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Hey all! Just wanted to let you know I received payment from AB Health (out of country) for revision surgery. I was really surprised that they would pay for it (they paid me for a portion of my lapband surgery back in 2008)! Every little bit helps so happy to see a check for just over $2000! Back on the line of credit (although I could use a new ikea kitchen!!)! . Nina (Dr. Aceves office) was awesome in getting everything to me for being itemized for a bill! Now to remember claim it on my income tax time!!

hi and congrats ur approved for it. iam in thhhe preop process adn indeed havean upper gi series planned for mondday a.m.i am seeking revision surgery to to a failed byppass. iwll have lapbanding as my pouch has stretched out and i hav e 3 comorbidities. i acant wait to get started i hav ebeen gaining due to meds i am on. ouch.

Both of my port revisions were paid for by insurance....they were "medically necessary"

I appreciate your responses!!!!! I was thinking that there was something wrong with me. I will be two weeks post op tomorrow (I could cry with joy!!!). This has been an experience, but there is so much that I still don't know and feel stupid for even asking, now I know how some of my students feel. You would think that a grown women would know these things before having a life changing surgery but it happened so quick, my mind is still wrapping around the fact that it is done. The hunger is going away slowly but I have incorporated cottage cheese and small bites of chicken on some days, but after a few bites I am full for the rest of the day. The scales are not showing much weight loss but my nutritionist stated that it all depends on how much weight you have to lose pre and post surgery, I think that I may have lost eight pounds, but I am drinking so much fluid so I did not know if that could be the cause. I am trying to not get down as I thought that I would have lost more by now. Have any of you all struggled with losing right after surgery? Remind you I had lap band revision as I started out around 220 before the lapband and then had the gastric bypass two weeks ago and before going into surgery weighed 165lbs. I welcome any suggestions and or thoughts. Once again I want to THANK YOU for taking the time and helping and supporting me with these questions. I have introduced my friend that is starting the weight loss journey and encouraged her to join as it would be very beneficial for her to have support as well.

Hi, I had a revision from the lap-band to SIPS on 2/14/18. While I eat better by cooking more and making better choices, I'm by far not a perfect eater. I don't count carbs, fat grams, calories, or anything. I just have my meals and try as best I can to eat a "reasonable" amount. I am big on exercise, and I do that for 4-5 days a week for at least an hour to two hours. I have lost weight every single month since the surgery, from as high as 21lbs one month to .2 another month, but again, every month has been a losing month. I'm down from 296.7 to 160.8 as of today which is a little over 14 months out. BMI charts say for my height, I should be around 155lbs. I'm thinking that this is just too good to be true. When is it all going to start caving in or catching up with me? Will I really have to diet or count calories at some point to maintain or is this really my new life. Because if it is, I can really live with this. Anyone else not really dieting, but still losing?

I get it. Went for band revision on 10/21/19 to do the sleeve. So until 11/30/20. I still found rare occasions for food sticking. Sleeve wasn't done last year due to scar tissue so that is why I had issues. Sent from my SM-J337V using BariatricPal mobile app

i know people who've had revisions if they've lost too much. If you don't lose enough some have had their sleeves re-trimmed.

Hello, I am in DFW Tx and have surgery date in April with Dr Alibhai and Matin, I am still trying to decide which surgery I should do! I will be a revision from the sleeve, I have type 2 diabetes that are out of control ( 4 insulin shots a day) can you please tell me if you regret whatever surgery you did or any issues?

I did revision to sleeve from band all in one ! I was 211 on surgery day June 6 th I am now at 178 loosing slowly but I feel so awesome ! The band was terrible vomiting reflux stuck none of that so far 13 weeks out ! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I'll be going in for a one stage revision, and am worried that it'll become a two stage. Are there any people who has had the band for many years? I've had my band for 8 years with good success ~100 lbs with little or no problems and maintained that weight loss but doctor suggested I get a revision to gastric sleeve since I've remained the same now for the last 3 years. I have about 70 more lbs to go. Thanks.

Walk walk walk! It sounds stupid and everyone says it! I flew 3 days post-op. Not painful but exhausting. Wear compression socks and move your feet around. I walked so much in the hospital and didn't have any gas pain! I had a band 1 1/2 years ago and the gas pain was the worst pain I had ever felt. So I walked and 2alked and walked. Worked! No gas pain at all. I am not 5 days post-op from a band to sleeve revision. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using BariatricPal mobile app

