Search the Community

I’d look into surgery in a neighbouring country. There are a few Europeans on the forum who may be able to make some recommendations. There are always negative stories & a friend of a friend stories. You can find them about anything. I recently read a story about the prevalence of fungal infections in people who to go to the large nail salons so … People who have good experiences don’t always shout it from the roof tops. We do here though. 🙂 Sure, there can be hiccups & things may not go perfectly to begin but generally everything settles & works out in the end or can be remedied rather easily. Some issues arise because of complications from pre existing conditions too. Talk to people who actually had the surgery (like on here) if you can. You also get negativity from people who think the surgery is an easy way out. It is so NOT easy. They think if you just diet harder & be more committed to exercising you’ll lose weight. If it was as easy as just dieting & exercising you’d be thin now. We all would have been. The negative comments from family &/or friends are why some of us don’t tell people we’ve had the surgery. The potential for developing a drinking addiction arises in response to people not being able to satisfy their food addiction anymore so they turn to alcohol (or sex apparently). I’ve seen stats of 16% after bypass in the first year of which 6% had existing issues with alcohol. Stating a 60% statistic would only benefit the woman in the article’s business by scaring people. If you deal with the issues behind your food addiction your chance for any addiction transfer is negated. It is important to do the ‘head work’ to understand, manage & deal with the issues behind your eating habits, behaviours, cravings, etc. Many people seek the support of a therapist after surgery which benefits their weight loss success & maintenance. The hair loss lasts about three months. Your natural hair loss cycle accelerates in response to the shock of the surgery & your change & reduced diet. So the hair you shed is hair you would be losing anyway - just not as quickly. Your new hair is still growing but just at its usual rate. How many wrinkles you have is much like how much loose skin you will have. It will depend on your age, gender, skin elasticity, genetics, how long you carried your weight, etc. Yes, you likely will look more drawn & have a few additional wrinkles at first but a lot of this reduces in maintenance as your body resettles & you’re eating more & a more nutritious & balanced diet. My uncle told my mother I looked like death when I was near my lowest weight. Now, he tells me I look fabulous. I had a lot of fine lines that developed under my chin while I was losing but they almost totally disappeared in my second year. Sure my marionette lines are deeper & that’s from the skin that stretched from having a fat face. I have the face that is mine now. I have a jawline, a longer neck, cheek bones, & my eyes aren’t as hooded. A few wrinkles are nothing. I’d rather have a few wrinkles or loose skin than be obese & be compromising my health. Besides a little Botox or filler can always help with the wrinkles 😉. Ultimately it is your decision. Keep asking questions so you’re as well informed as you can be. All the best whatever path you choose.

43 yrs old, 5'5", BMI 39, SW 235. Loop DS Revision of Sleeve Surgery on 6/2/22. Sent from my SM-N986U using BariatricPal mobile app

Also, after this discussion with my friend, I came home, opened the website of a local newspaper, and at the top of the "most read" articles today, there was an interview with a woman who runs a food addiction clinic, the only one of its kind in the country. The headline was that up to 60% of those who had gastric sleeve ended up with an alcohol addiction instead. She didn't give a citation for her claim, so I don't know how accurate that is or if it has any basis in reality at all. She said that alcohol goes into the blood stream faster when you have a smaller stomach and so people developed an alcohol problem, swapping food addiction for another addiction. IDK, I drink alcohol maybe five or six times a year, and most often it's just a glass of wine at dinner. I googled this a bit and found a US study that said that around 20% of all people who underwent bariatric surgery in several centers in the US during a certain time period had developed problematic drinking. That correlation was strongest for people who had gastric bypass, where 20% of people had, according to the study, developed a full blown alcohol addiction. So, it looks like she exaggerated the risk. The headline shocked me a bit, but diving into the studies risk factors included being male (not me), younger (nope), smoking (nope) and drinking regularly (I don't know if a few times a year can be called regular) and having less social support (less than what?). Have you heard of or considered this risk factor? One of the articles I read said you should avoid alcohol altogether for the first year after surgery, is that something you have done or heard of?

