CowgirlJane

I have a brochure from BioEnterics, from 2001 when I was banded, that clearly states that the band is a temporary device and will most likely need to be removed. I have no idea why i didn't remember that from when I was deciding on the surgery... but it is obvious to me that this has been known for a very long time. The vast majority of people will eventually have to have it removed, whether due to slip, lack of weight loss, esophagus problems etc etc. Back when i frequented the old Yahoo Bandster group, anybody who spoke out about the issues with the band was also not welcome. although, at that time the term always used was "non compliant" like every side effect was the patient's fault. I sometimes fear the sleevers have nearly that same rabid enthusiasm...and that the issues that do come up tend to be minimized. I hope that the long term stats continue to support that, and that sleevers are right - that this is a relatively low risk procedure with good results and low percentage. of serious complications.

I just had band removal surgery which was about an hour surgery plus recovery. They cut away a bunch of scar tissue etc. I am 3 weeks out now from that and doing great, but I have to admit that I didn't feel great the first 7-10 days - combination of headaches, queasy stomache, and other after effect of the anesthesia. I had some tenderness, but the biggest problem weren't my wounds, but more how I felt overall. When they do the sleeve surgery, there will be a hiatal hernia repair too. I already know that anthestesia effect on me, but I am trying to "guess" how the sleeve surgery will feel compared to the band removal. I have read alot of people say they feel really awful the first day or two after surgery and I am wondering more about that. I am thinking that one big reason is that you can't drink until after the leak test. I am thinking another reason is that the stomach is really swollen, so even when you can drink, it isn't very much at once. I would think the queasiness might be bad too. Anyway, I know we are all different, I am just trying to mentally prepare myself, without getting too freaked out.

I think I shared this in another post, but I wound up finding that the soy in all the medifast products didn't agree with me. Alot of gurgling gassy feeling and the doctor told me that means I am probabaly not digesting it very well, not absorbing the Protein very well. I think the drinks taste okay, but i don't think they taste better then whey protein drinks. The whey drinks you can buy at GNC are cheaper then medifast too - so post surgery I am definately not doing medifast.

I used to get them (and I was not as heavy then!) and a dermatologist diagosed them by the nickname HIDE. You can go online and see more information. I feel very lucky that my case seemed to be mild and I haven't had a re-emergence in over 10 years (knock on wood). My first one showed up within a few weeks after having a baby. I have always suspected that i picked it up at the hospital, but the baby (now 19) never got it.

I have the same surgery date, and the same questions!

A couple of tricks that I have used in the past (I have not been sleeved yet, but they may still be applicable): -Devise a plan, get a hold of good eating guidelines and know your targets (what you should be eating, portion size, frequency etc) -Use a smaller plate/cup. Even now, I often server meals off a side dish plate rather then a big dinner plate -Plan and pre-portion food - measure it, weigh it or whatever, but since you are still learning trust the food scale and not your eyes -Stop eating when you are done with your pre-portioned amount, or you feel satisfied, whichever comes first. You may still be learning when you are really satisfied, so leaning on your plan /guidelines can be very helpful -I personally do best eating small amounts every 2-3 hours so I don't get hungry, but the small amounts need to be Protein first and follow the healthy guidellines (ie chips don't cut it). If I get over hungry, I overeat - plain and simple

My band has been out for 3 weeks. I am so glad that I did this in seperate surgeries as this experience has erased ALL doubts from my mind about proceeding with the sleeve. My band has been unfilled for years, and who knows when it slipped. I didn't have a bunch of problems, but could eat alot - really didn;t feel the restriction. Well, since about 10 days out from the band removal, I have been STARVING. I feel like I can eat pretty much 24/7. I have been shocked by this. It confirms that while i may have bad habits, I may have emotional eating issues... the real problem is that I am physically hungry all. the. time. The drive for food has actually been a bit embarrasing, a bit horrible feeling. I feel like I could eat dinner, right after I just ate dinner! It isn't like a binge in the sense of it is just a constant all day feeling of being hungry and not satiated. Sometimes, first thing in the morning, I am not hungry, but otherwise, pretty much constant. I have been trying so hard to keep my eating in check, but I know that if I don't do the sleeve, i am going to just keep gaining weight and my quality of life will be severely impacted.

