treat in the long run. I've heard that my insurance company is just now STARTING to think about covering the LapBand, but the guidelines are so strict, my godfather can't imagine people actually qualifying. I guess that's the point. Answer me this, why is supplying a person with a lifetime of diabetes medication or heart medication better than supplying them with a surgery that could PREVENT or even CURE these diseases? It's mind boggling, that's for sure. Maybe the more celebrities get the surgery, the more popular it will become and the more the media will pay attention to it. Maybe then, the big medical companies will take a look into this amazing surgery that has changed my life and so many others.