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M appointment is tommorow, because the doctor refuse to see me after I was 5 minutes late. I have been trying to see dr since I began having emotional issues. and it's funny you use car analogy cause I have a Camry! My husband says same thing and too, stay away from negative stories as I'm going to kill myself from stress and depression. And when I said RNY I mean I'm scared I will need to switch vsg to RNY and I don want anymore surgeries. I had bad post partum with my daughter also but it this bad. And I dumped my shrink after she told me not to have surgery because "long term complications".

That has basically been my approach. I do read people that tell stories here to see what symptoms they have so I can have an idea of what to be aware of. Other than that, I walk my dog every day and I am more likely to get hit by car with my dog than have a WLS complication.

I'm not sure what you mean by RNY reversal? Do you mean having to get a bypass if you develop GERD with your sleeve? I did the looking at possible complications first thing in my research. After I felt I had enough information, I have avoided those types of articles ever since. After surgery, no one should look at that stuff. After all, there is no point knowing about the stuff that isn't happening to you! If you feel sick, hopefully you know enough to go to the doc and find out what IS wrong, assuming anything ever happens. I've lived on this board since January, and am thinking of taking the summer off. The kids' last day of school is tommorrow, and so I need to be available to them for summer activities. Go out and make some vitamin D! Get in more exercise, and utilize my sleeve to its fullest! I have an addictive personality...all or nothing. Be better to put away the computer for a bit.

The grandmother of one of my good friends said "Don't borrow trouble". Stay off that website, it is totally dedicated to complications but all those people had surgery years ago before techniques improved. Also if you look for complications then that is all you are going to see. It is like buying a new Camry, you probably didn't notice all the Camrys on the road but now that you have one, you see them everywhere. Stressing yourself out will cause your body to react making you sick. You have to chill out. Didn't you have a sleeve not RNY? RNY has all kinds of complications the sleeve just does not have. When is your next Dr Appointment? You should get back in school to keep your mind occupied. Do you have a therapist?

Thank you very much that is exactly what I needed I just wanted to talk to someone. Congrats on your amazing journey and so sorry about your complications hopefully everything is out of the way for u now. I live in waterloo where r u from? I also have been on vacation since surgery I go bk to work tomorrow so I think I won't have my weight on the brain as much hopefully. How often do u weigh yourself? Should I do once a week or month ur advise would be appreciated [emoji2] thanks for the words of encouragement Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using BariatricPal mobile app

You seem obsessed with complications. It is that old stomach stapling. She had the surgery back in 1984. She died 27 years later... https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/19498.htm This looks like a terrible idea. I don't know who thought this was clever.

Don't sweat the numbers, I had gastric sleeve on 1/25/17..at DesPres Hospital by Dr. Ricks. Great guy, he's professional, down to earth, friendly and great bedside manners. I had complications within weeks after my sleeve. Within two weeks I had pancreatits, then found out gallbladder wasn't functional, so two weeks post op from sleeve i had gallbladder removed. Now dealing with multiple kidney stones. Since march have had three operations to remove kidney stones. I'm from Illinois side, about 15 miles east of stl. Take things one day at a time, follow the guidelines and recommendations.. Your weight may vary, don't look at the scale every week, give it time.. Before surgery I weighed 422, three weeks prior to surgery went on clear liquids on day of surgery weighed 409, Day I was discharged weighed 403lbs, week later on first follow up appt was at 393lbs, on my last visit on 4/04 was at 358lbs , last time i weighed myself was on 5/8 i was at 348lbs.. so my point is, just take it one day at a time, keep pushing forward and just remind yourself of why you have invested within yourself with having a gastric sleeve. All of us wanna be at ideal weight or a point, but it's not a quick fix. You've invested into you again.. Can't change yesterday, but surely can change tomorrow.

Yes but one thing that is obvious is the gerd! I believe th vsg is going on 11 years old. I just hope it doesn't turn out being like the lapband as far as complications down the road

