GeezerSue

So...if we want young people who are reared in communities where non-standard English is the norm to learn standard English, we are asking them to become bilingual. Is it too much to demand of ourselves a minimal gesture to comprehend THEIR native liguistic style(s)? One of the best books on racially (and socio-economically) linguistic patterns I've ever read. EVERYONE who works in a linguistically diverse setting should be required to read this: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio/0226449556

The LapBand is "the best way to go" FOR SOME PEOPLE and a terrible choice for others. Spend a lot of time searching for YOUR best choice.

As my MIL would have said..."I'm fixin' to get shed* of this debate." *pronounced "get shut."

Many years ago, the Harvard Educational Review ran a great article on a related topic. The author, Lisa Delpit, an African American and teacher, tried to express how important it is to not declare a "home language" (Ebonics, if you will, but my sister's ex spoke a strange conglomeration of English and he was white) wrong. If you are white, and live in the mainstream white culture, there is no reason to be concerned about Ebonics or other non-mainstream language. (My very-anglo MIL, used to tell me it was time to bring the clothes in off the line "before they draw damp." That language worked well for her and her neighbors. I was the weirdo.) It works where it works and for whom it works. The issue, as I understood Delpit, was that those in power in the classroom needed to teach students the difference between "home language" and "business language," and cause them to be proficient in the mainstream language which--because formal English proficiency was a key to the kindgom of power--might prove to be their key to success. That is NOT best accomplished by denigrating the language that THEY KNOW WORKS, in their neighborhoods and homes and churches. That said, I overheard a Sheriff's department radio person give info as (data changed) "Subject is identified as James Jones, 123 Elm Street, outta Covina." Outta? OUTTA? Was any word necessary between the street and the city? They need a class on business English. I'm pretty sure it gets my goat because I'm old.

There are bad doctors everywhere. I have a friend whose surgeon--in WISCONSIN--totally screwed up the surgery and left her in permanent pain and he's still advertising and doing business in the good ol' US of A. That said, to enforce a LOAN agreement, they probably do NOT need medical records, just loan documents. Jurisdiction would depend on what the loan docs say. Not an attorney, just grew up in a family full of 'em. Sue

Garland Mom, I was given different reflux meds to try; some worked better than others. And, I was prescribed Reglan...to move the food along. If you take that, do not be alarmed by the weird noises! About ten weeks post-op, just as I was settling into a permanent depression that the esophageal damage would be life-long, I ran out of Reglan and the food moved anyway!! I didn't need another refill! So, give it some time...and try to keep a positive outlook. I don't take any drugs on a daily basis except a very small dosage of my diuretic and the related potassium. (Those were originally Rx'd for edema...probably congestive heart failure-related. I started at 20mg/day--have taken 40--but I'm down to 5mg/day at this point.) Sue

Carlene...my bad...it looks like SEVERAL insurances cover it. Mine (BC-CA-PPO) doesn't yet list it as a covered procedure. http://obesityhelp.com/forums/VSG/action,replies/board_id,5463/topic_id,3114010/cat_id,5063/a,messageboard/ Edited: this info/link are about VERTICAL GASTRIC SLEEVE, NOT the MINI BYPASS.

Can't be "the only surgery...". Since the MGB or Gastric Sleeve is merely the "top half" (the stomach part) of the Duodenal Switch surgery, then the DS would also have the same effects. ~~~~~~~ The DS is often done in stages for the SMO who are not up to the massive surgery. They do the "top half," removing most of the stomach, and then wait a year. By then, the patient usually has lost enough to be able to survive the rest of the surgery. My only concern with the Gastric Sleeve is that once the stomach starts stretching out again, it would be just like the regain with the RnY...since the only thing going on with that surgery is restriction. (That is to say, MY stomach is smaller than it was...not as small as for the sleeve, but smaller than original and I can eat a ton of food. If it were not for the malabsorption, I'd be regaining already and I'm less than a year post-op.) I wasn't aware that there were seven years of positive follow-up on the procedure. If there ARE that many years, it would seem that more insurance companies would cover it as the follow-up care would be so much less expensive than the band. Edited: I thought people were calling the sleeve a MGB...not so. I know nothing about the MGB except that it could not possibly be the only surgery that impacts ghrelin levels and that I wouldn't have it. This info is about the sleeve.

Okay...I didn't read the link, so I apologize is this is redundant...but... You didn't really lose all that weight the first couple of weeks. You were dehydrated. After a week or two, you start to rehydrate and then you panic thinking you have regained. I get CRAZY reading all of the "I'm one week out and 14 pounds gone forever" posts. No one--not even DS'ers unless they are SUPER, SUPER MO--loses 14 pounds in a week. But if I post and try to warn them how worried/depressed they may feel a week or two later, I'm Debbie Downer. So I don't. The band helps you eat less than you need to survive, so that your body has to use stored up fat to operate. Although not as exact a science as we'd like, let's look at a 5'5", 300 pound, 40 year old who has a completely sedentary life. She burns about 2600 a day doing essentially nothing. For her to lose 10 pounds in a week means she must UNDERCONSUME 35,000 calories, or 5,000 calories per day. In other words, she would have to eat absolutey nothing AND run in place for five hours per day. So, you are NOT gaining weight. You probably mistook dehydration for actual weight loss. You have not failed.

