GeezerSue

Just finished Baldacci's The Camel Club. (More intrigue, crime, war, spies and politics...light stuff for a lazy afternoon! LOL)

We CAN quit smoking at any time. (This is coming from a woman who--quite intelligently--smoked for about 40 years...duh.) If you were stranded on a desert island after a plane crash or landed in the hospital for some other reason or were snowed in for a week or so (like my late MIL was), you would have no cigarettes and you wouldn't have much choice and it would be a done deal. Of course, there's the whole starting over issue. I tried several times to stop and "could not." Even after having life-threatening mycoplasma pneumonia and an oxygen tank in the house for a few weeks. (I went outside to smoke.) Then my 47-year-old husband had a heart attack. I had three days to think about it. I smoked all the way to the hospital to pick him up, and left the rest of the pack on a bench outside the hospital. I knew he wouldn't be able to stop smoking if I was smoking and that we'd just both have to do it together. We haven't smoked since and it's been six and half years. My father had a similar experience when his girfriend became a grandma. The baby had respiratory problems and the doctor didn't want him in homes where smoking happened or around people who had recently smoked. Girlfriend said, 'It sounds like I have to choose between having my grandson or you in my house." He stopped. Just so you know...I don't know how much weight you need to lose, but if it's a lot and you do well, you're probably going to encounter a bit of a problem down the road. More and more, the most reputable plastic surgeons are refusing to perform plastic surgery on smokers...especially tummy tucks. Good oxygen flow to the surgical area is crucial to recovery and smoking prevents that and tummy tucks have the highest complication rate of any plastic surgery. So, good luck dealing with this. Having been inpatient for several visits and hooked up to oxygen and walking away with a COPD diagnosis, I know that sooner or later almost all of us stop, even if it's just for that final admission to the hospital...it's just a matter of what it takes to make it happen.

I'm having link problems this morning. You MAY be having Dumping syndrome, but it has NOTHING to do with gastric banding...unless some damage was caused during surgery. Dumping IS a predictable side effect of the RnY and, in fact, many patients rely on that to dissuade them from eating sweets or fats. (Some of MY goofy RnY friends just take their donut to bed with them and have a planned dumping episode..go figure. So far, I have heard of one DS patient who thinks she has dumping syndrom, but when she describes it, it doesn't match with the literature.) From NIH: Rapid Gastric Emptying (Dumping Syndrome) Rapid gastric emptying, or dumping syndrome, happens when the lower end of the small intestine (jejunum) fills too quickly with undigested food from the stomach. "Early" dumping begins during or right after a meal. Symptoms of early dumping include nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. "Late" dumping happens 1 to 3 hours after eating. Symptoms of late dumping include weakness, sweating, and dizziness. Many people have both types. Stomach surgery is the main cause of dumping syndrome because surgery may damage the system that controls digestion. Patients with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome may also have dumping syndrome. (Zollinger-Ellison syndrome is a rare disorder involving extreme peptic ulcer disease and gastrin-secreting tumors in the pancreas.) Doctors diagnose dumping syndrome through blood tests. Treatment includes changes in eating habits and medication. People who have dumping syndrome need to eat several small meals a day that are low in carbohydrates and should drink liquids between meals, not with them. People with severe cases take medicine to slow their digestion. Information provided by the National Institutes of Health Here is info on dumping syndrome from an RnY patient: Dumping syndrome is an effective result of the gastric bypass system which alerts the body of inappropriate eating. Dumping syndrome is described as a shock-like state when small, easily absorbed food particles rapidly dump into the digestive system. This results in a very unpleasant feeling with symptoms such as a cold clammy sweat, pallor, butterflies in the stomach and a pounding pulse. These symptoms may be followed by cramps and diarrhea. This state can last for 30-60 minutes and is quite uncomfortable. That was the clinical description of dumping. This is what I experience when I dump: shortly after eating a food I don’t tolerate (sugar, milk, sugary milk products or starchy carbs) I begin to feel a bit disoriented, maybe dizzy and then an overall sense of confusion or panic takes over my mind and body. This is a mild state of delirium. Then I begin sweating. Profuse sweating that can completely soak my hair, my clothes; it drips and glistens on my skin. During this state of sweaty panic I feel like I’m out of my mind! A few times during extremely dramatic dumping episodes I literally thought I was dying, the state of distress was that severe. At this point during a dumping episode I have learned it is best to lie down on my side and let it nature take its course. The body is efficiently, albeit painfully, correcting a chemical imbalance in the cell system. It takes great presence of mind to calm myself and lay down, but even in a state of near-delirium I now know this is the only action to be taken. I know the event is passing when the sense of panic is replaced by exhaustion and cold chills instead of sweating. Occasionally I have suffered diarrhea at this point. If I have the luxury I’ll try to take a nap or go to bed after dumping. If it is in the evening I’ll sleep through the night, and wake feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck. The mild delirium associated with dumping is the result of an interruption of nerve impulses affecting cerebral metabolism. The interruptions are caused by metabolic disturbances such as Fluid or electrolyte imbalance. When the incorrect foods are consumed and dumped into the digestive system the electrolytes get out of balance. Dehydration will also cause an electrolyte imbalance. This mild delirium is characterized by a reduced ability to maintain attention to surroundings or disorganized thinking. The daily routine can become confusing. In extreme cases a person who is dumping may experience rambling, irrelevant or incoherent speech. If your surgeon doesn't know that the band does not cause Dumping Syndrome, he is really NOT informed about the surgery he is doing. Because of that, in your situation, I'd locate an experienced "back-up" doctor--even if that involves travel or more money--in the event you have a concern or complication that requires some experieince to deal with.

