MacMadame

This is freaky. I've never heard of Twitter until today when I was reading a very old Newsweek in the waiting room of the doctor's office. Then I see this post! Anyway, I don't see any particular need to be on it or that somehow it will help me communicate with WLS patients better. Sorry.

I didn't think anyone said that. I was worried the OP would think I meant that. So I was happy that no one was taking it that way.

I think for most of us, there are 3 concerns when it comes to long-term: 1) Will I lose all my weight 2) Will I keep it off long-term 3) Will I find myself getting sick as a direct results of this surgery For #1 the 5 year study done by LapSF says that you will lose your weight. For #2, you can regain with any surgery if you don't make the lifestyle changes. But that people are finding with a sleeve is that if the boughie size is small enough, the sleeve doesn't stretch out and the long-term regain stats are good. For #3, partial gastrectomies have been done on ulcer and stomach cancer patients since the 70s and those people go on to have healthy lives with no direct impact from the surgery. The only thing to watch out for is osteoporosis, which can be solved by taking a Calcium supplement Here is a link to LapSF's 5 year study. Although they studied people for 5 y ears, they only reported results from when they started using the smaller boughies. Note that each line is a set of patients. So one set of data is for patients 3 years out from the sleeve, one for patients two years out and one for patients 1 year out. It's not the weight lost by a single set of patients at 1 year, 2 year and 3 year like I thought when I first read it. SSAT - SSAT 2008 Annual Meeting Abstracts - Laparoscopic Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy for Morbid Obesity: a Report of a Five-Year Experience with 750 Patients</b> The interesting thing is that the 3 year patients had a higher BMI on average and so lost more absolute weight even if their EWL % was lower. The 3 and 2 year patients lost more absolute weight than the RnY group they were compared to, in fact. I think that's promising because it shows you *can* lose a lot of weight if you have to.

Your welcome. And I just want to clarify that I wasn't saying the OP should get her head shrunk because she's nuts and would clearly mess up a sleeve too. I edited a few times to make it clearer I wasn't saying that, but tone can be so hard to convey online. But not all WLS fails because of physiological reasons so it's good to examine that part of it if you are in the position of not having lost a lot with your surgery. So it was more of a general statement than a specific one.

I haven't even got WLS yet and I've found a potassium tablet in my poop. They are coated and sometimes they don't dissolve like they are supposed to.

Your head? Heh heh. You walked right into that one, plain!

The sleeve stomach is more the size of a man's index finger. It holds about 4-5 oz. by year end. It doesn't stretch out more than that because it's made from the more muscly part of the stomach, not the stretchy part. [in the early days, they used a bigger size and those stomachs did sometimes stretch out, but the new smaller size doesn't.] As for what it feels like to be full, it's a normal functioning stomach, just smaller. So, for example, you can wash food out of it with liquids about as well as you can with a regular stomach. (Which is to say, you can a little, but not really, not like with a band.) You still aren't supposed to drink while eating because of the size -- you can't get in all your nutrients if you fill up your sleeve with Water. I think if you weren't able to make the lifestyle changes necessary with a band, then you might want to look at the DS as well as the sleeve. Both surgeries cut out the portion of the stomach that produces ghrelin, the hormone that stimulates your appetite, so hunger control is a more sure thing than it is with a band. However, the DS also has a malabsorption component that allows people to continue to eat similar types of food to what they ate before -- it's more Atkins based than South Beach diet -- which the sleeve (and the band and RnY, for that matter) work best with. Which is not to say there aren't food restrictions -- too many carbs make some DS patients have smelly farts and diarrhea. As far as being reversible is concerned, the only reason to remove a band is that it's causing health problems. A VS isn't going to do that because it's a real stomach, just smaller. It turns out you don't even need a stomach to live (my aunt lost hers to cancer) so you shouldn't be having health problems just by having a little one. Most of the sleeve complications come early on and are fixable -- over production of acid, strictures, etc. Other complications are the sort of things that can happen to anyone and are extremely rare. The only serious complication is a leak and that generally isn't an issue after two weeks. Your stomach heals around the staple line and then you can't "bust a gut" any more than you will bust your current stomach if you eat too much. The DS does sometimes come with health problems because of the malabsorption. In that case, the intestinal switch part can be reversed but not the stomach part. RnY can technically be reversed but it's a big scary operation and is usually only done if your RnY is killing you. Even then, you may have an atrophied pylorus value and scar tissue that keeps you from having a real stomach like you had before. The band is easier to reverse but it sometimes causes permanent problems, too, because of scar tissue that forms around it. You need to accept that if you get/have one, your stomach may never go back to the way it is before if it has to be removed. In the end, being reversible doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If you aren't willing to commit to WLS because it's not reversible, then they shouldn't have a band either IMO. WLS is a big commitment and you need to go into it thinking it's for life, because it almost always is. But the big thing you need to think about if you want to revise your surgery is why exactly did it fail... if it didn't fail mechanically, if your head is the problem, then whatever you revise to will fail as well IMO. You can eat around any WLS even the a bazooka surgery like the DS. If you didn't like the full feeling of the band, maybe you'll find something to not like about another WLS and you'll eat around that too. The surgery only works on your guts... the head work needs to come from somewhere else.