I am not anxious in general, but medical procedures send me around the bend. any. medical. procedure. I about had a panic attack before getting an endoscopy! Anyway, i had the lapband surgery 10 years ago and just about ran away at the last minute. I was sooo nervous. What I realize now is that I was worried about the wrong thing... that lapband surgery wasn't too difficult, it was living with that dang band that was the hard part!!! I had the band removed a little while ago. I was pretty nervous, but, I knew it had to be done. I wanted it gone in a planned manor, and not in an emergency (band had slipped so it could have become an emergency event) so it was a little easier for me to be determined. Now, I am waiting for my sleeve date. I am worried, but my anxiety about the surgery itself has been greatly alleviated by talking to the doctor and staff about my specific worries. i was able to take my general anxiety on the subject, and turn it into a handful of specifics and then really talk through those. I am a very analytical person, so that made me feel alot better. I think I am actually now looking forward to getting this sleeve surgery now!

I think you are in the wrong place.... pretty much everyone here is either sleeved or planning on getting one. Does your physician have good stats on plication results?

The only one that was strongly expressed was the intuitive though. I swear, everytime I take this I get a slightly different answer, but I don't remember exactly ExtravertedIntuitiveThinkingJudging It turns out I am a field marshall...lol. Since I am a project manager I guess that makes some kind of sense. There is a quote that I thought fit me to a "T" - as I never really wanted to lead I just keep finding myself outfront. "Hardly more than two percent of the total population, Fieldmarshals are bound to lead others, and from an early age they can be observed taking command of groups. In some cases, they simply find themselves in charge of groups, and are mystified as to how this happened." I don't know what this has to do with WLS though.

I am not worried about not being able to eat a big christmas dinner or anything like that. It is more like, I want to plan to succeed, plan for success. Try to make choices, where I can, that make success easier - that is all. I also tend to think that there really is never a good time.... my college age sons will be home for the holidays over that time. It will be good to have the company while I am recovering, but a part of me would rather be alone too...lol some people have super easy recoveries and there is really no way of knowing in advance how it will go - I am just assuming that I will be pretty tired and feeling kinda cruddy at times. I already know that I have a hard time recovering from anesthesia - hence planning for 3 weeks off, just in case I need it. When I had the band removal surgery, I had some emotional meltdowns as part of recovery. I WANTED that band gone, so it wasn't remorse or anything... it was more like the drugs just triggered some strong emotions is all.

I strongly second Amanda's advice. I became obese when i was 5 and when i was 21 years old I got down to a slim size and I was very athletic and in shape. I attracted alot of attention I wasn't used to. I loved it, but also hated it. I really didn't deal with it very well and of course regained the weight. If you get the sleeve surgery and you get stressed by this issue, you run the real risk of sabatoging yourself. I cannot emphasize enough just how hard that was. You said that you have been told that you have the kind of personality that people hate you for. What do you mean by that? It concerns me that you have experienced the world as kind of against you... you likely have very valid reasons for those feelings, but it will be very hard to go through life with that view and keep a healthy relationship with food. I generally don't feel regrets about life choices, but I seriously seriously seriously regret that i couldn't keep that weight off when I was your age. I would be so much healthier and have such a better quality of life. That was back before i had stretch marks, before i had the big extra skin on the belly - all that. It is really worth investing in yourself right now, at this time in your life. I wish you the best of luck

I have some flexibility in taking time off from work, but if I want to do the sleeve this year (I have insurance approval in hand for 2011!) the only time I can take 2-3 weeks off in a row is December. Pre-op diet would start right after Thanksgiving and so I would be either doing pre-op diet or freshly sleeved through the holidays. I could take more time off in the spring, but need to double check that my insurance doesn't change with the new plan year and risk my coverage. I guess I consider taking the step to getting the weight off as a good gift to myself, but I also want to be careful to be setup for success. Would any of you who have already been sleeved be concerned about scheduling surgery over the holidays??? What would you advise your friend/sister based on your own experiences? It does have a certain appeal to know that by the first day of summer, I could very well be 80-100# lighter!

