lbugher

Another failed lap band here! I am getting revision to RNY tomorrow morning. I am so excited to get this awful thing out of my body. It did NOTHING to curb my hunger or appetite. All it did was make eating healthy food hard, and make eating slider food rewarding. Couldn't get a chicken breast and a cup of broccoli down because it would get stuck in the band but I could eat a greasy cheeseburger and a milkshake with zero issues. I wish the lap band procedure would be banned all together. It's useless at best, and potentially fatal if it's left alone to cause issues.

Band-to-bypass patient here. I think I may have perspective that will help you considering I've been through it myself.
I never lost weight with the lap band because it didn't work for me. It never reduced my appetite and it merely felt like a road block between my esophagus and stomach. food slid through the band pretty easily (if I chewed well enough and/or ate slider foods) and considering it was much easier and more comfortable to eat that way, that's what I did. The lap band does NOTHING to stop you from eating as much ice cream or cheesy mashed potatoes as you want.
With the lap band, if it's adjusted properly, you get a hard "stop" when your pouch is full. You have to be careful with the bypass because "full" is a much more gradual feeling. Eat slowly, or else you could end up eating too much and that is painful. Restriction is there but it's a gradual feeling rather than the sudden feeling of "I can't eat anymore."
Keep in mind other benefits the bypass has that the lap band doesn't: malabsorption, reduced/muted appetite, and prolonged satiety. I would get hungry pretty fast after drinking Water with my lap band (I always waited the 60 minutes we were told to wait and even so, the food washed right through my pouch). With the bypass I'll stay full for several hours. I get hungry but not *famished* to the point where I'm shaky and desperate.
You're just 1 month post-op but it will get better feel free to PM me if you want to chat. Having had a lap band before will make this experience different for you. I'd get so frustrated when people told me the lap band was "just a tool" but it felt like someone gave me a bent screwdriver when what I needed was a jackhammer. The bypass is a much more powerful tool. I lost 20 pounds in 6 months with my lap band and then stopped. I was so frustrated with feeling miserable that I just gave up and ate what I wanted. With the bypass I've lost 101 pounds in 5 months. It's night and day, truly. Even on days when I want to give up and eat what I want, I can't. And I really appreciate that. Try eating a couple Cookies and see what happens 😂 actually, don't. For me it's really bad farts but for a lot of people it results in terrible dumping so it's just not worth it.
Anyway, I hope I provided some comfort for you. It will get better and you'll lose weight!!! It's such a better tool than the lap band (or as I call it, crap band!)

It's very normal to regret surgery early on - many people do, and it's easy to see why. You're in pain from gas and the incisions, your weight hasn't gone down (and may have even gone up!) due to all the Fluid pumped into you during the surgery - as a side note, STAY AWAY from the scale for the first month!! And you may want to eat but cannot, you probably feel nausea and fatigue. Recovery SUCKS. Then ketosis symptoms set in. For me it was dry mouth, leg cramps when walking up a hill, brain fog, and general fatigue. I drank my 64 ounces of Water a day and still had cotton mouth. It was crazy. That being said... being in ketosis means you're burning all your fat stores to stay alive so you just cope with it. My dietician said you could resolve the symptoms temporarily by drinking 24 ounces of juice for 3 days. But the thought of drinking something so sweet made me want to gag so I never did that.
Anyway, IT DOES GET BETTER. When you step on the scale 4 weeks after surgery you'll see the number has dropped significantly. Your clothes will start feeling looser. The pain and nausea will subside. And you'll start to feel closer to normal. Every week it'll get a little better. Eventually your energy levels will normalize, and then they will increase as you get slimmer. It's fantastic.
I'm 5.5 months out now and feel great. I can eat relatively normally (albeit much smaller portions than I used to) but nothing bothers my tummy. My appetite is back but it's not impossible to ignore like it used to be. I feel 20 years younger and am in really good shape. I love being able to take stairs without losing my breath, bend over and pick things up off the floor without my joints and back aching, chasing my kids around, walking fast, and crossing my legs It all is worth it in the end!! Hang in there!