I have a hiatal hernia. I'm not surprised. The report said it should be asymptomatic but something has to be causing this horrible heartburn I've got and since even water aggravates it, I'm pretty sure it's the hernia. Plus I was tested for that h.pylori.whatever stuff and I haven't got it.

That doesn't mean his 99% isn't his own opinion vs. having sat down and compiled all the stats from his practice. In fact, him being concerned about it makes it all the more likely that it *feels* like that many to him. We tend to notice what concerns us more. 99% is just not a believable number when the national average is only around 40%. That's not to say that it isn't a high number or not a problem, just that I bet if he actually compiled some stats, he'd get a number like 87.4 or 72.1 -- something really high but not so high as to include pretty much anyone who is married and has WLS.

Sounds like one of those 67.3% of all stats are made up stats.

Many insurance companies prefer the 6 month diet to be done by your PCP anyway. Why not see if you can get into see your PCP earlier? Just makes sure they know what documentation is needed and do it properly every month.

Goodness, yes.

It's a reprint of some article that appeared in Self magazine. So it's not really from what I'd consider a credible journalistic source. And it shows.

Having good karma doesn't mean being a door mat. Tell them that they owe you some $$ for their screw-ups and then find another surgeon!

Unfortunately the OH software sucks. I've learned to work around it but if another site popped up for sleevesters that had better software and decent traffic, I'd be all over it!

That would make me mad too.

You really are a trouble-maker, Froggi. Do you enjoy making people feel unwanted and defensive?

They give you blood thinners. First in the hospital via IV, then they switch you to pill form (or some people get to shoot themselves up at home - fun!) to go home. You take them for ages and then it's all over. Yes, you can exercise eventually. I don't remember being told not to exercise at the time, but a) I hadn't just had surgery and it was 28 years ago and I don't remember all the details.

Talk to WASaBubbleButt. She already did it.

You probably don't have the energy now. But as you get farther out, it should come back. I also don't believe in the whole "sexual peak" thing.

Everyone in my family is either obese or has struggled with their weight or doesn't appear to struggle but has very disordered eating or some combination of those things.

Vanilla Slices?

Except it make it hard to follow or understand why SickNTired is so upset.

Hee. I was just about to post that you could change it until I read this. Yeah, that's what bugs more than a few innocent typos. That I'll get used to all this bad grammar and spelling. I'm not worried about the Gen Yers though. My spelling has improved DRAMATICALLY since I started using spell check. Now when I'm without it, I'm much more likely to catch a typo on my own.

Ah, the "joys" of first time parenting.... plain posts like a girl!!' (not really.)