I have two big concerns. The first is reflux/GERD. Now, I know not everyone gets it, and most people who do get it can control it with drugs. A nightmare scenerio for me would be to have a lifelong problem of uncontrolled/partially controlled reflux. What a nightmare scenerio - and a sizeable minority of sleeve patients have some degree of reflux. Anyway, there is some disturbing indication that people 3-6 years out start seeing an increase in that problem. My second big concern is leaks. I am a revision from the band, and have a higher risk of leaks. What is scary is that leaks are always bad, but some people's journey to recovery is especially hellish and long (like a year!!!). I have tried to pick an experienced surgeon and doing what I can to minimize the risk, but I had the band for a long time so have mounds of scar tisue. It is very hard to get an actual risk percentage for a revision patient, but it is more then 1%, the published rate for "virgin" sleevers, probably less then 10% rate based on what I hear. I have never seen a published study on the rate for revision patients though. In the end though, when i look at my overall situation... I realize that i am pushing 50, pre-diabetes, i have sleep apnea, i have arthritis is both knees and my feet are killing me.... if I keep this weight on I have a very very high chance of dying way too young and suffering alot from my comorbidities in the meantime. Heck, I am already suffering from joint and back (and feet!) pain. when you do the total risk assessment, for my situation, it seems like it is worth it to gamble on the sleeve and hope like heck I am in the majority that don't have major issues. I am looking forward to resuming being active in all the things I LOVE to do. It will be alot easier after i have lost 100-140 pounds.

That is great! I had my band unfilled YEARS before removal surgery. I was surprised to discover that even an empty band gives some restriction because I have been super super hungry since about a week after it was removed. I don't have a sleeve date yet because I can't find a long window to be off work yet....

First, when I saw the photos of the surgery - I was very confused why I couldn't "see" the band in the before photos. You know, how in the drawings there is this nice white plastic device around the picture of the stomach? couldn't see it. It turns out that your body totally encases that band. I did not have band erosion, but there is still a "encrusted shell", for lack of a better term, around it. ewww. No wonder he band removal is a surgery that took some recovering from, they did a lot of digging around in there, it wasn't just like unbuckling the stomach belt... Second surprise is that now that I am 2 weeks out from the band removal... I am so hungry I feel like I am going to die. My eating volume has gone up too, even though I am trying to resist. The slipped band didn't provide any restriction, but apparently it did provide at least some appetite control. Oh my, it is still two weeks out before I meet with a doctor who is going to help me with an eating plan and appetite suppressants as a temporary stopgap until I can have the sleeve procedure. I had been doing medifast, but the soy content of that food did not agree with me so I am off it now. I am feeling really worried since I am just super hungry. I remember now why I thought I would be successful with the band, I really am hungry alot! alot.

He did tell me that the main concern on a revision is increase risk of leaks those first few weeks. There isn't alot of published data on leaks for revisions, but he said based on his very limited data, it is probably twice the risk of a "virgin" stomach based on his own practice. We are still talking single digit percent risk. He also told me that revision to bypass has much higher rate of complication - various complications had different risks, but they tended toward the double digit percentages. They told me that they had not lost any sleeve patients (ie no deaths) - revisions included in that ZERO number, so that counts for alot with me.

Okay, the surgeon I picked is very experienced. He used to do mostly lapbands, with some gastric bypass. Now there are almost all sleeves - with the occasional bypass and lapband thrown in. He has done hundreds of Gastric Sleeves and keeps records and stats on his patients. They have good data for 3 years and have results that exceed the "published" success rates. I guess I didn't ask the question of how many actual revisions they have done. It is less then 50. That is a drop in the hat compared to what some of the Mexican surgeons have done. I like my surgeon and their office, have no other reasons of concern, am blessed to have insurance coverage so I am inclined to stay with the path I am on.... but I have always heard that "100" of a given procedure is what makes a surgeon an expert. I am not sure if I should be worried. Given the relative "newness" of the gastric sleeve as such a popular procedure I am curious what others find in their surgeon's level of experience with revisions from the band to the sleeve.

I had the band implanted in March 2001; removed Sept of this year - so 10 years! My band did slip, and other then the fact that I weigh more now then when I weighed when I was banded, I guess I am not too much worse for it, stomach scar tissue aside. There is alot of info out there about how poorly the band performs, but we tend to not want to hear it. I went back through my paperwork and I had a brochure from Bioenterics stating that the lapband was a "temporary device" and would probably need removing. I didn't remember reading that. Looking further, i found a copy of a statement THAT I HAD SIGNED, saying that I understood that the band was not a permanent device and would likely need removal at some point. I have no memory of this, but there was my signature! I guess we put filters on what we want to know and remember. My BIGGEST fear of the sleeve is that "we" are doing that again. I hear very few negatives and I that is exactly how it was with the band in 2001. Sure, we knew about erosions, but that only happened to people who kept their band too tight (who knew that ALL the bands made during that time were probably too tight for most people!). Sure, Slips happened, but that was only to those people who "didn't follow the rules". There was alot of blaming of the people that these things happened to - it was a way of deflecting the real risks I guess. I read a sleeve related post where somebody actually made the statements that "leaks only happen if you cheat on the post op diet" - and I couldn't help but think... sheesh, here we go again. Minimize real and serious risks by blaming the victim when they do happen. I am also very skeptical of certain reported results with weight loss procedures because they do not match my actual experience of people I know. I know several people who had gastric bypass 5-10 years ago and they had very high complication rates. I know only one person who was banded 10+ years ago and still has maintained her weight loss. If she had her band removed, not sure she would tell since she makes her living in a band-only surgical practice. Even a few well known surgeons have had their bands removed! I am normally a very optimistic person, but on the subject of weight loss surgery, well, I guess I think a little skepticism is healthy. Reading forums is very informational, but it is also a poor way to know how things go over the long haul. People tend to move on after awhile AND people who were never successful tend to post less hen the ones who have done well. It tends to bias the impression you get. anyway, I am glad my band is gone, and I do plan to revise to the sleeve, but I do wish there was another path that actually works.

