lellow

Doctors no longer wanting to place a band is actually not a global phenomena, just to be clear. In Australia, lapbands are still routinely placed. I have concerns with anyone who talks about long term complications without context. "Complication" is such a subjective word. There may be more complications with lapband surgery (ranging from minor to major) but the ones experienced by sleevers are often more significant, and often require far more invasive surgery to rectify. I don't think any complication should be taken too lightly here. or the long term affects of both, not JUST in weight loss but overall health.

I don't think this is as simple a decision as someone saying 'go for it'. There are many factors to consider for both surgeries and these shouldn't be glossed over. These include complication rates, types of complications, ability to rectify complications, access to after-care, quality of aftercare, and as a veteran of WLS, the LONG term ramifications of WLS. It's hard to believe that concerns like 'i need to eat for health reasons' might be anything you might worry about now, but believe me when I say it's possible. I have had my band loosened when I was losing too much. Nice to have the option, but not something you think about when you're heavy and only just starting out. It's why, when my band developed a leak and I had the option of revising to another band or a sleeve, I chose another band. Because I weighed ALL the factors and came to the best decision for ME. Not you, not the guy next door, and not my insurance company or the doctor I happened to be seeing, but me.

and from a long term perspective, this is NEW. I got accused of being narcissistic, self absorbed, insensitive when I was losing because for the first time I actually gave myself permission to focus on ME in order to succeed. People don't like change at the best of times, foist it on them and they will react unhappily.

BUT give it a year, maybe two. A new normal will take over. You won't be talking about it that much, eating a certain way will become accepted as 'just the way it is' and your weight loss will not cause so much waves among the people you love.

Trust me. My adult kids and my partner don't even think about it anymore. So this is not the end of anything, it is a learning curve for all of you, and if you ride it out, I promise it won't stay like that forever.

I will admit this is something I've had a lot of years to think about. And for a lot of years I was offended that my ex found me more attractive (and was more jealous) when I was thin than when I was heavy.

But I think we judge people too harshly. Love and attraction are not always tied in. When we're single, we look initially for those who we find attractive so why wouldn't we even when we're with them long term? Love can make someone more attractive, sure, but physicality is still important. I will not lie and say that when my guy gains and gets that horrid beer belly, that I find him as attractive as when he is working out and is lean and fit. Do I love him any less? NO.

Gaining weight is no different to suddenly having a comb-over, or wearing sandals with socks, or growing a ZZ top beard. I find none of those things attractive, and it would probably make me want my guy less sexually if he did one or all of the above, but I would still love him.

And the fact that more girls pay him attention when he works out is NOT lost on me, so of course I feel more jealousy.

And in the end, he feels all those things for me too, so I know that while his love for me never ebbs, I need to own the fact that I may not be AS attractive to him if I do things or become someone he wouldn't normally find attractive. Does it mean he doesn't love me? Not at all.

The hormone you're talking about is ghrelin and I don't think lap banding reduces the production of it. However the band does put pressure on the vagus nerve which can provide feelings of satisfaction for long periods of time, sometimes 24/7, I guess.

aww girl, you are too, believe me.

Plus, it didn't work :/ He kept playing Assassins' Creed!

my goofy selfie to try to get my man off his PS4 and call it a night

CG my dearest! Thank you, good to see you too, lovely lady.

I'm slowly trying to get back up to speed again after a few (unrelated) health issues. I hope it means that I will be kicking butts and taking names again soon! xx

I actually went and got 0.1cc of the 0.2cc out yesterday. I talked to my doctor and she said maybe I only needed a smaller fill after all. So we took it out.

So right now I'm 0.1cc up from where I *WAS* feeling hunger, and nope, no difference. Still no appetite, still no interest in food. So I've decided to keep this itty bitty 0.1cc and just set alarms to eat. It's how it works for me. It's not a bad thing as long as I manage it.

Lol I'm Asian. Asian food is pretty much all I want to eat. And lots of Chinese food is healthy. Stir fry without heavy sauces is healthy. Home cooked Chinese is not smothered in sauce, so ask if they can use a little bit of oyster sauce or soy and keep it 'light'. I will have stir fries at least once a week and honestly, stir fries done right will have minimal sodium, lots of veg, Protein and very little fat.

The fastest weight loss for a lot of patients, from what I've seen over the years, has been on the pre-op diet and in the weeks post op. Then it stabilises. It's a lot of weight to lose, I agree, but it will not stay at that rate, don't worry. =

No it's not normal. Eating should not be uncomfortable and refluxing your food at night is a pretty good sign that you're too tight.

To be honest if you've hit goal anyway I would suggest that an small unfill would relieve the pressure and also allow you to eat comfortably, and enough to not lose anymore, but maintain.

