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It's common knowledge that revision surgeries have slower weight loss then original surgery. Rude people will always be rude so when I come across a rude comment pointed at me I always say yes I'm losing weight slowly but all good things come slowly and why rush nobody's chasing me.

I saw some older info here and it doesn't look like they approve the sleeve, even for revision. Does anyone know if that's still the case? Trying to figure if it's even worth the effort to try or should I just go to Mexico. Thanks

From what I understand you can have the sleeve done at an mtf. But tricare does not cover the vsg at civilian providers. I am not sure about revisions though.

you can revise sleeve to both gastric bypass or duodenal switch. I know of several people who've had those revisions. you can also revise a bypass to a duodenal switch, but that's a complicated surgery and only a few surgeons in the country are qualified to do it. Basically, they have to completely reverse the bypass, then create a sleeve, then do the intestinal part of the DS (DS is a sleeved stomach with a partially bypassed small intestine) I don't know the answer to your other question (about the pain) - maybe someone else will.

:smile1: I am scheduled for my Upper GI on Friday ....(I so dread this -- but I will force myself to drink extra Water after - because the barium sticks to my small intestines like cement) My appointment with my Band Doc is on Thursday 7/8. I am getting my PCP letter and I will write a letter -- so all will be ready for my 7/8 appointment I am optimistic - but realistic but the good news is my insurance pays for a revision - so I am keeping my fingers crossed that he agrees my band problems warrant a revision at this time. How are the other AETNA insurance - revisions gals going with their process? Donna -- with a pain in the a** Lapband (2007) lost 80 - hoping for a revision to the Sleeve to loose the next 100 (w/o the pain and misery of the band)

I'm scheduled for the 16th of Dec as well:) also revision band to sleeve. Good Luck To You!!!!! Sent from my SM-N910V using the BariatricPal App

I would ask these questions: 1. How many bands has he/she placed, you are looking for a high number, a couple of hundred is a good. 2. How many revisions to other surgeries have they had to do, if they take out more bands than they put in--run, ideally you want a very low revision rate to any other surgery. 3. Aftercare is MORE important than the band, ideally you want a surgeon that do his own fills, but if he is busy, ask if he has a physician assistant that is trained in surgery as well as perform fills. Also part of aftercare is diagnosing and treating any type of lap band issues, you want to make sure that your surgeon will not outsource this, many lap band surgeons either work closely with GI doctors to do EGD's or Radiologist to do Upper Gi,'s etc, and most lap band surgeons are skilled to fix hernias, etc. Also your lap band surgeon should ONLY treat and diagnose any lap band related issues you may have, such as determining if your band is adjusted properly and following your progress, you don't want a PCP doing this, they are not skilled to do so. 4. Fills, should be administered by your surgeon, or a skilled PA, not just anyone. Ideally you want a surgeon that will be available to fill/ or unfill your band if needed and not on a set schedule, but ideally every 4/6 weeks the first year. Good luck

Hello. I am praying for some responses. I had a Lap Band for 12 years and when it failed I decided to have a revision to a sleeve. Please know my surgeon is someone I have trusted for many years and have a great Dr. Patient relationship with. After the surgery though, I was not feeling what I felt I was supposed to feel especially in regards to hunger. I got my operative reports from the hospital and they say that my "omentum" was removed and a partial gastrectomy. If you look up partial gastrectomy it is different than a vertical sleeve gastrectomy. I am very concerned and I also feel very bad questioning my Dr about this but, I think I have to or do you think it's possible that a Dr. called a sleeve a "partial gastrectomy"? if it were you and your body, what would you do? I realize most people don't get their surgery reports and question their Dr's. I see him tomorrow. I never expected such poor results with this either. I was much more successful with my lapband. Now I have reflux and no weight loss. He had me do a gastric emptying study today and that was normal but we will discuss results tomorrow. tell me, would you ask about the wording "partial gastrectomy" if you google it, it's not a sleeve gastrectomy. I'm so sad, perplexed and hoping to hear back from you guys.

