Crisscat

Just a follow up to the original post, I had my appt today. Pretty much aligns to what others were saying their requirements were.
I have support sessions I have to attend (3 of them)
Lab work, chest xray, cardiologist, an ED scope and meet with Psych & Dietitian. I have to be in the program for 3 months before surgery can be scheduled.
Everything else I have recently done so I was able to meet the rest of the requirements to the program.
Insurance wise I was pretty lucky, no strict guidelines. Seems pretty clear and straight forward.
No surgery date until well into 2022 though. They mentioned in our educational meeting today that surgeries
are backed up and no openings are left before the end of the year due to Covid restrictions.

First, I'm not sure if I read your post correctly? Do you actually want WLS surgery? Or are you feeling pressured into it? Or is it that you DO want it, but that you want the sleeve but feel pressured into Rny?
Second to answer your timeline question, I'm from Canada so it may be a little different fyi...I didn't have to do any sort of supervised diet. I had actually cancelled my surgery twice out of fear/trepidation, BUT if I hadn't, the time elapsed from date of referral to the probable first (cancelled) surgery date would have been 9 months. If you include my cancellations, then it was 19 months till I got my surgery.
I had to:
attend a 3 hour info session get an EKG (twice cuz I cancelled) lab work (twice cuz i cancelled) sleep study (this was actually kinda cool, lol) 1 20-30 min. appt each with: a nurse, dietitian, social worker meet with surgeon (twice cuz i cancelled)

Like everyone else said it varies. My insurance did not require anything. My doctor required:
1 pre-op nutrition meeting, 1 psych evaluation, EKG and Blood work, and because I have gastroparesis I had to have a MRI and X-ray.
I have now completed all that so we will be setting a date next week.

Understandable. We are only ready when WE say we are ready, not when anyone else tells us so.
Success is better achieved when we are in the mindset to achieve it.
Good Luck! ❤️

I agree that just randomly issuing a referral without having discussed it with you is unusual and potentially annoying. My PCP was more like "You know, being overweight is hard on the body, have you considered weight loss surgery?" Only when I indicated that I was open to the idea did he send a referral. But then, my PCP doesn't send ANY kind of referral without talking to me first.

I don't think that's overzealous at all. My surgeon scheduled about a month or six weeks out. That gives you a month to get everything done.

I guess I am just alittle confused with the beginnings of pursuing a gastric sleeve.....
For the past 2 yrs or so I have had my PCP make referrals on my behalf for weight loss management whether I wanted it or not. I went for a colonoscopy and only saw that Dr one time which was the day of my colonoscopy. Next thing I know after the colonoscopy Im getting phone messages from the weight loss management section of the hospital telling me I have several referrals and to contact them.
To say I was pissed is mild lol. I guess I wanted to make the move myself and not be thrust into it. Of course Im way over weight, of course my health is suffering not to mention my mobility is next to none. Im just a procrastinator.
I have been on several weight loss journeys within that 2 yr period. I did have a medically supervised diet for 5 months that I did. I lost weight but quickly started gaining it back after I fell last Christmas and injured my knee. Fast forward to July of this year and I had a gall bladder attack and made a trip to the local ER and yep you guessed it....by Monday morning I had another weight management referral......blah lol plus a referral to a general surgeon regarding the gall bladder. This lady was a real trooper lol she got to hear me complaining about all these referrals and my weight loss struggles; ironically the more I talked about it with her the more infuriated I got for getting all these referrals for a gastric bypass that I didnt want. Luckily I suppose she listened so Im going for a gastric sleeve appointment next week Thursday.
She told me she wouldnt require a supervised diet and that I could just move on to the surgery itself. I guess Ill find out next week if she remembers telling me that or not.
As far as I am aware I am going for a preop educational appt but from what Ive read in here there seems to be alot more to it. I see ppl say their surgery dates are in the far future and not anything soon.
What are some of the timelines any of you are experiencing? I think I may have a rude awakening come next week Thursday lol

