Jennifer S
It’s been a problem for about 10 to 12 years, and I started on some hormone therapy and started putting on a lot of weight, and then I was very stressed out and I’m a stress eater so I would eat and eat and before I knew it I was almost 180 pounds and I’m only five feet tall. And I couldn’t do things that I like to do anymore, and my kids said I wasn’t a fun Mom anymore because I couldn’t ski with them, I couldn’t do all the things I did when they were younger.
Then my blood pressure got out of control and I was taking three different medications and my doctor told me that you know you don’t have to put that food in your mouth, you need to do something else and he discussed bariatric surgery that would help me because then I would be full. And as long as I was motivated to do the surgery and motivated to lose the weight he felt I would be successful and they were right. Because I was motivated I just needed more control. They gave me the name of Dr. Baptista because one of my other doctors had actually had the surgery six weeks prior and she was doing really well, and they said you know you may want to try this because we know you want to lose the weight and your health depends on you losing weight. So they gave me contact information and I contacted Dr. Baptista office and went to his seminar just to find out what it’s all about. I thought about it for a couple months because I needed to feel that I could do it. I was nervous as anybody would be, I’m a nurse so I’m very very picky and I watch everything they do and I really felt at ease and felt that when they were going to put me under I was in good hands. I adore Dr. Baptista, I think he is a wonderful practitioner; he explains everything to you and truly and genuinely cares. He cares about my success. And you know on times when I come in and I haven’t lost as much weight as I was planning to he doesn’t put me down, he just says you know what just keep going, you can have a bad day but get back on track and seeing the nutritionist really helps too. But the day of the surgery you know I came out of it, and I did have abdominal discomfort, I did have hernia that they found so that was repaired as well that I didn’t even know I had, and I think I had more pain from that area then the actual Lap Band. A couple of days of clear liquids which wasn’t hard for me, I drink my diet Snapple and Jell-O, you know sugar free Jell-O and then the process began and I even took a three months after the surgery I went on a three week vacation in Europe with my best friend and I lost 11 pounds* on a trip like that, and we did a cruise on seven days of it. By the end of three weeks nothing was really fitting me, I had to go buy some clothes over there just so I could walk without my pants falling down.
I’m totally off medication. I was taking three medications, one of them at the highest dose which was a beta blocker, and I take absolutely no blood pressure medicine and my blood pressure is really good. I monitor it once a week at home and its normal and it’s really pretty incredible. I had to stop taking my reflux medicine because I don’t have all that weight when I’m sleeping pushing everything up into my esophagus, so now I’m down four medications. And it really has changed my life and I hug both of them every time. Dr. Baptista because I have me back and I feel better about myself and that’s something I haven’t felt like in a long time. Like my son said we have our fun Mom back.
For More Information on Weight Loss Surgery.
For more information on bariatric surgery, or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Baptista, please contact Florida Surgical Physicians today.
Jennifer S