Hi Mac,
My first response to your post is that I think you should talk to another doctor. It seems to me that doctors, like us patients, have their favorite surgeries - generally the ones they are most familiar with. I think that your doc's attitude possibly stems from inexperience with the band and reliance on old statistics. If my memory serves me correctly, my surgeon told me I could expect to lose 80% of my excess weight. Math is not my thing, but I think that's better than what your doctor told you.
I don't know your height or co-morbidities, but at a starting weight of 255 you probably are an excellent band candidate. I hope you are doing lots and lots of reading and research. My long journey to getting the band turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I was able to really educate myself about the whole procedure. I haven't had any nasty surprises yet and feel like I went into the process with my eyes wide open. Hopefully your doctor has a good pre-surgery program set up with nutrition and behavior classes. They're very helpful. We got a ton of literature to refer to also.
If you haven't discovered the following websites, they are full of good reading too. They are message boards for bandsters and full of people with good and bad band experiences.
http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobe...and/posts.html
http://lapbandtalk.com/forum/
As for the tummy tuck, I've read a number of stories of people having successful plastic surgery after banding. There's an area at Lapbandtalk.com just for plastic surgery discussion.
One more thing - go back in this forum and read my post from July 9 (or is it July 8). I don't want to repeat everything, but my favorite thing about this surgery is that I'm not really on a "diet". I know some people stick to a diet plan, but a lot of us just make mostly good food choices. I'm curious about your 8 week plan. The band rules are protein first, veggies second, everything else after that. Lots of people (me included) have trouble with doughy things (untoasted bread, pizza crust, etc.) and dry meat (chicken hurts!). For me, there's no diet, just following those simple rules. I don't eat anything sugar-free (because I can't stand fake sugar) and am losing just fine. I have treats every so often, but find I don't have cravings for crap like I used to. I'm also exercising and taking my vitamins. This band is a good thing!
I tend to get kind of high on my soap box sometimes, but I'm really sold on the benefits of this surgery. Hope there was something helpful in this (again) novel.
Chickadee
