taosgal2

It's a long story but familiar to many of you on this site. I was banded in October three years ago. From the first few weeks, my restriction was fickle. Sometimes I couldn't drink Water. Sometimes I'd be a meal related to work and after one or two bites, BAM, I'd need to "productive burp" accompanied by slime. I was often uncomfortable and anxious when I ate. naturally, it was still easy to eat ice cream. During the three years, i had five or six adjustments, but never had more than 4 cc fill. I often would be "stuck". This was not a case of not chewing sufficiently, just a device that did not work for me. At one point I had lost 12 pounds, but it was because i was having very expensive meals delivered. I was self pay for $15,000. The after care was minimal. I finally decided to have it removed and my insurance, Anthem, approved the removal. Oddly, it was less expensive to do self-pay ($3800) than to use my insurance, which would have resulted in a $6,000 copay co insurance. Had the surgery on Monday and am SO GLAD to be free of the lap band. But, it's a bit more complicated. Turns out that scar tissue had formed under the band, restricting the stomach. So the restriction I had was from my body rejecting the foreign object. The doctor had to remove the scar tissue. Now I'm anxious about will it stay restricted (probably not) So, I paid $19,000 to put and remove a device that gave me an eating disorder. If you're thinking about doing this surgery, do more research. UCLA has recently sent out a newsletter article that said that lapbands are only effective for 20% of the people that are banded. I'm done with surgeries. I'd frankly rather be 50 pounds overweight than suffer from a bad intervention.