For the record...I don't think people who want a bunch of kids are, on the basis of that decision alone, nuts. I think that people who make the decision to have or not have kids based on an apparently misunderstood piece of scripture from a line of reasoning that (we can hope...using your sons to smite the enemy at the city gates and all) is no longer valid...THOSE are the nuts.

They're nuts. And few people are born believing that using birth control is rejecting God's gifts...whereas many people are born red-headed. It would be ridiculous to criticize someone's genetics, whereas criticizing faulty logic is a whole different ballgame. People who believe that random bits and pieces of stuff, passed along many thousands of years ago by warrior tribes (not unlike the Taliban, BTW) and committed to writing a couple of thousand years ago should dictate what they do today...while simultaneously (and conveniently) omitting the other stuff...well, they are less than honest with themselves and others. FIRST, if you check that particular bible verse, you'll see that what is being discussed is the wisdom of HAVING SONS IN ONE'S YOUTH. That they'll be handy for smiting enemies and all...so I guess real believers would consider any daughters disposable because no respectable daughter would be hanging out at the town gates killing off the enemy. THEN, further along in Psalms (137:9), the text also says: Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock. Yeah...let's just pick random shit out and go live by it.

Hey, Carlene...I'm not moving my mom in here even though she may be on some kind of welfare I'm not even aware of!!! (LOL) I mean BEYOND the obvious Social Security and Medicare stuff. (But not because of too many flushes...because she's, you know, my role model for "cranky.") Her assisted living place was originally a joint venture between the company and the city and a community college (it was built on college land.) A certain number of the units in the buiding have sliding scale rent, based on income. Mom has been paying full freight becaue there were no low-income slots available when we felt she needed to move in, but someone is moving out so she is going to experience a rent reduction of between $500 and $1050 per month. Thing is, I don't know who is picking up the tab for the difference. So, I'm going easy on welfare people this week! ;-D

I don't know that we can "deprive" kids because they have irresponsible parents. Although, in the real world, many kids from larger families DO have fewer "THINGS" than kids from smaller families. And hand-me-downs used to be the norm. But you know, everything is welfare, in one way or another. Imagine two small companies with 50 employees each. Let's assume that everything at the two firms is identical and the employees are essentially identical, except that at one firm there are a lot of Quiverfull people with six or eight kids each and that another firm there are none, so they have an average of two kids each. Guess which firm was able to negotiate a better deal with for group insurance. Rates from year-to-year depend on previous years' coverage and claims. People with eight healthy kids STILL have four times as many office visits for camp physicals and immunizations as people with two healthy kids. And the potential liability for the insurance company increases with each additional family member. I'm just saying, even with working parents, we ALL pay in some way for families that are larger.

I wouldn't OUTLAW any of it. I'm just challenging the "as long as they support their own" notion. This IS America, and we all share the burden, one way or another.

How many babies your neighbors are having CAN impact your finances and your children's education. We observed a new community that attracted young families with an average of four kids. Thing was, the tax structure was set up for families with two kids. If, in a development of 1000 new homes, you have 100 homes with two kids who are NOT factored into the property tax-school financing equation, you end up with 200 "extra" kids at your local school. That can mean crowded classrooms, or supplemental taxes to provide more desks more books more teachers and even construction to build more rooms. Of course, a good number of these folks are off the radar screen in terms of religious beliefs, so they'll be heavy into home schooling and maybe their kids won't ever set foot on a public school site. In another town where we used to live, there was a huge influx of immigrant families from Asia. They built bigger houses and had several generations in each home. The city began having sewer problems, that everybody paid to fix, because homes that previously had four people suddenly had seven...and they all flushed. (These were multi-generational flushes, not due to large numbers of kids...but the concept is the same.)