I am very squeamish, but i am still glad I watched the videos. i feel like i understand the actual surgery alot better now. One thing that is kinda funny is that you get the idea that it is very short from watching the video, makes me wonder what they are going to do the whole rest of the time,

interesting as i had not seen this. I have not been sleeved, but had the band removed a week ago - i have been fuzzy headed and really low functioning at work. I had to tackle something that involved alot of numbers and i really had a hard time organizing my thoughts - I had to go slow and carefully. I assume it is the after effect of the anesthesia. When i am sleeved, I plan to take a little more time off from work because this has been rough.

As I mentioned on your other post, Dr Weiner is a very experienced bariatric surgeon. I have a lot of confidence in him and that hospital. I personally feel that while I received excellent medical follow up after my gastric band, i don't think I really had the opportunity for other follow up and support. That was pretty typical of lapband follow up 10 years ago everywhere i think, but i sought out a surgeon for sleeving who really emphasizes a 2 year follow up. i think I need it. If I were in your situation I would not hesitate to use Dr Weiner as a surgeon but I would ask very detailed questions about his sleeve patients (he keeps follow up info on his patients and can provide stats). I would also look for your own education/support closer to home. That might be a nutritionalist or support group or counselor, I am not sure which as i think I need all of the above.

I think I underestimated this. It is a relatively simple surgery - done as a day surgery. Doc warned me I would be sore, especially around the area where the port was. Also, they do alot of adhesion removal, so I knew there would be tenderness. That has been as expected. What I didn't realize is that a week later, I am suffering from some mental fuzziness, general tiredness and overall blahs. My blood pressure was very high on the day of the surgery and today was checked by my PCP, and is very high still. My midsection measurement with a tape is 1-2" bigger then I was presurgery and I am very gassy. I had done medifast prior to this surgery and started it up again but honestly haven't felt 100% great since starting it (even though it really helped my blood sugar and i lost weight). Dr wonders if I can't tolerate the soy and if that is one of the things going on - so I am stopping the medifast for now. I think that just getting knocked out and cut into is a bigger deal then we give it credit for. Good news is my wounds are healing up well. I have a desk job, but I am wishing I had taken a few mroe days off from work as I am just sort of mentally confused, disorganized and just not really up to the job. I guess we all recover differently. I am forewarned though, when I am ready to do the sleeve, I am going to plan on 3 weeks off, not the 1-2 that i hear others talk about. I think I am just more sensitive to the sleepy drugs or something.

This is my last remaining issue to get comfortable with before deciding to be sleeved. I never had reflux until I got the gastric band in 2001. I just got that removed and want to see what happens from here. i don't have Barrets, but here is what terrifies me.... I get the sleeve procedure and get really bad GERD which forces me to revise to RNY which i DON'T want. I am afraid that once I decide to get the sleeve that it will set off a cascade of events - and lead to an end result I don't want. I need to come to peace with this risk before proceeding as there are some studies that show that reflux problems increase after the 3 year mark post sleeve surgery.

Prof Weiner did my original lapband surgery in 2001. I received very good care at that same hospital, although they kept me longer then i wanted to stay. At that time, German hospitals tended to keep people much longer then American counterpart for everything - not sure if that is still the case. This surgeon is very experienced in all types of bariatric surgery. Even though the band was a failure for me (just got it removed last week), I feel that Dr Weiner is top notch. For what it is worth, other doctors were impressed by how tiny and unnoticable my surgical scars were too.