Yeah,I had esophageal problems caused by the band and which ended after it was removed. I had the duodenal switch. www.duodenalswitch.com It leaves a bigger stomach than the RnY, and depends on more malabsorption. Long term it seems to have a higher percentage of excess weight loss. Nausea FOR ME was the brain's interpretation of the restriction as a blockage. First, it would send slime. If that didn't clear the non-existant blockage, the only other way to do it (per the brain) was to barf up whatever was causing "the plug." That's when nausea started...when the slime didn't solve the problem. Does that sound like what you're doing? If so, you may be a little too restricted...at least too restricted for your brain.

Christina, My insurance(BC-CA) no longer covers LapBand for people with BMI's over 50...they lose weight, to be sure...but, ON AVERAGE, too many higher BMI's end up STILL MO a couple of years out. It's all so individual...when I had my band removed I went for the Duodenal Switch, see www.duodenalswitch.com But, I'm me. I already knew--from living with the band--that I would HATE the RnY eating prohibitions. And, I was in my late 50's and didn't have a biological clock running out on me and didn't need to think about pregnancy. I know me well enough to know that I WILL take my supplements and I know that my finances can handle paying for supplements. I probably would not have made the same decision if were younger, or pressed for cash, or if I knew me well enough to know that I'd flake out on supplements. There are currently two widely used surgeries (the bypass and the band), one coming in third place (the DS) and one that is just gaining in populatioty with no long-term stats (the gastric sleeve.) Read about them all at www.obesityhelp.com and take your time deciding. Sue :::I still HAVE a LapBand...in a baggie in my guest room:::

I know...but I think the Inamed report is several years older...from the FDA study period.

This kind of makes my point. Positive thinkers HERE have had erosion. But reading only positive posts is really going into the process in denial...AND it prevents people from seeking alternatives when they ARE having problems. If 100 people sit in a seminar on banding and hear that x% of people will suffer complications, almost every single one of them is SURE that they will be in the OTHER group; that is denial. But, of course, that is not how it works; and that is reality. I hope the rest of your journey is as smooth as your 12 days of being banded have been.

Except, when you are the person HAVING the complications, that isn't quite as reassuring as one might hope. Again, "100% reversible" means you have to undergo a second surgery (and for self-pays, a second set of bills) to have the band removed. You experience that best when you are sitting in the surgeons office and he says something like, "Well, THEORETICALLY, you just take it out...but how well that goes depends on a number of factors including the skill of the surgeon who placed the band, the problems he encountered, what he had to do to overcome those problems and what damage the band has caused in the interim. It isn't a cartoon-like thing where you snip a couple of stitches and it's gone." Those are, I believe, Inamed's numbers from the early days...after the original three-year study. But band erosion is generally a later complication, so some of the people who were banded in the early days may just now be experiencing erosion. Some more recently published information indicates a higher rate of erosion. For example: A Swiss study reported "Band erosion developed in 24 patients (6.8 %)." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=15072660 A Swedish study had a harsh verdict. "When questioned according to a standardized protocol 2 years after surgery, every other patient in our series admitted heartburn and acid regurgitation. Regular endoscopic surveillance revealed a prevalence of erosive esophagitis of 44%. After a median follow-up of 7 years, 58% of the patients had been reoperated on, almost always with excision of the banding system and conversion to Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP). The reasons for reoperation were esophagitis, band erosion, pouch dilatation, leakage from the balloon, and esophageal dilatation, complications that also have been described in several recent papers in the literature. Our prediction is that LAGB will not stand the test of time." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12152154&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_docsum After having spent more than four years on this board and others, I have to disagree. At OH, for example, the board is RIFE with pre-banded people and newly banded people. I compare it to discussing marriage with engaged people and those just back from the honeymoon. They are great resources for discussing the WEDDING, but know almost nothing about being MARRIED. IN THE PAST, the problem has been that when people having problems have tried to express their concerns or share their very real problems, they were first given a bunch of "have you tried this" responses or were "lectured" about following the rules and were routinely "ganged up on" by those who just don't want to hear it. The band SURGERY is safer than the other SURGERIES. But surgery takes only a couple of hours. Then it's the rest of your life to deal with. Band complications are DIFFERENT than RnY or DS complications. DS people mostly have to worry about supplements because of the (intended) malabsorption and deal with the bathroom consequences of eating toomany carbs. (Or just stop EATING too many carbs.) RnY people seem to make more ER visits, with strictures and obstructions. Banded people mostly have to worry about esophageal damage and damage to the stomach...although I have a friend whose band was removed because the banding surgeon nicked a nerve and that kept her in constant pain and her two additional surgeries to find the problem couldn't fix anything. I'm not saying the band is not a good idea. For many, it is. I AM saying that SOME people choose the "least invasive" surgery without even knowing what that means, or mention reversibility as though someone can just reach in and unsnap it or think that "adjustability" means they can turn it on and off and that "all you have to do is go for an adjustment" if you need to lose more weight. That just isn't how it works.