I've been battling my weight since I was 6 years old. I've been big for as far back as I can remember. I did just about every diet there was and not a single one worked. Eventually I just gave up. I had looked briefly into WLS in my 20's but I didn't think I'd be able to change my eating habits so drastically. I didn't think I had that kind of willpower. Plus, potential complications scared me and the permanence scared me. So I stopped looking into it.
When I was 21 in May of 2009 my eldest niece was born. I was still in pretty good health despite being over 300 pounds. So I didn't really have the determination to go through with WLS. However, when her sister was born in February 2019 my health was very bad. I was 389 pounds, I have two permanent back injuries (one caused by my osteoarthritis), high blood pressure, tachycardia, hypothyroidism, the aforementioned osteoarthritis, I was pre-diabetic, have EoE (an autoimmune disorder), and I'd had brain surgery in May 2017 for my trigeminal neuralgia. When I held my new niece I was hit with the realization that if something didn't change, if I didn't find a way to get myself healthier and lose weight, then I likely wouldn't be around to watch her grow up. I cried, because watching my eldest niece grow up has been my greatest joy. It broke my heart that I may not be around to watch her sister grow up.
That made things more real for me, I suppose. It pushed me into making that change and taking it seriously. I was referred to a bariatric surgeon and had to do a 6 months of monitored weigh-in's per my insurance. I didn't actually have to LOSE weight. I was just told not to GAIN weight. But, I took the initiative to try and make myself as successful as possible by using that time to prepare myself for a new way of eating. I used the first month to cut out seconds and cut my portion sizes down. The second month I cut out soda. The third month I cut out rice. The fourth month I cut out Pasta. The fifth month I cut out bread. The six month I cut out potatoes and Beans. The last two months before my surgery (they were overscheduled and pushed me back) I just maintained that diet and on my surgery date I was 321 pounds, meaning I'd lost 68 pounds on my own. I'm still very proud of myself for that.
For me, the final push was my family. My family is my strength. They are what pulled me through the absolute worst time in my life (August 2016-May2017 when I had a 10 month TN flare that led to my brain surgery) when I KNOW I would have given up without them.
Since my weight loss surgery? I have a new niece (from my brother and his wife) and my first and only nephew (from my sister and her husband). Now that I've lost over 200 pounds I don't worry so much that I won't be there to watch them grow up. And when I see my 2 year old niece light up when she see's me I know I made the right choice, the best choice, to have this surgery because now I get to watch her and her brother grow up just like I've got to watch her 12 year old sister grow up and just as I'll get to see her cousins grow up.
Everyone has a different reason for why they do this. Sometimes it's for family, like myself. And sometimes it's personal. Every person who goes through this has a different journey, different experiences, and a different story to tell. And I wish you the very best on your own journey.

Technically I didn't have the gastric sleeve surgery as I had the Loop DS/ SADI-S/SIPS surgery instead, BUT my surgery INVOLVES a gastric sleeve stomach. It just has the added intestinal bypass bit. I don't know if that counts for what you want to know though lol. But I'll answer anyway about my own WLS experience.
I'm 15 months out. I had only one complication. That complication? I developed a wheat allergy. Any surgery with the malabsorption bit has something like a 3% chance of developing either a wheat allergy or Celiac Disease. I just happened to be one of the unlucky ones, but the bright side of it is that it keeps me on track because I can't eat 95% of the foods I used to love now due to the allergy lol. If I had to do it all over again I'd either stick with the surgery I chose or go with the old fashioned DS (but only because I really hate Constipation issues and with the old DS you have the opposite problem, which is a problem in itself I guess lol).
I was told the best WLS options to help with diabetes or pre-diabetes are ones that have malabsorption. And those are the ones that involve the intestinal bit (this was what my surgeon told me, btw because diabetes runs in my family). Those surgeries are Gastric Bypass, Duodenal Switch (DS), or Loop Duodenal Switch (SADI-S/SIPS). When I first went in for my surgery consult in May 2019 in which I'd had my mind set on the Gastric Sleeve I was told that since I had a BMI above 50 (it was almost 61 at the time) I was in the highest class of obesity and classified as 'super morbidly obese' (I cried). They recommended the DS or Loop DS to me because statistically they have the highest weight loss percentage and because I'm partially disabled (due to back injuries and osteoarthritis) I needed to really rely on average statistics (if you're not disabled and can exercise and follow your surgical and dieting guidelines then you can by all means surpass the average so don't get stuck on statistics if you don't have those issues). However, I also bounced around with whether I wanted that or Gastric Bypass due to potential GERD issues with the Loop DS because of the sleeved stomach (my gastroenterologist wanted me to do the GB lol while the surgeon was pushing for the DS or Loop DS). I ended up choosing the Loop DS after months of going back and forth between that and the Gastric Bypass. I had high blood pressure before my surgery and because mine is genetic (literally my sister is the only adult in our family who doesn't have it) I still have it. I was TOLD if my high blood pressure is genetic then the surgery likely wouldn't help it. It did improve it though. I used to take my BP meds every other day, but now I take them every three days and my blood pressure has been perfect with that.
In the end the choice of what surgery you choose is very much your own. Do your research. Weigh the pro's and con's. Ask the surgeon questions. If you actually go to the office and SEE people (damn Covid may make it so you don't see people) ask if they've had surgery and ask them about their experiences (I did). Just choose whatever surgery you feel comfortable with. Every surgery has their ups and downs and everyone's experience is different.
Also, congrats on the start of your journey and I wish you the best! You can do it!