Band-to-bypass patient here. I think I may have perspective that will help you considering I've been through it myself.
I never lost weight with the lap band because it didn't work for me. It never reduced my appetite and it merely felt like a road block between my esophagus and stomach. food slid through the band pretty easily (if I chewed well enough and/or ate slider foods) and considering it was much easier and more comfortable to eat that way, that's what I did. The lap band does NOTHING to stop you from eating as much ice cream or cheesy mashed potatoes as you want.
With the lap band, if it's adjusted properly, you get a hard "stop" when your pouch is full. You have to be careful with the bypass because "full" is a much more gradual feeling. Eat slowly, or else you could end up eating too much and that is painful. Restriction is there but it's a gradual feeling rather than the sudden feeling of "I can't eat anymore."
Keep in mind other benefits the bypass has that the lap band doesn't: malabsorption, reduced/muted appetite, and prolonged satiety. I would get hungry pretty fast after drinking Water with my lap band (I always waited the 60 minutes we were told to wait and even so, the food washed right through my pouch). With the bypass I'll stay full for several hours. I get hungry but not *famished* to the point where I'm shaky and desperate.
You're just 1 month post-op but it will get better feel free to PM me if you want to chat. Having had a lap band before will make this experience different for you. I'd get so frustrated when people told me the lap band was "just a tool" but it felt like someone gave me a bent screwdriver when what I needed was a jackhammer. The bypass is a much more powerful tool. I lost 20 pounds in 6 months with my lap band and then stopped. I was so frustrated with feeling miserable that I just gave up and ate what I wanted. With the bypass I've lost 101 pounds in 5 months. It's night and day, truly. Even on days when I want to give up and eat what I want, I can't. And I really appreciate that. Try eating a couple Cookies and see what happens 😂 actually, don't. For me it's really bad farts but for a lot of people it results in terrible dumping so it's just not worth it.
Anyway, I hope I provided some comfort for you. It will get better and you'll lose weight!!! It's such a better tool than the lap band (or as I call it, crap band!)

Band-to-bypass patient here. I think I may have perspective that will help you considering I've been through it myself.
I never lost weight with the lap band because it didn't work for me. It never reduced my appetite and it merely felt like a road block between my esophagus and stomach. food slid through the band pretty easily (if I chewed well enough and/or ate slider foods) and considering it was much easier and more comfortable to eat that way, that's what I did. The lap band does NOTHING to stop you from eating as much ice cream or cheesy mashed potatoes as you want.
With the lap band, if it's adjusted properly, you get a hard "stop" when your pouch is full. You have to be careful with the bypass because "full" is a much more gradual feeling. Eat slowly, or else you could end up eating too much and that is painful. Restriction is there but it's a gradual feeling rather than the sudden feeling of "I can't eat anymore."
Keep in mind other benefits the bypass has that the lap band doesn't: malabsorption, reduced/muted appetite, and prolonged satiety. I would get hungry pretty fast after drinking Water with my lap band (I always waited the 60 minutes we were told to wait and even so, the food washed right through my pouch). With the bypass I'll stay full for several hours. I get hungry but not *famished* to the point where I'm shaky and desperate.
You're just 1 month post-op but it will get better feel free to PM me if you want to chat. Having had a lap band before will make this experience different for you. I'd get so frustrated when people told me the lap band was "just a tool" but it felt like someone gave me a bent screwdriver when what I needed was a jackhammer. The bypass is a much more powerful tool. I lost 20 pounds in 6 months with my lap band and then stopped. I was so frustrated with feeling miserable that I just gave up and ate what I wanted. With the bypass I've lost 101 pounds in 5 months. It's night and day, truly. Even on days when I want to give up and eat what I want, I can't. And I really appreciate that. Try eating a couple Cookies and see what happens 😂 actually, don't. For me it's really bad farts but for a lot of people it results in terrible dumping so it's just not worth it.
Anyway, I hope I provided some comfort for you. It will get better and you'll lose weight!!! It's such a better tool than the lap band (or as I call it, crap band!)