I did tell another friend today, and she was a bit negative. She mentioned that someone she worked with had gone under the knife at the local private clinic that's still operating, and that she had complications and had to have surgery two more times. She didn't know if this person had a gastric bypass or sleeve, but it was a few years ago. She also mentioned another friend of hers who had weight loss surgery in Poland, everything went well but my friend said that this person had never looked worse in her life and that the surgery had aged her terribly. She mentioned wrinkles and hair loss, and that her friend still had very thin hair although it's been two years since her surgery. I have a neighbor who had a gastric sleeve in Eastern Europe a year ago. She does have more wrinkles than before, but her hair is just as thick as ever, so I guess it varies. This neighbor of mine had more wrinkles than average before surgery, since she was both a smoker (recently quit) and an avid sun worshipper. I have almost no wrinkles although I'm middle aged. None on my forehead or in my face in general, except for little bags under the eyes and crinkly lines in the corners of my eyes. I've used prescription retinoids since I was in my twenties, and I'm sure that helped. How likely am I to become super wrinkly if I lose 40 - 80 pounds? I understand that on the average people lose 70% of their excess weight with the gastric sleeve, so for me that would be around 56 pounds. I weighed 46 pounds less than I do now nine years ago, and I looked a lot better at that weight with no noticeable extra lines. Is it likely to be that much worse if the weight loss is through surgery? What is your experience, those of you who have already had the surgery?

My dumb self ate a greasy piece of chicken and almost 10 mins later I get a headache- anyone experienced this? Im 3 weeks post op revision surgery- yep I’m a mess ! Never again tho!

I was bypassed at 26 and turned 27 this year in March! Sent from my SM-G975U using BariatricPal mobile app

Hey everyone, I'm 31 and I am dead set on bypass. 🙂 Where is everyone from?

My surgery is Thursday June 9th, my question is has anyone lost a 100 lbs or more? I know everybody is different and loses differently, but I’m curious about losing a 100 or more. Thank you

I was sleeved at 27. Now I’m 31 and just did the revision to bypass 👋

My revision from sleeve to bypass is on June 9th, my question is , is it easier to get out of bed or recliner? Recliner seems like it would pul on stomach to get in and out of. Please let me know your experience. Thank you

The 6 month wait and pre-surgical testing has nothing to do with being the US, it's required by your insurance company, so even if they covered international surgery you'd still need all that stuff. Every insurance company is different. When I got sleeved in 2016 I had Empire and I had to wait 6 months. When I got my revision last year I had Fidelis and only had to wait 3 months. My doctor said if I still had Empire I wouldn't have had to wait at all because they changed their policy. Mexico should only be considered if you can self-pay.

Congrats and good luck! All I can say is that after two surgeries in five years (sleeve, then revision to bypass) I've never thrown up from overeating. A few times if I ate more than I should I felt very uncomfortably full and even had to lie down to relax a couple of times, but never even close to puking. As long as you eat VERY slowly at first you'll quickly learn your limitations. Just be sure to move from the mindset of cleaning your plate, although if you weigh and measure everything and have the appropriate small portions you should be able to finish what's on your plate without stuffing yourself.

I just had my revision from Sleeve to Loop DS/SIPS/SADI two days ago. I was having your exact symptoms BEFORE my surgery from the powder protein shakes. I was using Bariatric Advantage, Vanilla, which is why I logged in today to see if I can return 75% of the bag. Those shakes made me feel horrible, constipated and bloated, WITH diarrhea and all the other symptoms you described. I stopped doing the poweder protein shakes from Bariatric Advantage, and switched to similar count Protein/Sugar/Calories/Vitamins, made by Slimfast. The chocolate flavor was divine after drinking down chalk for 5 days! I bring all this up because this all happened BEFORE the surgery, and it was because of the powder protein shakes. Add Benefiber to every shake, or take Colace twice a day to get you back to normal. Or better yet, switch to the Slimfast Advanced Nutrition High Protein ones. They taste 1000% times better and no horrible symptoms, but you still need the Benefiber or Colace bc of the High Protein. Sent from my SM-N986U using BariatricPal mobile app