bypass patient here. Really the main complication you have to consider with the sleeve is potential GERD - it happens to about 30% of sleeve patients. There are other potential complications, of course, but other than GERD, they're pretty rare. And IMHO, the benefit of losing a massive amount of weight outweighs almost any potential complication. Being super morbidly obese (and I started there, too) is a serious co-morbidity on its own...

I'm about 8 months out from getting sleeved. Like you I was generally pretty healthy aside from my weight. For me the surgery went smoothly as did recovery. I had almost no complaints or issues. I do occasionally get reflux, but its usually when I choose to eat something too close to bedtime so I generally try to avoid that. The only other issue really is that sometimes Vitamins on an empty stomach make me feel nausea. But really that's about it. I don't have any foods that give me problems or anything else really. I've been pretty lucky. Given my experience I would definitely do the sleeve again.

I started out with a 49 BMI, and I got the sleeve. I’m six months out and I just hit a BMI of 29. No complications whatsoever, but I also was very healthy prior to surgery. My only comorbidity was being super obese. I love that I feel the “same” for lack of a better description. I still have the cast Iron stomach I used to have (just a lot less of it) and basically the only change has been my hunger doesn’t control my life anymore.

Part of my reason for picking the sleeve was that I wanted the surgery with fewer long term complications- if something was going to happen I wanted it to happen right away so I wouldn’t worry about it. With that said, complications in either surgery are very low. I don’t think either one is the wrong choice. If I had it to do over again I wouldn’t change a thing.

regain can happen with any surgery, even the most powerful of all, the DS (duodenal switch). Losing the weight and keeping it off takes a lot of commitment - for life. People who say you're taking the easy way out are dead wrong. This takes A LOT of work.
Hair loss is very common with all weight loss surgeries. the good thing is, it's temporary. It grows back. And a majority of us don't lose enough for others to notice (although WE notice it, of course...). A few people don't lose any hair at all. To many of us who are long past that stage, the hair loss was a small price to pay for the benefits we got from the weight loss.
Vitamin deficiency can happen in bypass patients if they don't keep on top of their Vitamins. You will have to take vitamins for life regardless of surgery, but the consequences for slacking off are more severe for bypass patients than sleeve patients. However, if you're diligent about taking your vitamins, vitamin deficiencies are pretty rare, even in bypass patients

it sounds like you need to do more reading and research. Spend some time on this forum - there's a lot of good info here and a ton of people who've had the various surgeries. Also, there are a lot of books out on weight loss surgery (WLS). One that comes to mind is "Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies" - I haven't personally read that one, but a lot of patients claim they really liked it and got a lot of out of it.

See my post on My sleeve experience - it’s long and detailed. The pluses - weight loss to goal, no Vitamin deficiencies. The negs - GERD!!!
Do it again? Tough to answer, because it’s been 15 years and I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have it. Dead? Massive Stroke? Or maybe a healthy, but fat 51 year old? Who knows? Lol.

Quality of life is severely diminished with GERD, but my friends have had the bypass, and that’s a tough road too. My advice? If your happy, healthy, but fat - don’t do anything. Wear beautiful clothes, don’t take yourself too seriously, laugh, enjoy your friends and your life!
If you’re suffering and the future is looking bleak, grill your doctor about GERD and find a surgeon that understands it and mitigates the risks. See my post for all the right questions!
I’d do the sleeve, but find the right surgeon. The ones who’ve been doing for over 20 years are the best - they know some tricks to avoid GERD, and they test you for GERD before surgery. If your surgeon doesn’t mention GERD or downplays it - RUN!

My final straw was realizing that I just kept gaining and gaining and I was too fat to enjoy my life. I couldn’t play with my kids, I was afraid to meet new people and see that look of judgement. I was exhausted and felt like I was moving a mountain every move I made. I was always worried about not fitting in chairs, I wouldn’t be able to fly in a plane, walk a mile, forget it. I felt trapped in a prison that i had made myself.

If you’re happy where you are, this surgery might not be for you. I wasn’t happy and I was getting more miserable every year.