OK this post will be long and involved. SO if you don't wanna read it then skip over it. I sent Dr. HUNKY (BILLY) an email stating that I did not want to do the surgery on Friday before having an Endoscopy (ENDO) done. His reply to my email is listed below. It is long so bear with me. __________________________________________________ We can do the endoscopy at the same time if you want. The surgery we have already discussed, namely the correct positioning of your port has to happen anyway. I think it is very unlikely that you have an erosion. Your symptoms are not as dramatic as the patients I have treated with erosion. Because I don't think an erosion is very likely I was hoping to avoid the endoscopy entirely. My thinking was that if the laparoscopy which we would perform at the same time as your port repositioning was totally normal then there would be very little chance that you have an erosion. Erosions always cause lots of adhesions between the liver and the stomach and the port tubing is always wraped up in lots of fat. It is not a subtle finding and easy to diagnose. If on laparoscopy your have none of these findings then I don't think you need an endoscopy. Your symptoms are not at all very suggestive of an erosion. Erosion is just one of the things on the list of things to consider. If you want us to perform an endoscopy while you are under anesthesia we can do so, it just might not be necessary. I think there is a very low liklihood you have an erosion so I was thinking how to minimize the need to perform an endoscopy. If you want to have an endoscopy we would perform the endoscopy first. If there is an erosion I would either wake you up to discuss the erosion and show you pictures and make a reccomendation to you and then you would be able to participate in the decision as to what to do. If there was no erosion we would proceed with our planned revision of your port site to secure the port and reposition the band tubing. Let me know what your thoughts are. If you want to do the endoscopy fist and then schedule the second procedure at a later date that is fine with me. Another strategy would be to perform the laparoscopy to examine what the surgical site looks like (rule out all the adhesions) If it looks fine then proceed with the port repositioning and tubing repositioning. If it looks like an erosion then proceed with the endoscopy. If there was an erosion I could then stop and discuss the findings with you. I'm sure it is possible to get the endoscopy scheduled for friday. It would be easy if we combined it with the laparoscopy and the information at laparoscopy would be useful anyway. If you just want to have a routine endoscopy in the GI suite then let me know and we will work on getting that approved for friday. If you want us to do the endoscopy simultaneously with the laparoscopy then we can do that on friday because bothe procedures would be done in the main operating room which we already have scheduled. As I said, your symptoms are unusual and don't really fall into the pattern of symptoms I have seen in the erosions I have treated. They really appear more like an allergic reaction at this point. I have one other patient who had a red port site after placement of a lap-band in Mexico. I did the endoscopy first and could not find an erosion. I then replaced her port and found lots of adhesions and lots of Fluid around her port site. Now I have scheduled her for another endoscopy just to be sure I didn't miss a very timy erosion. She has no complaints and has not had any problems but she still ended up with multiple procedues. I think that your situation would be similar. I don't think that I will find an erosion on your endoscopy, If we do the endoscopy first but then when I replace the port I find fluid around the port and adhesions with the laparoscopy I will be concerned that you had an infection at some point around the port. We always worry about erosions and since we are not perfect we always wonder if we missed the erosion at the time of the first endoscopy and often would reccomend a second one to be absolutely sure. I hope this helps. Let me know which way you want to proceed or if you need any more information to help make this decision. In the meantime I will see about getting time to do the endoscopy on friday if that is all you want to do. Again I think the liklihood of you having an erosion is very, very low. Dr. Billy ____________________________________________________ Don't you just love him???? So, I am gonna have the ENDO at the same time as my surgery on Friday. That will put to rest any idea if I have erosion or not. OH!! And Donali see in the email where he states that erosions cause lots of adhesions? You came into my thoughts while I was reading that cause didn't you say Lopez said you had lots of them. He thought you were rejecting the band when in fact it was the erosion causing the adhesions. Anyway, I am feeling so much better now. THanks to all of you great people for listening and letting me vent to you. You are all angels to me. VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I started with a BMI over 60, and nobody even brought up DS as an option for me. To be honest, I thought DS was an outdated surgery that's not really being done anymore because of all the risks. I didn't realize it's still popular for high-BMI patients. The surgeon who did my RNY doesn't do DS. He recommended RNY to me rather than sleeve because of my high BMI, since RNY patients statistically lose a bit more than sleeve patients. My understanding is that the sleeve is basically the first step in DS, and that's how the procedure was developed -- surgeons would do the DS in two separate surgeries for high-risk patients, and a lot of them didn't even need the second surgery because they lost enough weight with the sleeve alone. So, that is one option: get the sleeve first and have it revised to DS if necessary. You could also have a sleeve revised to RNY. I remember seeing a bariatric surgeon on YouTube say that he recommends the sleeve to all patients because you can always get it revised, but to me, that's crazy because I don't want to have more than one surgery!

Nope. I had the band, revised to RNY, and had this and every other problem with it. Never lost a single pound with it either. Can't help with the weight gain unfortunately.

Hi Dawn welcome! You can get your fills right here in Reno! We have an excellent Bariatric practice which is made up of four surgeons called Western Bariatric. They are a American Society for Bariatric Surgery Center of Execellence and my surgeon has talked about doing revisions for people who have had surgery elsewhere so I would think they will do fills too. Their phone # is 775-789-9192.

