I went to the plastic surgeon today...

And it was pretty interesting. I talked to him about my tummy, arms, thighs and breasts. He said that he will submit for everything, but most insurances will only do 1 or 2 things. He was very confident that my insurance carrier will approve the abdominoplasty, although he thinks I would do better with a belt lipectomy. He said it runs $5,000 more and most insurances will not cover it. He took a set of pictures to submit with my letter of medical neccesity, it was uncomfortable having him take the pictures, but I am glad that he did, I think it will really make a difference. He wants me to wait until I am between 18-24 months post-op, just to make sure I am at the weight I want to be at. Problem is, I AM at the weight I want to be at... I can not picture myself weighing 130lbs. I am at 168 right now, probably 10lbs of skin removed, and I would like to lose another 10lbs before surgery. that will put me at around 148ish, and that sounds fine to me! I need advice, should I wait? He said that if I have the surgery and then lose another 10-20 lbs, my skin will sag and be pouchy again and that kind of defeats the purpose, right? I am so ready to have surgery, but I want to do what is best for me... Advice please! Especially post-ops that went through this! I am definitely going to want an angel through this surgery, any takers? Email me if interested. My consult took about 2 hours with Dr. Aric J. Eckhardt, he was great and so was his staff. He was very thorough, even had me watch a video about the abdominoplasty so I could get a feel of what we would talk about. ANyways, let me know what you think, I need some advice! Thanks! ~Julie

Gosh Julie, I wish I had some advice for you. That's definately a hard decision. I would say if you don't think it's realistic for you to get to that 130 pounds, and don't want to then I would say go for it. If you're happy where you are now and feel that your body is comfortable there then that would be good enough for me. On the other hand if you think you're most likely going to keep losing then you might want to wait. I was suprised when the doc said the skin would sag again if you lost ten or twenty pounds, I just wouldn't think it would with only ten or twenty pounds. But then again I'm not a doctor and have no clue as I'm sure he does. So although you want to get the show on the road maybe it would be best to wait it out a little longer. Just think of all you've accomplished already, maybe then the wait won't seem so bad. Sorry for all my rambling "advice". I pretty much just said a whole lotta nothin', didn't I?

I had panni done in November by my WLS surgeon in Grinnell and he did a T incision. Almost a belt, the incision wraps around my hips to about 4" on each side. Some one on my Central Iowa group on yahoo had the belt done and he had 14lbs of skin removed, but I think he has lost close to 200 lbs. I had about 5 lbs of skin removed, and am glad to have had it done. A friend of mine acutally had a ps do her panni and it was just an extended bikini line incision, she isn't happy with it at all. Although he did do a good job on her boobs, she had them both done at the same time.

I had panni done in November by my WLS surgeon in Grinnell and he did a T incision. Almost a belt, the incision wraps around my hips to about 4" on each side. Some one on my Central Iowa group on yahoo had the belt done and he had 14lbs of skin removed, but I think he has lost close to 200 lbs. I had about 5 lbs of skin removed, and am glad to have had it done. A friend of mine acutally had a ps do her panni and it was just an extended bikini line incision, she isn't happy with it at all. Although he did do a good job on her boobs, she had them both done at the same time.