It's very normal to regret surgery early on - many people do, and it's easy to see why. You're in pain from gas and the incisions, your weight hasn't gone down (and may have even gone up!) due to all the Fluid pumped into you during the surgery - as a side note, STAY AWAY from the scale for the first month!! And you may want to eat but cannot, you probably feel nausea and fatigue. Recovery SUCKS. Then ketosis symptoms set in. For me it was dry mouth, leg cramps when walking up a hill, brain fog, and general fatigue. I drank my 64 ounces of Water a day and still had cotton mouth. It was crazy. That being said... being in ketosis means you're burning all your fat stores to stay alive so you just cope with it. My dietician said you could resolve the symptoms temporarily by drinking 24 ounces of juice for 3 days. But the thought of drinking something so sweet made me want to gag so I never did that.
Anyway, IT DOES GET BETTER. When you step on the scale 4 weeks after surgery you'll see the number has dropped significantly. Your clothes will start feeling looser. The pain and nausea will subside. And you'll start to feel closer to normal. Every week it'll get a little better. Eventually your energy levels will normalize, and then they will increase as you get slimmer. It's fantastic.
I'm 5.5 months out now and feel great. I can eat relatively normally (albeit much smaller portions than I used to) but nothing bothers my tummy. My appetite is back but it's not impossible to ignore like it used to be. I feel 20 years younger and am in really good shape. I love being able to take stairs without losing my breath, bend over and pick things up off the floor without my joints and back aching, chasing my kids around, walking fast, and crossing my legs It all is worth it in the end!! Hang in there!

It's very normal to regret surgery early on - many people do, and it's easy to see why. You're in pain from gas and the incisions, your weight hasn't gone down (and may have even gone up!) due to all the Fluid pumped into you during the surgery - as a side note, STAY AWAY from the scale for the first month!! And you may want to eat but cannot, you probably feel nausea and fatigue. Recovery SUCKS. Then ketosis symptoms set in. For me it was dry mouth, leg cramps when walking up a hill, brain fog, and general fatigue. I drank my 64 ounces of Water a day and still had cotton mouth. It was crazy. That being said... being in ketosis means you're burning all your fat stores to stay alive so you just cope with it. My dietician said you could resolve the symptoms temporarily by drinking 24 ounces of juice for 3 days. But the thought of drinking something so sweet made me want to gag so I never did that.
Anyway, IT DOES GET BETTER. When you step on the scale 4 weeks after surgery you'll see the number has dropped significantly. Your clothes will start feeling looser. The pain and nausea will subside. And you'll start to feel closer to normal. Every week it'll get a little better. Eventually your energy levels will normalize, and then they will increase as you get slimmer. It's fantastic.
I'm 5.5 months out now and feel great. I can eat relatively normally (albeit much smaller portions than I used to) but nothing bothers my tummy. My appetite is back but it's not impossible to ignore like it used to be. I feel 20 years younger and am in really good shape. I love being able to take stairs without losing my breath, bend over and pick things up off the floor without my joints and back aching, chasing my kids around, walking fast, and crossing my legs It all is worth it in the end!! Hang in there!

At 5 weeks you're still healing! 17 pounds down is excellent. Your surgeon shouldn't be so hard on you. Do you have a dietician you talk to? See if they have any suggestions. I drink Bone Broth for Protein (I hate the shakes too but I force one down a day - I'm 5.5 months out so I can handle it but at first I had to find alternatives because like you I'd spit them out when I tried the first few weeks). You can also drink Fairlife skim milk. It's not sweet or thick and goes down easy. Protein Water and Gatorade are good, too. I drink those on occasion when I fall short on protein. Hang in there! It'll get better.

It's very normal to regret surgery early on - many people do, and it's easy to see why. You're in pain from gas and the incisions, your weight hasn't gone down (and may have even gone up!) due to all the Fluid pumped into you during the surgery - as a side note, STAY AWAY from the scale for the first month!! And you may want to eat but cannot, you probably feel nausea and fatigue. Recovery SUCKS. Then ketosis symptoms set in. For me it was dry mouth, leg cramps when walking up a hill, brain fog, and general fatigue. I drank my 64 ounces of Water a day and still had cotton mouth. It was crazy. That being said... being in ketosis means you're burning all your fat stores to stay alive so you just cope with it. My dietician said you could resolve the symptoms temporarily by drinking 24 ounces of juice for 3 days. But the thought of drinking something so sweet made me want to gag so I never did that.
Anyway, IT DOES GET BETTER. When you step on the scale 4 weeks after surgery you'll see the number has dropped significantly. Your clothes will start feeling looser. The pain and nausea will subside. And you'll start to feel closer to normal. Every week it'll get a little better. Eventually your energy levels will normalize, and then they will increase as you get slimmer. It's fantastic.
I'm 5.5 months out now and feel great. I can eat relatively normally (albeit much smaller portions than I used to) but nothing bothers my tummy. My appetite is back but it's not impossible to ignore like it used to be. I feel 20 years younger and am in really good shape. I love being able to take stairs without losing my breath, bend over and pick things up off the floor without my joints and back aching, chasing my kids around, walking fast, and crossing my legs It all is worth it in the end!! Hang in there!

