Chat room

I know....I stayed on it for a long while and hated to see it gone. Oh well, all we can do is ask....

Hi LMyers

It's good to see you here again and Welcome Back. Chat rooms are not very popular any longer and due to the lack of participation we no longer have a chat room.

You can get support and connect with the WLS community by posting on the forums and also we have the private group option. You can create and invite others to join. Here is the link if you are interested.

Start A Group

Regards,

Member Services

I disagree that the chat room wasn?t hugely popular. Chat room access was totally UNAVAILABLE and UNREACHABLE for literally years .

People tried to use it - and we got messages like your Java isn?t updated or just simply.. you cant get in.. no explanation. All the complaining in the world never brought about ANY fix.

It told you to hit a button and nothing ever opened.

These are IT problems, not unpopularity.

Why don't you try bringing it back as an experiment? I'd be shocked if traffic to the site didn't immediately double with real-time chat .

I know I would love it. I found that when I needed some Help with head hunger I would stop and go to the chat room and get involved in a conversation and head hunger went away.....

That?s EXACTLY why chat is such a useful post-op tool.

Youve eaten your planned meal .. and crave SOMETHING , anything.

Chatting eases the pressure ( particularly right post op in the liquids shakes and constant walking stages)

chat allows you to make supportive friends *****ally care that you stay on track.

So many more people use Facebook and other more user friendly social media apps. Back 14 or 15 years ago when I first found this sight it was the go to place. Not so much anymore.

I'd never talk about my bariatric surgery on facebook.. and i think a lot of posters agree.

Its not a safe forum for anything ... and its way too easy for a troll to get your personal details if they can look up your friends ,work and family.

The chat room was a much safer way to get and offer real-time support. It was kind of awesome actually when it was up.. you could one-click it open in the corner of your screen and see who was there and read posts at the same time.

I really wish OH would bring it back - it brought SO much traffic and regular users to the site . People would also frequently ask questions about surgeons and bariatric practices .. and clever chatters would really quickly send them an openable link to past posts about that surgeon.

I think getting those unbiased references right away really helped reassure newcomers who were just starting their journeys that they were in good hands .. and the support before and after the operation really helped a lot of folks persevere through the usually months long process of pre op testing and insurance approval.

Pre op the chat room was a great aid to me when i had to lose weight as my surgeons requirement and similarly post op the support really helped me stick to the various stages and small quantities of allowable foods as i healed while undergoing excess food withdrawals .

The first eight weeks post op are the hardest - and the chat room was just a great support.

It's not difficult to lock down your Facebook profile so that a random person online can't access your profile.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/secure-your-facebook-account-in- six-easy-steps/

i agreed with your comment about Facebook. There are people on my account that I love, but did not share my WLS with because there is no reason my nephew's high school wrestling team, which I'm connected to through the Booster Club, needed to know what I weighted pre-op, or that I was pre or post-op. I certainly was NOT going to remove them from my profile to post WLS issues!