A few things... First, if you don't have all the answers you need, there is no law saying you have to have your surgery when scheduled. Learn everything BEFORE you take that step. Then, if you are 105 pounds overweight, you probably are NOT "completely healthy just oveweight." You may not yet be feeling the damage,but it is mostly likely being done. Also, if the band is eroding (wearing away at) your stomach tissue, then yes, you need more surgery because the band will KEEP wearing away the tissue unless something is done to make it stop. Fianlly, there are no guarantees. The band might be exactly what you need. Or it might cause you a heap of problems from Day One. Or it might be just fine for a while and THEN start causing problems. Like the saying goes, "You pays your money and you takes your chances." I know this part first hand, because I paid cash and my band worked just fine for almost a year, but developed problems, regained the lost weight and I eventually had to have my band removed...but not for erosion...and a different surgery done. ALL the wls options have risks. Some will be more acceptable to you than others. Just know the whole picture BEFORE you have surgery.

No, I don't still have my band...well, I DO, but it's in a baggie in my guest room. (I show it to visitors.) Since my revision, I've lost about 90 pounds and my BMI is about 33. It hasn't been this low in DECADES. But I want to lose another 30 or 40 pounds...thirty sounds more attainable right now. (I'm one of those "big-boned" girls who really IS big-boned. When I got out of basic training in the Army, my BMI was around 24, which is close to the top of the "normal" range and I wore a size 8 wedding ring. Not a dainty girl, I. so I'm not shooting for tiny...)

Because I was experiencing problems, the removal was a no-brainer and something insurance even covered. My local band doctor--at the so called "Center of Excellence"--had never removed a band. So he wouldn't have been my choice for THAT reason. In fact, he was so inexperienced at band-related problems, that he wanted me to go to a support group meeting so I could hear from others what life with the band was like. My first eight months with the band was relatively perfect...so I already KNEW how it should have been...and how it used to be...and how it wasn't anymore. Duh...

If her BMI is low, I HOPE she doesn't find a willing surgeon. Does she understand that she will not be able to ENJOY eating junk with the DS? She can eat a taste of this and a taste of that alright...but if she sits down and makes a bag of cookies disappear today, she'll have so many bathroom trips tomorrow that she will for SURE have baboon ass. And it ain't pretty. Send her to OH to visit with us there. I can eat things I couldn't eat banded, for sure. But I cannot live on junk. It would tear up my bowels!!

If you have control issues--and I do, so I get it--I'd REALLY spend more time considering the surgery and not worry so much about the surgeon. Let me give you my oft-used example of why. One day, three of us wls patients were joking that we'd like to find a Krisy Kreme store. Deal is, the banded woman would have slimed and PB'd, the RnY woman would have gone into dumping syndrome...both right then, and right there. I now have the DS. I can eat the stupid doughnut. Later tonight my belly will growl...tomorrow I'll have two or three extra trips to the bathroom and stinky poop; but right then, right there, I am the one who gets to determine whether I eat the damned doughnut. That is the nature of MY mental state. I no longer feel "controlled" by some impanted demon that doesn't let me eat the lousy doughnut. And I don't have to worry about getting into bed FIRST and THEN eating the doughnut like my (insane?) RnY friends who want the doughnut ANYWAY occasionally do. But, if band is your choice, then you need to understand that the literature suggests that there is a positive correlation between frequent adjustments and problems...and it would probably be not only ill-advised but perhaps unethical for your surgeon to indulge such a request. IMO. Actually, your request tells ME that you are a VERY LIKELY someone who would "eat around the band" and then wonder why it wasn't working. (Edited to add the following...) For me the band was "a diet with a choke chain." The longer I had it, the less control I had. If you are ALREADY trying to find a way to eat what you want when you want, you may need tolook at a surgery that will let you be you and still lose weight. The band requires that you do things "the band's way."