It's very normal to regret surgery early on - many people do, and it's easy to see why. You're in pain from gas and the incisions, your weight hasn't gone down (and may have even gone up!) due to all the Fluid pumped into you during the surgery - as a side note, STAY AWAY from the scale for the first month!! And you may want to eat but cannot, you probably feel nausea and fatigue. Recovery SUCKS. Then ketosis symptoms set in. For me it was dry mouth, leg cramps when walking up a hill, brain fog, and general fatigue. I drank my 64 ounces of Water a day and still had cotton mouth. It was crazy. That being said... being in ketosis means you're burning all your fat stores to stay alive so you just cope with it. My dietician said you could resolve the symptoms temporarily by drinking 24 ounces of juice for 3 days. But the thought of drinking something so sweet made me want to gag so I never did that.
Anyway, IT DOES GET BETTER. When you step on the scale 4 weeks after surgery you'll see the number has dropped significantly. Your clothes will start feeling looser. The pain and nausea will subside. And you'll start to feel closer to normal. Every week it'll get a little better. Eventually your energy levels will normalize, and then they will increase as you get slimmer. It's fantastic.
I'm 5.5 months out now and feel great. I can eat relatively normally (albeit much smaller portions than I used to) but nothing bothers my tummy. My appetite is back but it's not impossible to ignore like it used to be. I feel 20 years younger and am in really good shape. I love being able to take stairs without losing my breath, bend over and pick things up off the floor without my joints and back aching, chasing my kids around, walking fast, and crossing my legs It all is worth it in the end!! Hang in there!

At 5 weeks you're still healing! 17 pounds down is excellent. Your surgeon shouldn't be so hard on you. Do you have a dietician you talk to? See if they have any suggestions. I drink Bone Broth for Protein (I hate the shakes too but I force one down a day - I'm 5.5 months out so I can handle it but at first I had to find alternatives because like you I'd spit them out when I tried the first few weeks). You can also drink Fairlife skim milk. It's not sweet or thick and goes down easy. Protein Water and Gatorade are good, too. I drink those on occasion when I fall short on protein. Hang in there! It'll get better.

It's very normal to regret surgery early on - many people do, and it's easy to see why. You're in pain from gas and the incisions, your weight hasn't gone down (and may have even gone up!) due to all the Fluid pumped into you during the surgery - as a side note, STAY AWAY from the scale for the first month!! And you may want to eat but cannot, you probably feel nausea and fatigue. Recovery SUCKS. Then ketosis symptoms set in. For me it was dry mouth, leg cramps when walking up a hill, brain fog, and general fatigue. I drank my 64 ounces of Water a day and still had cotton mouth. It was crazy. That being said... being in ketosis means you're burning all your fat stores to stay alive so you just cope with it. My dietician said you could resolve the symptoms temporarily by drinking 24 ounces of juice for 3 days. But the thought of drinking something so sweet made me want to gag so I never did that.
Anyway, IT DOES GET BETTER. When you step on the scale 4 weeks after surgery you'll see the number has dropped significantly. Your clothes will start feeling looser. The pain and nausea will subside. And you'll start to feel closer to normal. Every week it'll get a little better. Eventually your energy levels will normalize, and then they will increase as you get slimmer. It's fantastic.
I'm 5.5 months out now and feel great. I can eat relatively normally (albeit much smaller portions than I used to) but nothing bothers my tummy. My appetite is back but it's not impossible to ignore like it used to be. I feel 20 years younger and am in really good shape. I love being able to take stairs without losing my breath, bend over and pick things up off the floor without my joints and back aching, chasing my kids around, walking fast, and crossing my legs It all is worth it in the end!! Hang in there!