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html

One of my grandmothers had a baby every two years for twenty years. Sue Mother of a childless heathen.

Cindy, Unfortunately, most of the studies done since the FDA study have been single-practice studies...which throws a monkey wrench into the equation...because you're comparing one group of surgeons vs. another group. Even IN the FDA studies, there was one center that had worse results than any other center...it HAD TO BE the difference in surgeons. Based on their results, they DID not start doing the band after the FDA trials. Maybe they have since then: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=11371739 I know that those of us who were banded shortly after the publication of this study decided that it had to be a surgeon-related problem...either placement errors or that they were just clueless about follow-up protocol. But they had a 50% band removal and revision rate, so it's good they stopped doing it. I knew I didn't want the RnY...because I was tired of having things I couldn't eat...and my friends with RnY are always needing to taste MY stuff to see if it's sweet enough or fatty enough to send them into a dumping episode. But it is reassuring to know that not everyone is ready to give up if, for some reason, Plan A doesn't work. And all the scary talk about malabsoprtion? It's like saying "But with the band you have RESTRICTION!!" Malabsorption is what makes the DS work, restriction is what makes the band work. Of course we have malabsorption. But, like the band, the DS is not a perfect surgery and it isn't for everyone and if I were younger, I'd need to think about it longer and harder.

1--There was no Wikipedia info on the band in 2002. (Duh.) 2--Most of the major problems that have been discovered with the band are happening a couple of years out...and since the band had been legal here for only a year, there WAS NO DATA AVAILABLE. (I hate to see you struggling like this...why do you suppose this is so challenging for you?)

BJEAN...your post hit home and gave me goosebumps. My BIL, an excellent mechanic, was drafted and trained as a medic. He came home from Viet Nam and, as soon as my sister became preggers, it was OBVIOUS that he was a psych casualty. We found him on a roof with a gun in his mouth. He escaped from the VA Hospital and shoplifted a pack of razors and was slicing his arm up when they found him. There are more stories. He ended up with Electroshock Therapy to kill the memories. They divorced. He became a bit of a veggie for a while. FORTUNATELY for everyone concerned, he relinquished his parental rights and sister's second husband adopted the child. Those of us who lived through the mess are still suffering in one way or another. Last Sunday, we were looking at photo albums and answering all the "who's this?" questions. "Oh...she's your biological great grandmother." However, now that Bush has picked up on what the American people are trying to tell him...we can rest safely..because...effective immediately, we are no longer sending iPods or jet skis to North Korea. That's real progress. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6159011.stm

I am not angry; I'm frustrated with ignorance. I'm not bitter; I'm honest. That you would call me simple-minded is laughable--and rude, coming from someone who wants all the posts to be sunshine and happiness. I didn't assume you were a day care worker SOLELY because you work with children. I assumed that because your research didn't strike me as professional and you seem to think that someone's blowing ten grand to try to stop dying is breaking the bank. So you sounded like a tradesperson as opposed to a professional of any kind. And, I've known about karma since before you were born...we'll see whose friend Karma is, won't we?

Bingo! And good for you...you know the plusses and minuses and I assume you have made your choice based on facts...and that you are checking reliable sources. Like pub med or other peer-reviewed stuff. If I WERE trying to "talk people out of the surgery" I'd be in all those threads welcoming the new folks, warning people. I don't do that. When there is a regrets thread, I repsond. When someone is having complications, I respond. When someone is already banded and having problems, I NEVER EVER say "nonnie, nonnie, nonnie." In fact, if someone is new and struggling, I encourange them to keep trying. HOWEVER, if someone HAS been trying and is still having problems and all she is hearing is more atta-boys and it's been a couple of years and she obviously feel like the Lone Ranger, I enter the discussion. Look, if I had gone to have the DS without knowing it had a higher mortality rate AND a lifetime of malabsorption and without reading everything I could get my hands on, I'd have been an idiot. As they say, "I paid my money and I took my chances..." I'm encouraging everyone else to do the same.