I would be explaining all this to your doctor. Being too tight for a while could have caused secondary problems, and if fills aren't working, before getting anymore, I'd be asking for an xray to check for a slip, a upper GI or something.

My NSV: last week my 22yo son said to me that he can't remember what I looked like when I was heavy.

5 years + banded, I've been heavy longer than I have not, but he can't remember anymore. He was 17 when I got banded.

I agree, I think if I was the kind of person who might say 'oh unfill me so I can eat more" I wouldn't have gone the band. But the band has been great in that when I started losing too much, I was able to keep it a little loose so I felt hunger, and if I gain a bit too much, I have it filled and I'm back on track. I have maintained my weight, even with the complication of the leak, to within a normal range for over 5 years now. When my band was leaking and I had the option to revise to sleeve or band last year, I chose the band again, because it works for me.

I think you do need to have more patience and self control with the band, it's very easy to cheat the band and yourself. My doctor still advocates the band over sleeve because it has longer term, mostly positive stats and in Australia, is actually quite a successful procedure, I suspect, in part to the fact that our aftercare is cheap and accessible. And it can be successful, as I'm testament too. Lapband surgery is like pregnancy, everyone has a horror story but you don't often hear about the successes. And there are plenty. People like me, for whom it wasn't hard at all.

So do your research and choose what is best FOR YOU, not what was best for everyone else.

People attack what they don't know. They have no investment in being informed, or prepared, like you do, so they won't understand, so their reaction will be of disbelief and horror. Invite them to do their research, but should they choose not to, then maybe gently suggest that until they do, they may wish not to comment.

Ok I thought I had explained it well enough but I obviously haven't. I am a lap band veteran, I've had my band for a long time. and for me green zone means no appetite. I can eat fine, in fact yesterday I ate 2 cups of chicken and veggie stir fry for dinner, DESPITE not feeling like it. I'd like to know who out there that is 'too tight' can do that. I know what tight feels like, I'm not too tight. What I am, is uninterested in food. The band dims YOUR appetite, well it takes my appetite right away. Funny that it can be different for different people, huh?

I know I need to eat to fuel my body, in fact I have no interest in losing any more weight, I'd like to maintain actually. My doctor gave me a tiny fill because I was able to eat quite a lot, had hunger pretty consistently and had gained a little bit, but even that little fill pushed me into the zone of 'no appetite'.

I understand it's not what people typically feel, which is why I was looking for others like me. I want to hear about how people manage the 'flip side' of the band, the one that sometimes removes any desire for food, pretty instantly. And to be honest, it's quite a nice side effect, after struggling with hunger all my life (and the better part of the last 2 years with the leak). Yes I often forget to eat, especially in the last week since it's pretty 'new' to me again, but that's why I posted, to talk to others who experience the same side effect, to find out what strategies THEY use. How do THEY ensure they don't lose too much? How do THEY ensure that they eat well and remain healthy? How do I make sure I get enough in my system so that I can continue to lift weights and exercise to maintain the HEALTHY life I've adopted.

I know it doesn't make a lot of sense to many of you, after years of trying to lose but it's a legitimate question and I'm hoping people understand the context now. I am not anorexic, I don't want to be a size 0 again. I just want to live with my band, just like every else is trying to, so I was seeking support from others who are experiencing the same effects as me.

B-52 I remember reading that you have no appetite too. I was hoping you would reply. My weight got low, as in I was a size 0 low, and I was still dropping. I was not eating when left to my own devices - being a single mum at the time, no one was making sure I took care of myself - and I'd just forget. After my doctor got concerned, I did for a while set alarms on my phone to remind me to eat, so I might go back to doing that. I got used to that for a long time, until the leak, until I experienced hunger again...

I guess this is something for me to get used to again. It's a recent thing so maybe I just need to learn to live with it again, and not get too low this time. I have lost close to 6lbs already in the last 9 days so before it goes much further I need to take stock and put in measures.

It's funny when my band started leaking I almost wondered if I'd imagined having no hunger when in the green zone. But now, I know it's very real. I have no interest in food at all. Though I guess it's easier to try to eat than struggling not to eat.

This happened to me the last time I was in the green zone. I lost all appetite, eating became a chore and I would look for ways to avoid eating rather than eat. I lost a lot of weight and eventually my doctor threatened to unfill me, so I started forcing myself to eat.

It's only been a week since my last fill (and I haven't been in the green zone since my band replacement) and already it's happening. I don't feel "hungry" at all. My stomach is growling but I have no desire to eat, and in fact the thought is a bit distasteful. I know it's the band because when it's not at this fill level I still enjoy food.< br />
This last fill was only 0.2cc. Not a big fill at all. In the last 9 days since my fill, I have probably gone 6 days with only one meal a day, because as long as no one is watching and making sure I'm eating, I just don't eat. I don't even think about it. I'm hoping it will settle this complete distaste for food won't be so bad.

