I too was a bander at one time. I worked in a hospital and there were 5 of us who got it including my husband. In the beginning we all had success, however, for me it was short lived. I only lost 24 lbs and gained almost 50 back. After a few years my restriction was getting worse and I decided to look into the revision. I found out several things...my band was placed too high (by a different surgeon), when he sutured the band to my stomach the sutures punctured my stomach in two places, and my band was ulcerated. I had to first get my band removed to allow the ulcer and my stomach heal and then three months later went back for the sleeve. My husband established care with a surgeon a few weeks ago only to find out that his band was "too tight." Which resulted in weight gain from almost two years of eating slider foods. As for the other 3 women who had the band in 2009 and 2010 when we did, NONE of them are happy with their bands and two are looking into revision now that they've seen my success. Yes, the band was the craze several years ago, however, the surgeon who did my sleeve...his practice is no longer doing them because of all the complications and failure rates. Also, the sleeve is not as "new" as some believe. Back when the bypass began 20 plus years ago, they used to do the sleeve on super obese patients as a first surgery to get their weight down to minimize the risks of the bypass surgery. A lot of these patients lost so much weight and never bothered going back for the second part of the surgery. If you look under anniversaries...a few weeks ago I seen someone celebrating her 20th year post op. It's believed that the sleeve will have better ratings than the bypass, but since it hasn't been an exclusive surgery as long as the bypass it will take several years for the statistics to show it. As for your SIL, the sleeve is very different than the band and she will be thrilled with the success compared to the lack of with the band!