You sounds like me Karen! Lol! My name is Karen, I have a band that has caused me so much reflux that I am having it taken out with a sleeve revision on March 3 too and the doctor is repairing my hernia! Unlike the band where I told almost no one, I have shared my intentions because someone else I work with had a sleeve revision and they are getting tremendous from our coworkers and I decided to draw from that as well. I'm 225 right now and hoping to get to 145. I start 2 weeks of liquids only on Monday! Good luck to you!

Thanks so much to all for your suggestions. Hiatal hernia repair definitely seems like the way to go. And I've had some reflux problems of late, so who knows what the surgeon will find. I don't have any family in the area, and only a couple family members 1500 miles away. My 90 year old mother doesn't need to know. I am very close to my daughter and will tell her soon. At this point, I am thinking I won't say anything before the surgery. I am going to spend a couple days with friends in the city I used to live in. When I return home, IF I find I am more house bound than anticipated (eg not playing bridge, etc), I will say I had a hernia repair. And that will explain everything. My weight loss will be the result of eating (much) less and lots of exercise. Everyone knows I used to spend a lot of time in the gym anyway. Thanks again, everyone! And I know all of you will travel your journey with great success. (The "other") Karen -- yes...we are both revisions and having our surgery on the same day. I would love to keep in touch. Karen W

thank you for your comment. i thought i knew why i was doing this, and up until this week i was happy about it, despite some warnings and misgivings from others, i have a friend right now in kidney failure who was supposed to have revision surgery but the leak wasnt caught in time and he is now on dialysis. i know most wls stories are ones of success and happy outcomes. some arent. i just have been feeling depressed thinking others see me as a failure because i am overweight, and if i choose not to have surgery they are also going to see me as a failure, so either way i am feeling bad about which decision i make.

It may seem judgmental but we don’t want you repeating some of our mistakes. I can answer this from both a VSG and an RNY standpoint. High sugar so soon out from surgery is a BAD idea. For example, a couple weeks ago I was 2 months post RNY revision (for GERD) and had 4 bites of a chocolate frosted donut for my daughter’s birthday. To say I felt like I was dying is an understatement. If you don’t want to be spewing from both ends while it feels like you’re running a marathon, I would suggest a different choice. However, if you are craving chocolate I’d suggest sugar free chocolate pudding made with skim milk and extra unflavored protein powder. It’s better for you than an actual piece of sugar filled chocolate and you may find you don’t enjoy the taste of chocolate anymore anyway.

Just had bypass as a revision because the sleeve was giving major erosive esophagitis… I’ve been waking up with a similar feeling… at first I thought it was reflux again but it kinda feels more like nausea /or throw up stuck an it’s way up… I’m sooo scared that this surgery didn’t work

I was like you no comorbities. I was a great sleeve candidate. I was a terribly slow loser which I learned to live with. I have since had some complications post pregnancy and will be revised to bypass soon. I have developed terrible GERD with my sleeve. Also, some sleeve drs still do not advise taking NSAIDS. I took them after my c-section and thought I was gonna have a heart attack. Since then my surgeon had told me to stop using them. I think this is an area that is still conflicting amongst the sleeve community. People have success with both and there can be complications with both.

Is anyone else having that strange dizzy/lightheaded/foggybrained feeling after surgery? I can't seem to shake it Lapband revision to gastric bypass on 12-14-2016 Weight day of surgery: 308.2 lbs Current weight: 300.8 Total weight loss: 7.4 lbs

That's one of my favorites! Lol Most people in my life know about my lap band and upcoming revision, but in the rare occasions where I would have to explain scars to someone new (like maybe a new boyfriend) that I wasn't ready to spill my secrets too, I always went with "Tijuana knife fight." Got a giggle and ended the discussion!

I am one that does not tolerate a band well. I just have one problem after another. Band induced reflux that no drug resolves, esophageal spasms, now esophageal motility issues, my voice has been affected by the reflux, port pain, etc. I am just simply one that does not tolerate a band easily and this is something that could not have been known before I actually had a band and experienced it. I'm tired of fighting one issue after another so I'm considering a sleeve. I need to decide quickly because I either need to have my band removed or revise to a sleeve. I am pretty pro-sleeve, it has the fewest complications long term between bypass, sleeves, and bands. There is no aftercare, you get a sleeve and you are done. That sounds very appealing to me at this point.

Hi. I’m home as of Friday afternoon. Had a really bad two days in the hospital. The lacerations are more and deeper and they took the beginning of my intestines where the revision was. He felt moving it mid intestines was the best option. It was the “y” area of the RNY that was giving me an issue and was flipping or twisting. So he moved it dead center on my small intestine. So far I’m okay. No bile vomit and nausea. Horrendously sore. My abdominal wall is a mess for sure. I had some bottom end issues as I think i was stopped up and gassy. Surgeon said use an enema today. So far so good. Had to move stuff out. It was horrendous. Worse then giving birth and felt like I was giving birth from there hahahahah Otherwise so far so good. Ty so very much for thinking of me. It’s so appreciated.