My grandfather was born in Casa Grande in 1896 and I can read every word you wrote!!! The one test I should have had but didn't was manometry. It tests the function of the esophagus...whether the the little waves--muscle spasms--that massage the food down the esophagus into the stomach are stong or weak. They tend to be weaker in older people (I was 55 when banded) and in the obese (my highest BMI was 51+.) So I was a candidate for that test. We would have know if I had good function going into the surgery or not...and, if it was weak, a wise surgeon might have told me to go away. (Although I was so convinced that it was the band or nothing, I would probably have found another doctor.) I don't think there is anything that test could do to prevent problems, except maybe to dissuade someone who is higher risk for dysmotility issues to consider another surgery. Living with an esophagus that has shut down is miserable. It's not a fun test... http://www.gicare.com/pated/epdgs31.htm

Again, I'm sorry that they don't pay day care workers any better...but the money for the band just wasn't a huge deal for me. And it wasn't about making a tool work...it was about esophageal damage.

Cindy, I agree with most of YOUR post. The band-bypass comparisons are a little shaky because someone like Fielding in NY has a wonderful follow-up program (as he did in Australia) and YEARS of experience and his results show that. But there are now HUNDREDS of banding surgeons in the US and many of them have little experience and no follow-up programs. Years ago, CoffeeWench, one of the original bandsters in this country put it something like this...OF THOSE WHO ARE GOING TO FAIL, the RnY people lose weight and regain it and the banded people never leave morbid obesity...only she said it better. Anyway, an unbiased comprehensive comparison from multiple practices is in order. The RnY didn't have to be approved by the FDA becasue there is no appliance involved. Same with DS. Only the band needed FDA approval, because it is an implanted device. (Although I'm not sure where the silastic ring used in the Fobi pouch falls...) I wouldn't trust an insurance company to make any decision I had an opinion about...I'm just saying that if they had an excuse to deny those surgeries, they would. I have BC-CA. First they didn't cover the band. Then, after I got mine, they did. Now they do, but only for BMI's under 50. They covered DS when I got it. This week, they're saying it's "investigational," EVEN THOUGH MEDICARE HAS JUST APPROVED IT...which pretty much proves it isn't investigational. If they could deny claims based on the risks of the surgery, they would. And yes, the RnY people have to watch out for malabsorption. Not as much as DS people do, but they have some malabsorption. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen who just don't have the resources to follow up, whatever the surgery...people who have killer reflux and are aspirating stomach acids who can't afford a band adjustments because they got a divorce after surgery and now have no medical insurance...or the NURSE at my DS surgeons office who told all of us to take OUR supplements and then neglected to take her calcium (DS'ers HAVE TO TAKE calcium...forever) and ended up on calcium INFUSIONS every day...or RnY people who have NO money and don't take vitamins and don't have labs and (really, you can google it) end up with" bariatric beriberi." ~~~~~~~~ StephC...I do not think that all pre-ops are uninformed, although some very much are. I think that pre-ops are inexperienced. Like love and marriage and babies and all that good stuff...until you've been there, it's all theoretical. This was a thread asking for regrets...from those who have been through the experience.

"Fellow bandsters?" Did they move up your surgery date? Honey, I'm a fellow bandster...you are an anxious pre-op probably hoping that your surgery will be perfect and scared to death it won't and--to deal with that fear--you want everyone who is saying something you don't want to hear to go away. Ain't gonna happen. If you are comfortable with your choice of surgery, hearing about the risks involved shouldn't get your panties in a bunch. But, if it does, STOP OPENING THREADS THAT DEAL WITH PROBLEMS, COMPLICATIONS AND REGRETS!!! Or, stop bitching about what you read when you get there.

If you don't want to read about negative results, you might try NOT OPENING threads asking for people with regrets to speak up. Where were you on reading comprehension day? I repeatedly say that the band works for some people. What is there about that statment that makes it invisible to you?