I'm only 5 months out so everything is still pretty fresh... losing 100 pounds in that short of period of time has messed with my mind a lot so I get it. I put my pants on every morning and brace myself for them to be too tight when in reality this size is already getting a little loose on me (down from a 26 to 18, soon to be 16 I imagine within a month or so). When you've been obese your entire life (as most of us have) it takes some getting used to in order for our reflection to match what we see in our mind. In my mind I still picture my large arms, big tummy, double chin, and large thighs. So it's weird to look at myself and appear relatively slender.
It looks like you're several years post-op. Have you considered therapy? It may benefit you to do it if not!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

No more sleep apnea!! I used to wake up 3-4 times a night to pee. Turns out that's a symptom of sleep apnea. I was so tired all the time, falling asleep at the wheel when driving and falling asleep at work. I thought I was having incontinence issues but nope, it was my body fat crushing my windpipe in my sleep. Now I sleep like a rock and it's great. I'm so much more well rested and have much more energy. No more falling asleep everywhere!!!

I've read it has something to do with where they cut the stomach that stops your brain from registering hunger. I'm 5 weeks post op and I don't feel hunger either. I'm totally fine with that!! But it is dangerous because, if I could, I'd just choose not to eat at all. Or take my Vitamins and drink my Protein Shakes, gross. But I do what I'm supposed to do so I'm carrying on, Down 43 pounds so far!

I had the lap band before and it didn't work. It didn't do anything to stop my hunger, it didn't change my metabolism, it didn't stop me from absorbing everything I ate... all it did was put a little speed bump from my esophagus to my stomach. Sometimes that speed bump would get stopped up and cause me crazy pain, sliming, and barfing. Usually healthy foods did that to me (chicken breast, broccoli, carrots, celery, lean steak, etc.). Unhealthy foods went down like a breeze so I could eat greasy cheeseburgers, cakes, Cookies, milkshakes, cheese fries, etc. without a problem. The lap band, essentially, trained me to eat junk food and avoid healthy food.
Then I got it revised to RNY and it has been a TOTAL game changer. There are a number of reasons it's working way better for me.
1) My physical appetite is gone. And I mean, GONE. Even if I swim (I'm always starving after I swim) or walk all day or do heavy manual labor... I just never want to eat.
2) Sugar is repulsive now. I don't want anything to do with ice cream, cakes, or cookies. Those used to be my favorite. I tried to take a sip of regular orange juice (because I remember how refreshing I used to find it) and gagged because it was just way, way too sweet.
3) I crave nutritious foods, mostly seafood and vegetables. Which is weird because I was never much of a veggie lover before. I only ate them because I felt like I had to.
4) I only absorb 75% of the food I eat, and I don't eat much to begin with so I've been dropping weight like crazy.
5) I get full, quickly.
6) If I try to eat something I shouldn't (like something high in fat) I'm immediately punished with a wave of nausea and I won't try it again.
All this factored together has made RNY a very powerful weight loss tool. If you are an emotional eater or food addict RNY would be torture. The head hunger definitely doesn't go away. While physically I don't want to eat, mentally I wish I still could. It's not because I eat to cope but because I just always loved food. I'm a foodie and I love cooking, baking, restaurants, trying new foods, etc. I can't have it anymore and it makes me a little sad but I've been killing myself from my "hobby" so it's time to let it go.
But if you're someone who is determined to eat because you feel like you HAVE to (like an emotional or addictive issue) you'll want to get therapy before having surgery. For me, that pain from over-eating is NOT worth it at all. It's very unpleasant and I eat very slowly to avoid it. But for some folks, the pain is worth it to eat what they want, and that's where re-gain/failure comes in. That and mindless snacking on simple carbs. You've gotta say no to the chips, crackers, and popcorn.

I've read it has something to do with where they cut the stomach that stops your brain from registering hunger. I'm 5 weeks post op and I don't feel hunger either. I'm totally fine with that!! But it is dangerous because, if I could, I'd just choose not to eat at all. Or take my Vitamins and drink my Protein Shakes, gross. But I do what I'm supposed to do so I'm carrying on, Down 43 pounds so far!

@JRT Mom Don't they remove some of the intestine though? And isn't recovery much harder? My primary motivation is getting healthy for my kids - but I don't want to die on the operating table or have some severe complications and leave them with just one parent I chose the band because it seemed so safe. But man, it sure sucks, and it doesn't help me. Do you like the bypass? Does it make you feel better?