I was self-pay as well and I am extremely risk-averse. By the time surgery day rolled around I still wasn't completely assured but here are some steps/considerations I took: There is a program called BLIS specifically targeted to self-pay WLS patients to insure against complications, you can google search the company easily. The wrinkle is that you have to purchase through the surgeon directly (and obviously they only offer the insurance to surgeons with low complication rates). If you are still flexible on who to do the surgery with, then you might want to look for a BLIS-enrolled one. In my case, my surgeon tried really hard to come to an agreement with BLIS but he couldn't cut through the red tape. My surgeon told me that the only kind of complication that could bankrupt me were blood clots, which could lead to strokes, etc if they went untreated. Anti-clot medications (and compression sleeves) are a standard part of your post-op dosages but I nagged the doctors to give me the maximum dosage possible. After discharge, I fought through the pain and nausea to move around as much as possible to clear any clots. Again, this is a standard recommendation but the possibility of having to pay for complications out of pocket gave me an extra source of motivation. After my amateur legal sleuthing through my insurance policy documents and other legal documents, I came to the conclusion that your regular insurance has to pay for emergency care even if it's a WLS complication. For example, if you had a leak or blood clot, the cost of stabilizing you in the ER should be picked up by your regular insurance. If the surgeon needed to go back and stitch up a leak or if you had severe GERD that required conversion to bypass, then the costs would be self-pay. However, I figured that, unless the problem was extreme, there should be an usually a less expensive way to address the complication which required more self discipline. The caveat here is that I'm not a lawyer, so please don't interpret this as formal legal advice. In my case, I did have a very minor post-op complication with swelling and water retention. I decided to go to the urgent care clinic instead of the surgeon. I made a judgement call between the surgeon's expertise and the potential costs I would incur for something I didn't think was life-threatening. I predicted that the over worked urgent care clinic is not going to spend the time to formally make a determination on whether my complication was a result of WLS and they have very little incentive to specifically contact the insurance company to connect the dots between the two. Again, I have no inside information on how insurance companies flag charges for complications from non-covered procedures (I wish I did), this was purely conjecture. In the end, my urgent care visit and treatment was paid by insurance just like any other urgent care visit/treatment. Hope this helps and good luck with your surgery.

Thanks, Joann454 for your response. I am on Coumadin. The Coumadin center told me that I would have to take Lovenox. I did this before for a pelvic reconstruction after my complicated hysterectomy. Glad you came through great. I need this support since one of the most risk factors that is stated is clots.

I was also wondering about this issue too. I have read in professional medical journals about the long term complications from gastric bypass surgery but read that gastric sleeve is a newer procedure than the bypass, so the jury is still out concerning the long term effects, we are talking like 3 to more years out.

Hi, everyone Now, I am a newbie and anxious because my surgery date is getting closer. They believe it will be in July so I have many issues that I like firsthand experience from others, not textbook only. I am on blood thinners from another surgery with major complications. My PCP already agreed with the surgery, gastric sleeve, but of course, the concern is another DVT. I was already told that I would have to do the Lovenox shots before surgery, during and after surgery and also the blood thinner after surgery. I did have surgery after that complicated hysterectomy that landed me on blood thinners. I was wondering, if anyone else have the experience with blood thinners or worries about blood clots with the weight loss surgery. My vascular surgeon didn't see a need for a IVC filter since I only had the clot during the complicated surgery 4 years ago, but I can't help but have concerns. Anybody else with experiences with this issue?

If there is a complication, and if it is due to a medical error, tell them you will not pay for any added costs due to this error. You do not have to pay for medical errors (although they will try to bill you for it). I work in healthcare, insurance companies do not pay for these errors, so neither should you... If it is a complication NOT because of a medical error, then you will be on the hook for it.

I don't currently have insurance but I'm planning to do the sleeve self-pay. I began looking for insurance companies just to add an insurance policy in case there's some major complication after words that isn't covered in the self-pay option. What I have found is that no insurance companies will not cover complications related to bariatric surgery that they have not paid for. My question is for those of you who have done self pay options what did you do about the potential complications and protect yourself should you have to end up in the hospital afterwards losing everything you want to pay the bill? I know complications or rather minimal and I've already had my gallbladder out, but I just am worried about what happens or what other people of done to protect themselves.

I am a 47 yo man who had lap band placed in Mexico in 2014. My insurance did not cover such surgeries at that time. I had many complications over the years with my lap band and got very little support once I left Mexico. In november of 2016 i had finally had enough of dealing with the complications. I went to a local batriatric doctor who removed my lap band due to 95 % blockage due to slippage of the band and using a band that was too small. I explained prior to surgery that i did not want to gain the 100 plus pounds back that i gad lost. My doctor assured me that he would replace the band with gastric sleeve in a timely manner even if it meant finding funds from elsewhere to pay for the surgery. Removal went fine. Surgery was covered by insurance. 3 months later we sent paperwork in to my insurance company for gastric sleeve as a replacement. It and the previous removal were immediately denied. I called my insurance and my doctor over a dozen times in the last 4 months. I finally found someone at the insurance company willing to find out what and why everything happened. Their explanation was that someone from my docs office had put part of my band removal paperwork in with the gastric sleeve paperwork. This was all given to a different individual to review than the person who had reviewed my removal. Since, all has been resolved and the original surgery has been covered. Now its been 7 plus months since band removal. I have gained almost 100 lbs back and am on the verge of losing my 17 year position due to weight restrictions. I have no problem with these restrictions. They are justifiable due to my type of job. Problem is that my sleeve doctor wants me to go on a 90 day liver reducing diet. I feel like I have waited long enough and they should do the surgery immediately due to this all being their screw up. I am considering just taking the.money out of my 401k and going to.mexico again. But if I do I need a doctor that can do the surgery in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Any advice????