#1--Okay, here's a simple chart from a surgical group that does ALL FOUR of these procedures...so they can make money from whatever procedure you choose, therefore they have no financial motivation to have a "favorite" procedure: http://www.lapsf.com/weight-loss-surgeries.html You can only look at the average results with each surgery, because those are based on the big picture and years of results. The AVERAGE 280 pound person whose ideal weight is 140 will have the following results two years out or so: With the band, she will weigh 196, with a BMI of around 37 or 38. (If the comorbidities still exist, she will STILL be eligible for wls.) With the RnY, she will weigh 182, with a BMI of around 32 or 33. With the DS, she will weigh 168, with a BMI of around 29 or 30. And the average risks are in direct proportion to the average loss, with a lower motality rate from the band, next mortality rate from the RnY and the higher mortality rate from the DS. (And, yes, there are people who lose MORE...but for every person who loses more there is someone who loses LESS, that's how we get averages.) Someone--maybe it was Cin--said she wanted a surgery from which she was more likely to wake up. Second time around, I wanted a surgery from which I was more likely to achieve a normal weight. #2--The surgical procedures take from 40 minutes to a few hours, depending on how many complications there are once surgery begins. The surgery-related mortality rates cover death FOR ANY REASON in the 30 days following surgery. The surgery itself is over in a day. But a higher percentage of patients survive the banding surgery than survive the other surgeries, no doubt about it. Then comes the hard part. IF you are dying from morbid obesity...and IF you have a surgery that works, you STOP dying from morbid obesity. If however, you have a surgery that leaves you STILL morbidly obese (which is the reason Blue Cross-CA gives for no longer covering the band for patients with BMI's of 50 or higher, but applies equally to any surgery that doesn't work for YOU), then you are STILL dying from morbid obesity. #3--Finally, look at your last paragraph. The OP on this thread wasn't trying to AVOID people with regrets. The OP was seeking out those who had regrets...and ends up with a shitload of people who are pre-banded and just banded insisting that those who DO have regrets with their own experience shouldn't mention it. Brilliant. I hope this information helped. ~~~~ Oh..and some "supportive" person here was gloating because I paid cash for my band and was glad that I was out of pocket for the money. For the record, it was only ten grand and I wrote a fucking check. I'm sorry that, in this day and age, $10,000 is such a huge number to you...whoever you are. If you want to laugh at someone who had to get a loan or mortgage the house and is not happy with what surgery THEY purchased, you'll need to move along and find a poorer person to laugh at...which I'm sure you'll be both able and inclined to do. (And, also for the record, I had contacted a couple of European surgeons who had been taking bands out for years and was going to pay cash for the second surgery...until we learned that with the damage the band was causing and because I again met surgery criteria, my insurance would pick up the tab for the revision.)

I'm sure there will be entertainment value in your post-banding posts, as well. I can't wait to read what you have to say once you have a clue.

Okay...I'll try again. THiS was an inquiry into regrets. Some of us have a few. If you are about to have this surgery--or recently banded--and hear that someone else did NOT experience a safe, simple, successful journey to a healthy weight...it might feel threatening. That's because MOST of us read that all it takes is following the rules and people who follow the rules will succeed. Truth is, some do and some don't. And most people don't want to face that risk, so they'd rather shoot the messenger...as though that will protect them from some possible failure. There is (obviously) a lot of emotional garbage that enters into a wls desicion. Once you get there, and convince yourself that it is time to take this step, it is difficult to accept that it still might not work. WLS MAY work; it MAY not. I will repeat for those who would rather go for creative interpretations of what I'm TRYING to communicate: 1--No wls is without risks...INCLUDING the band. 2--The most successful procedures carry the highest risks. 3--The RnY and DS are not the killer surgeries that band-or-nothing people claim they are. (If they were, our insurance companies would use that excuse to not pay for those surgeries.) 4--There is no BEST wls. 5--What's right for someone who is 30, may be the wrong choice for someone who is 60. What is right for someone who was a normal weight and became wheelchair-bound and recently gained 150 pounds may be wrong for someone who has been obese since childhood. 6--LapBand is the safest SURGERY...but SURGERY IS OVER IN A DAY. 7--LapBand and RnY have similar long-term results. 8--The DS has better long term results than the band or RnY, but has life-long malabsorption issues. (More so than RnY.) 9--Many people are not prepared financially, emotionally, intellectually to provide themselves with proper post-op care, regardless of surgery. 10--When my band worked well, it worked well, AND I still regret waiting so long to have my band removed once it became problematic. If I recall, I was one of the first people on this board to announce that I was having my band removed. Since then, many people have had their bands removed for many reasons. I don't have a problem with the band needing to be removed...I have a problem with people who are so emotionally invested in the concept that if they follow the rules everything will be just fine that they have no other technique than to try to chase away the person bringing the news they don't want to hear. The why-don't-you-go-away chants aimed at me--and I have been here since Alex decided one day on the old Spotlight board to start this place because there were no band-only boards around--are ridiculous...especially coming from people who have little or no experience with the band. I almost NEVER discuss the whether someone should or should not get the band. I answer inquiries into regrets, and complications and other areas where I have experience. Frankly, I don't care who gets a band and who doesn't. But I DO care when people are being fed bullshit. If someone--or an Army, for that matter--does not like me or the way I respond to posts, they might want to hit the ignore button and remove me from their view. THAT would be the intelligent thing to do...which is why I don't expect those who claim I'm terrible to read to do anything like that. They would rather mis-read, misunderstand and mis-paraphrase me...so that they have a place to hang their fear of failure. Again...my problem is not with people getting or not getting the band...my problem is with ignorance and lies.

Yes...THIRD and LOW.