leebick

I am also unsure as to which procedure would be the best for me. I have made a list of pros and cons for both bypass and sleeve and still cannot decide. One of the biggest things that has me leaning towards the sleeve is my fear of dumping. I had my gall bladder out in 1995 (age 39) and had no problems with any foods until about 5 years ago. Now I find that if I eat certain foods (pizza, Chinese food), I am in the bathroom within 30 minutes, having terrible diarrhea. It's really awful! The thought of having dumping most of the time for the rest of my life is horrifying to me! Another thing that concerns me with bypass is the malabsorption. I understand that this is intended and is part of the reason bypass is so successful, and also that with careful eating and supplementation, malnutrition does NOT have to occur. However... I worry about my age, and aging. I will be 60 next summer, and while I still feel young and have no physical ailments, I see what friends are going through as they age. What happens if I've had bypass and then have a major medical crisis, like developing cancer, for example? How do bypass patients fare through chemotherapy? Is the malabsorption a problem for them? (There IS a fair amount of cancer in my family, so this isn't a far-fetched thought.) And what about aging, in general? Will having gastric bypass mean it'll be more difficult to maintain health as I become elderly- so would the sleeve be a better choice? Then there's the weight loss itself. My NUT tells me that sleeve patients generally lose less weight, all told, than do bypass patients. Will I not be as successful meeting my goals, or will my 'expected' loss be less than I'd like because of having the sleeve? On the other hand... bypass is the gold standard, weight loss is faster, and usually more weight is lost. There isn't as much data on sleeve surgery success rates because it's a newer procedure. I just read an article that says it seems that sleeve patients actually have a higher regain-rate than bypass patients, so there's that to consider and makes me think perhaps bypass is the better choice. But... am I going to regret bypass at times, like when I cannot toast my daughter's marriage with champagne, or have a slice of her wedding cake, without spending the next half-hour in the bathroom... for the rest of my life? I know most of these questions are actually unanswerable, because we are all different physiologically and anatomically. It's really hard to decide, though, especially as I have no co-morbidities at all, and am not "addicted" to sugar or high-glycemic carbs (we've had 6 packages of Girl Scout Cookies in the cabinet for a week and I haven't touched them- not even tempted). I know it's good to not have any issues, but this also means I don't have any factors that would guide me toward one surgery or the other. I have to decide soon- I have a final weigh-in next week but have met all the pre-surgery goals (meetings, weight loss, etc) and will meet with the surgeons soon after that weigh-in to schedule surgery. It's just so hard to decide.