Building on my comments above, if you got along well with your band - it seems like you did - but just had mechanical problems with it, then the sleeve is a good replacement as its' character is similar, being strictly restrictive, but without the foreign object problem potential of the bands. The bypass is a good procedure that has been done for over forty years as a WLS, based upon procedures that are about 140 years old developed for gastric cancer, so it is a well established and understood procedure, both the good and bad. There has been a continuing effort in the industry to develop better procedures (as there should be) and a number have come along, with some remaining and becoming established as viable alternatives (such as the BPD/DS and VSG) and others falling by the wayside, never getting traction (such as the mini-bypass,) and others where the jury is still out (the SIPS/SADI/Loop DS.) The BPD/DS generally works better, being stronger metabolically, but is also technically more challenging to perform, so few surgeons have adopted it; the VSG came out of the DS (the DS is based upon the sleeve, and adds malabsorption) and has established itself as being comparable to the bypass in average performance - overall weight loss and regain resistance - in a more straightforward procedure that has fewer long term compromises for the patient. GERD is the main potential bugaboo with the sleeve, which compares with the bypass's predisposition toward marginal ulcers, dumping and reactive hypoglycemia. The ulcer potential is what presents restrictions on some medications with the bypass, the biggest group being NSAIDs, but there may be others that one encounters in life that will also be off the table, or severely restricted, with a bypass. There is also the blind stomach and upper GI loop with the bypass, which makes those areas more difficult to monitor and evaluate through life (can't just stick an endoscope down there to take a look,) and there are an increasing number of endoscopic treatments for a variety of maladies available these days that would also be off the table. If one needs periodic monitoring in that region, for instance for a history of stomach polyps or family history of some cancers, the bypass becomes much less interesting. Another factor to consider is what I call the "Plan B" case - what to do if things don't work out as expected and things need to be revised? While the bypass is technically reversible, that is rarely done as that in itself is another fairly complicated procedure. The bypass, overall, is something of a dead end procedure in that it is difficult to revise into something else is need be. As weight regain is similarly possible with either the sleeve or the bypass, there isn't much to be done to correct that with the bypass - installing a band over the pouch or tightening up the stoma are the most common revisions, and neither has a very good track record for resolving regain problems. The VSG, on the other hand, can be revised (some would say "completed" into a DS fairly easily as it is the first step in a DS, or it can be revised into an RNY if GERD problems can't be resolved with meds (the RNY is usually reversed if an ulcer problem can't be resolved with meds. So, more options are available with the sleeve should a "plan B' be necessary. These are the reasons why the sleeve is building in popularity; there are good reasons to choose either, but one needs to take a close look at one's circumstances going into it to determine what is the best trade off for one's needs.

I had a revision from vsg to rny last august for gerd. It didn't take long to lose a lot of weight and hit and pass goal. I actually lost faster on the revision than the with the sleeve. My workout is less than when I had the sleeve due to much lower calorie intake after the revision. I had quite a bit of side effects with the sleeve (gerd, TMI stuff... Etc.) but none so far with the rny. Everything was resolved. I'm at the 10th month mark. Like you, I was concerned about whether I could lose more weight and the surgeon remarked "Oh, you WILL lose weight. Your pouch will be the size of an egg." He was correct. You'll definitely lose weight after the revision.

I hit goal weight a couple of months ago, and continuing to lose weight, and am so glad I had the revision done. Had a blood test recently, all good numbers. The best I have ever had in my adult life. My cholesterol and triglycerides, protein, vitamins/minerals, everything is in normal range. I was one of the few that had complications with the VSG so I'm hoping I won't get complications later on with my RNY. So far so good. No more severe gerd, feeling really good. Wishing you all great continued journeys. Glad to see someone posting on this still. Ahh, sorry. I didn't see this was for sleeves. I know I was talking one thread for August 2021.

I had to attend a webinar where the Dr went over each surgery in depth with the pros and cons. At the end of the presentation he answered any questions we had. I had watched several videos and talked to my friends who have had bariatric surgery (both bypass and sleeve) so was pretty informed already However I still found it useful.

I had the revision from sleeve to RNY last August due to severe gerd. Have lost all my excess weight and I can finally sleep restfully all night long. No severe gerd. I can't say whether you will screw up again but I assure you, with the RNY, it'll be much harder to slide back into bad habits. I'm in my 10th month and it's been a lovely journey for me so far. I am still elated that I can get full on 2 eggs. Unfortunately, complications can happen with all surgeries. I had a complication with the lap band and the VSG. No fault of my own. RNY is no longer a permanent surgery, but it is a risky procedure to reverse it. The sleeve is considered permanent. As for vitamins, I had a complete bloodwork 2 weeks ago and I was not deficient in any vitamins, minerals or protein. Cholesterol, triglycerides, sugar, all perfect. I only take a vitamin patch by patchaid. It may not work for others but it sure works for me. I hope this helps.