Am I the only one for whom the band works like this?

Hmm, I don't know if it's a slip or not but anything that causes pain and/or discomfort should be investigated. I wouldn't even wait that long, I'd be calling saying I'm experiencing pain and need to see my doctor asap.

I'm in my 5th year with the band, had complications (a leaky band) and opted to have it replaced with another band last year. I hit goal in 7 months from my first band placement, have been under goal for most of the last 5 + years except for a couple of months when the band was leaking. I'm back under goal now, got there within weeks of my new band being placed.

The bands placed 10 years ago are also different from the bands placed 5 years ago, and again different from ones placed more recently. Like any new medical innovation, it takes years to learn and improve on it. So the longevity of the bands placed 10 plus years ago shouldn't be compared to the longevity of the ones placed now.

I would keep replacing any band that 'gave out' between now and the end of my life if they were to fail, as long as I could do that. I hope every band I get will last forever, but I'm also prepared if they do not.

Refilling by removing all the Fluid and then replacing it actually causes more swelling than just a normal fill imo. I have had both because of a leak, and removing all the Fluid is much harder on me. I would not prefer to do that if I can help it.

I feel for you, OP. I think it's horrendous that your slip was not picked up as soon as you experienced some symptoms. I felt a quick loss of restriction in Jan 2012, and my surgeon immediately began investigation, though it did take many many months to resolve. I'm horrified to hear that your complication was not picked up until it had done so much damage. I worry sometimes that the band requires SUCH a high level of aftercare that if patient and doctor are not in sync, bad things happen. And that you would have to pay so much to have it removed when it was damaging you, astounds and saddens me. I'm in Australia, where we have universal healthcare. That wouldn't have happened here.

I have been lucky in that aside from the leak and the issues associated with that (repeated operations to resolve) the band has worked incredibly well for me. I'm sorry your band has caused you so much pain and suffering. And I don't blame you for wishing you'd never had it done, given your particular circumstances.

You lose a lot of weight in your pre-op diet. You're eating next to nothing. Of course you will lose. But that sort of massive weight loss is not common or particularly healthy. I won't lie, I was you, it KILLED me those weeks when the scale didn't move. I didn't get it, how could it possible be?

It's coz we're not machines. The math of calorie counting looks great on paper, but the truth is there are a tonne of biological and environmental reasons why someone will lose weight. So it might go fast, then slow, then fast, then nothing. The trick though is to be consistent. Continue to eat well, continue to exercise, and it will happen OVER the course of several months or years. The biggest hurdle all of us, as weight loss patients, face is those plateaus, those slow losing periods, when we feel like it's ALL for nothing, and it's never going to work for us. That's why diets constantly fail.

But this is not a diet, THIS is your new lifestyle. Keep at it. There will be many times of the coming years when you will lose and gain and maintain and then put on 5 lbs (like I did recently) but knowing and embracing your new lifestyle and not giving up on it will get you the results you need. Don't panic.

yes there are people who won't lose. Or more like what B52 said, they lose and then they gain back. A small number may be the result of complications, but most won't be. I have lived without a functioning band for 15 months when it was leaking and I gained. Because it is harder without the band. The flipside of that is, it's EASIER with the band.

What the band doesn't do though, is make sure you get regular aftercare to ensure you get the right fill level. It doesn't make sure you're informed and learning about how to live life with a band. It doesn't make you exercise and get more active. It DOESN'T stop you putting food in your mouth, or grazing all day long on milkshakes and chocolate, if that's your inclination.

So yes ^^ there are lots of little ways people can NOT lose weight. Assuming the band is going to do it all for you is probably the fastest way to failure. It makes it easier, it doesn't do it for you. And as long as people have free will, some will still choose not to do what it takes to lose weight, and that's ok, as long as they own their choices.

Just choose to not be one of those people.

Weight loss made me more confident, which made me speak up more at work, take on more and assert myself more. The other side of that was that once where I was the 'invisible' heavy girl in the room, my hard work actually got noticed, and I was encouraged and headhunted for bigger and better things. So yes, I pursued a career change that I would never have had the belief in my myself to try for before. And I've been really successful in it.

I'm going in for a fill in a few days. I can eat Breakfast, eat rice and bread, I don't even feel the band unless I've eaten way too much and it kicks back. I can't go 3 - 4 hours without hunger right now. And I'm asking for 0.25cc.

If you're close, or think you're close, go slow. It doesn't hurt to go slow. In fact if you get too filled and overtight, you actually reverse all the good work by causing your stoma to swell and cause discomfort. I got a 1cc fill and was throwing up Water. I had it taken out and have since had 5 x 0.25cc fills with no issue, and I need another.

If you feel like another might be in order, take it really easy, especially if you think you're close.