I'm 51 and was sleeved in May. No complications and I feel great.

I was 65 when I had the surgery in March and am 66 now... no complications. I am doing just fine. I had no health comorbidities just a high BMI and I am happy to say, the BMI is going down steadily!

I don't know my bougie size, I suppose I could have the surgeon check his records. But honestly I don't think it has much to do with my regain if anything. I can tell you I have not had vsg related complications..... my regain has everything to do with depression resulting from loss and subsequently making poor food and behavior choices.... as a result of pregnancy I experienced a lessening of restriction, but not a full return to pre-op conditions...I am down 5lbs from last week... my caloric intake is hovering around 1600/day and I am focusing on home cooked (by me!) meals and no alcohol, I've come under my protein needs each day, and over on carbs, so still need to make some tweaks there....the 2 hikes on sun/mon still have me sore so I haven't worked out since-- I plan to go to the gym tomorrow...stay with it everyone, and keep up the effort! It's doable! Just keep checking in I'm really looking forward to keeping this thread active!

A bougie is an instrument they put down your throat and into your stomach while they are forming your sleeve. Larger sizes have fewer complications but you have a larger stomach, smaller sizes have higher risk of leaks or strictures but produce a more restrictive sleeve. Standard in the US is 32-50 and U.K. is 60. I looked it up.

Well guys I'm definately going to participate and I will support you guys but I'm currently on staycation and not making the best choices. We have out of town guest and there is a lot of activities and eating out involved. I have started my mornings off right with either a small omlette w/veggies or a protein shake for breakfast. But, lunch and dinners have been tough and with no real exercise. i am so scared to get on the scale, I feel the "struggle" to button my pants and I'm not as comfortable in them -ugh! But, my guest leaves on Sunday morning and I plan on working out immediately and getting 100% back on plan. Meanwhile, I'm trying to "mindfully" eat. To those of you struggling....you are not alone. One meal, one day at a time. To those who had a good day, great job! Oh, by the way, I don't know my bougie size, I'm sure it's played a role in not reaching my goal weight but my doctor mentioned something about the possible complications w/going too small, so I don't believe I have a small one. He told me not to worry about the size and just follow the plan. In truth, it's my failure in following the plan that's got me in this position.

So today my system has gone way over to the other side and I have literally been running to the bathroom. This is complicated by the fact that my lab is a bio- control lab with a quarantine facility. Most of my work is inside quarantine which requires me to suit up before entering and strip it off on exiting. There is no restroom in quarantine.... Y'all would have been laughing at me today if you could have seen me trying to get out of my suit, I am sure I set a record for. Quickest exit from quarantine... 😂🤣

Are you self pay but have insurance in the US? You are going to need to monitor your blood work etc post-op. I wouldn't have DS outside of the US only because the DS requires a lot of post-op care, you need your blood work etc monitored closely. It is a more complicated surgery so if you are thinking about DS, then find a Dr in the US. The only way to make a decision is to think about what matter to you, what level of dedication you have, and how much maintenance you want to do long term. You really just have to do your own research and decide based on your values. As far as weight loss, the type of surgery you have doesn't matter, you pretty much choose how much weight you lose by how you eat. Surgery doesn't lose the weight for you.

Yes, I am 63 today. Sleeve surgery was Feb 28, 2017. Been loosing about 1.8 lbs per week average. Last 8 days, I've stalled, but I hear that happens. Not having any complications. I have always been in good to excellent physical condition, other than obese. I wanted the surgery so that I can live out my 70s, 80s & 90s being active and without joint issues (hope, hope).

I wanted DS however I wasn't comfortable having it done in Mexico and not having my surgeon local with such a major surgery (not that the sleeve isn't major but the routing of the intestines worried me) so I decided to do the sleeve. I was over 50 BMI and so far I'm so happy with the sleeve (I'm only 13 days out so I'm far from the poster child for success). Have you figured out who would provide care if there are complications that arise after surgery (I know your primary care doctor is going to provide after care but there could be things that arise that he/she can't handle). I would definitely discuss with both your bariatric surgeon and your primary care to help determine which surgery would be best for you.