CIGNA approved me. i met the criteria but i think they approved me because the hiatal hernia that has to be repaired is 'massive' to use my surgeon's words. The recommended repair procedure for a hernia this size IS gastric bypass. My gallbladder will be removed as well. I was careful to keep my BMI right at 40. My surgeon had a sleep study done, and I now have a CPAP machine for sleep apnea. coupled with high blood pressure, cholesterol, I guess I sailed through approval. However, the hernia is causing shortness of breath. Half of my stomach is in my chest and it is pressing on my heart and esophagus. It probably begin 21 years ago when I was pg with twins.

Generally, with the sleeve, we will have less need to supplement than with a bypass, all other things being equal; if one is inclined to try for the ideal of getting all nutrition from food, then the sleeve is the way to go - one may not quite make that ideal, but will be closer. The first couple of years, our diets are protein heavy and little else, so supplementing if a good idea, from a belt and suspenders perspective, if nothing else. Labs should be the determiner of how much supplementing is needed, and that takes some time to establish trends, rather than just a snapshot "my labs are fine." One of the problems that we have in going through this is that not everything shows conveniently in our lab tests. Some nutrients, calcium being the most notorious, do not show as deficient until one is in deep trouble, as the body works to maintain serum levels at nominal levels at the expense of body reserves. The body will leach calcium form our bones to keep the serum levels "correct" until it can no longer do so - they you're falling apart. There are other tests that can be done that give us hints as to our status - is calcium depositing or leaching from bones? Talk you your doctor about these things if you are not supplementing as recommended Many programs recommend the same supplements initially for both sleeve and bypass, primarily out of laziness, and then make adjustments over time as labs come in, and you can cut back as indicated. Again, trends over time tend to be more informative than simple "normal" levels. Surgeries do not always correct the need for some medications; After WLS, one may still need meds for BP, cholesterol or diabetes as well, though usually at lower levels. Bypass patients often take PPIs either for GERD that they develop over time, or for the marginal ulcers that are endemic with the bypass (marginal ulcers are to the bypass, what GERD is to the sleeve - you may avoid one potential problem with your choice of surgery, but it is usually at the expense of risk of something else - that's life!)

I usually drink a protein shake a day (usually as coffee creamer) even at almost 2yrs post revision.

Does anyone know when we are allowed to drink coffee? I had gastric bypass and it’s over 30days since surgery.

seven years out. The only macro I pay attention to at this point is protein. I have to have around 100 grams a day because we discovered early on that I malabsorb it, but most patients do fine on 60-80 grams. calories per day is going to vary from person to person. I know women who can eat 2000 and maintain, and I know other women who have to stay around 1200 to maintain. It depends on how tall you are, how active you are, your metabolic rate, and what weight you're trying to maintain. If you're trying to maintain 160 lbs, for example, you can eat a lot more than if you're trying to maintain 120 lbs. That said, I can maintain my current weight if I eat around 1700 calories a day, but again, that's a really individual thing. You just have to play around with calorie ranges until you find the one that works for you. hardcore rule - weight 30 minutes after eating to drink anything. That one is for life. dumping syndrome - only about 30% of bypassers have that - I've never had it. But it's caused by eating too much sugar or too much fat at one sitting. You can prevent it by avoiding or limiting the amount of sugar or fat you eat at one sitting.

I had my revision on May 9, and my weight loss was steady, but the last few days I’ve been stuck. It’s hard for me to exercise. Is it common to have this problem? I suspect it could be that my body has grown accustomed to processing food in a certain way after 18 years post-RNY. I hope it’s just a speed bump. I’m trying to ingest mostly protein shakes and nonfat Greek yogurt.

Surgery is scary! Even for those of us who've been under a few times, and it's especially harrowing when it's the first time. I'm a pretty tough customer, but when I went in for a knee reconstruction about 25 years ago, you betcha I cried on the gurney waiting to be wheeled into the theatre! I'd never felt so vulnerable in my life. But you are taken care of by a team of professionals who are all there to keep you safe and ease you through. I'll agree with everyone else about the lap-band. The bypass sounds intimidating (I had planned on the sleeve and was talked out of it because I had pre-existing GERD), I had to sit back and consider logically how it was the best option for me. Now that I'm on the other side I'm so glad I got the bypass and I wish I'd done it sooner. You've got some time, so take it slow, acclimate yourself to the idea, and focus on why you're doing it and the pros. And most of all remember you're not alone - this is a well-trodden path!