Glass half full vs. glass half empty? When I look at your sig line, I notice that you have been banded for 14 months and have had three surgeries IN ADDITION to the banding surgery. That isn't to say you're not doing a bang-up job, because you apparently are. I'm just saying that not everyone is prepared--financially, emotionally or physically--to spend thirty or forty thousand dollars, have four surgeries and still be heavy enough to qualify (with a couple of comorbidities) for weight loss surgery a year later. For example, I have an orthopedic surgeon who excitedly asked how much weight I'd lose with BREAST REDUCION surgery, because my knees are becoming damaged and he wants to stop that ASAP. So what those docs are basing their opinions on is the DATA...such as that available at PubMed...and their experiences. What else could they ethically use?

I'm thinking it's an American thing...especially related to how medical funding is handled. One of the long-time banding doctors I contacted in Europe thought I was joking when I asked if he had revised the band to other options. Seems that fully 20% of his practice is removing bands and revising to something else. I'm still struggling to reach a personal goal...well, I'm not exactly struggling...more accurately, I'm sitting here :ranger: eating whatever I want whenever I want :hungry: and not exercising and wondering why I'm not there yet...so...I guess I have this vague inclination that there is another weight I'd rather be...and wondering how hard I have to WISH for it to get there. Right now, I'm thinking I should be working on a Plan B.

We've all had such different experiences! Jack, MOST of what you listed, I could not eat because the band would not let me and later because of esophageal damage. The food just bounced around in the esophagus. Before the damage, I COULD eat a chicken stew kind of thing...it became a mainstay around here. But NEVER a sandwich, because NEVER any bread except for a max of two bites of heavily buttered (oops!) crust from sourdough. NEVER anything called chowder, if it contained potatoes. NEVER any raw tomotoes. But I have an "issue" (not with you, Jack...not with anyone in particular) but with the promotion of the band as a healthier and more natural way to lose weight. I'm convinced that far fewer people would opt for the band if they first read about all of the changes...many of them rather drastic...that some banded people have to endure to keep the band. The band isn't always just about smaller portions. It CAN BE about leaving in an implant that causes a LIFETIME of reflux and places the patient on a LIFETIME of reflux meds to treat something that would just go away if the causative agent (the band) were removed. To me, that's like walking around with a rock in your shoe and treating your foot for cuts and bruises and infections when all you have to do is get rid of the rock. It can be about not ever again eating a salad or an orange or not ever sleeping lying down flat. It can be about horrific slime wads and having to barf in public places. And, as some long-time successful banded people I know are dealing with, even after YEARS of being model banded patients and following the rules and making rather bizarre changes, a slip or erosion can come out of nowhere and at least one more surgery is required and--for many--the weight starts piling on as a result of being freed from several years of severe eating restrictions. So, HollyB, IMHO, YOU did not fail. For some people--and I think it's a small percentage, the band is a "piece of cake" (pun intended since with the band I could never have had even a bite of cake.) For others, it is a problem that causes SOME weight loss but...all things considered...the juice ain't worth the squeeze. Another consideration is time. As I was deciding to have my band removed, one of the factors that I considered was that I was 58 years old and looking at my mother, now frail and in her 80's. What if the band caused NO more problems for me...for ten or twenty more years? And then what would they do with me if I had a slip or erosion...at age 68 or 78. I didn't want to spend my waning years drinking Ensure because I was too frail for another surgery.

There is a school of thought that more fills and unfills lead to complications. That said, there is at least one band doctor who does his own fills and unfills so he can pig out at Bariatric Conferences. Go figure. I don't know if cost is a concern, but a trick like that would have cost me around $2000...a grand for the unfill and a grand for the refill, if I did it in town.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I would say something like the "eat bad foods" comment, it meant I could not eat grilled fish or canned tuna or broiled chicken or a salad or an orange, or most vegetables, etc. And, when you go through months or YEARS of not being able to consume much-- survival being a pretty strong drive--you consume what you can. When we would go out for dinner (which we do a lot), I could have a few spoons of Soup, but not my fish (we live at the beach and our favorite restaurants are fish places.) But I found I COULD add cream and sugar to the coffee and get a FEW calories for dinner. I could even have a slice of key lime pie if I didn't eat the crust. When you are routinely HUNGRY because you CANNOT EAT solid food, you eat what you can.

Oh, my :omg: ...where to begin...if the bypass were all that dangerous, no reputable surgeons would be performing it (and they are) and the insurance companies wouldn't be paying for it (and they do.) I'm not sure what those "long term complications that cant be reversed" are...and I sure haven't read about them in the medical literature. Perhaps you can enlighten me. The band isn't "less invasive" because of those alleged "long term complications that cant be reversed"...but because it is less INVASIVE. I had my band for three years. I don't know that barfing and sliming and being unable to eat solid food and having a non-functioning esophagus is "a much healthier way to lose the weight" than just eating NORMAL food...which is what I'm doing now. Finally, the claim that "the band is a great tool and u will lose wieght if u work hard along with it," is a specious claim. The band will work for some people and won't work for others. I hope your journey continues to be as trouble-free as is has been so far.