I have HIP also and in May I was looking at HIP's website and under medical guidelines it said that bariatric surgery was revised on April 15, 2008, I printed this out because I was so mad. In the beginning of April I had called HIP to find out what their requirements were and I was told it had to be medically necessary. So I made all the appointments for pre-op. Then when I found out from HIP that under these new rules I needed a six month supervised diet it changed everything. Good Samaritan hospital said that if I had to do the six month diet starting from april then some of my pre-op tests would have to be repeated because they need to be current within 3 months of surgery. Now on HIP's website it is showing the old rules for bariatric surgery dated December 13, 2006. So I called HIP again and they just give me the run around and will not directly answer my question about this six month diet. Have either of you talked to HIP directly? I spoke with a nurse in the managed care department and she was very nasty and said that she could not answer anything without the surgeon filing the paperwork. I told her that I can't see the surgeon until all my clearances are done which includes the clearance from the nutritionist and if I need a six month diet the nutritionist will not clear me until after that. This entire process is so upsetting. Lisa

Hi all!! Just a quick one! I was banded in Dec 2008 and lost almost 60lb in the first year. Since then I can not get great restriction and have sadly gained about 20lb. I am now wanting a RNY and was wondering if there was anyone in the UK who knows of a good centre that offers revisions and if anyone has had this done on the NHS or with any other financial help. Thanks alot x

Open letter to family & friends, The reason I am writing this open letter. Is because someone told me I should write Admin(on a different site) about my successful weight lose story and I had someone else send me a personal email telling me I was an inspiration to her. My MAIN goal to have this weight loss surgery was to stop my Diabetes in its tracks from doing any more harm to my body. Which I have done! I have been considered NOT A DIABETIC for almost two years!(My A1C has been normal.) Losing the weight was just a bonus. The reason I do not like to be classified as a mentor or an inspiration is because I feel pretty much that I didn't do anything to lose 160lbs!( I know that by cutting my food intake by 3/4 has been the reason why.) I still have this its to good to be true mentality and I am still waiting for the other shoe. I was banded 5/14/02. I was in the hospital for a week due to being so swollen that I couldn’t even swallow my own spit.( Lost 20lbs in that week.) I was losing about 10lbs a month. At six months I had lost 100lbs. I have never really followed the “Bandster Rules”, or exercised like I should have. (One being because I had other problems that hindered me from doing exercise.) I do walk regularly and swim occasionally. I don’t drink the Protein drinks.(My doctor says we should get our protein from the food we eat.) I don’t take my Vitamins. On my fourth week of all liquids I had an whole taco & Enchilada with all the fixings. I lived off of Water, Pecan Sandies, and Doritos for the first three months. (That was about all I could keep down!) I was the MAIN PB Queen. (I still have issues with that. THANK GOD my band has not slipped! Since June my weight has gone as low as 209 and as high 228. Due to a broken port, then the port revision, and an until in Dec. I have fallen into the “Soft Food Syndrome” since Jan. I know that I will REALLY have to work to lose these last 50lbs.or I will NEVER get under 200. If I am an to be a role model to pre Ops and those already banded it is to be a role model of what not to do. XOXO~Teresa

wow..thats a scary story, but its reality for some and it important that we hear the good and the bad. why did you opt to have the sleeve and just not have the band removed? did you still want to lose more weight? i had a band too and it slipped, then i had a revision and a new band placed and that too slipped about a year later. at that point i opted to have the 2nd band taken out and nothing done. its been about 4 years and i gained back the weight i lost and now im thinking of the sleeve, i just cant get over the fears i have that something will go bad for me like it did with the band. how do you overcome that??

Let me paraphrase what I think the "FDA Lab Rat" expressed elsewhere in an earlier post. (I hope I get it right.) Everyone who has any variety of WLS has to learn new habits and new behaviors. With the bypass surgeries, patients lose the weight and if they learn the new behaviors, the weight will stay off. If they don't learn the new behaviors, the weight comes back. With the band, it's learn-as-you-go. Band patients have a small intital weight loss, but then the rest comes off as we learn. Band patients who don't adopt new behaviors never lose any substantial weight. So, two or three years out, here's what's left: 1) Bypass patients who lost it all within months and kept it off; and, 2) Band patients who took two years or so to lose it all, and are at about the same place as the bypass patients; and, 3) Bypass patients who lost a lot of weight, but regained all or most of it; and, 4) Band patients who lost little or no weight. Two different roads, each splits, leading to only two final destinations, "the loser's circle" and morbid obesity. IMHO, learning new behaviors is the essential issue. I didn't need a speedy weight loss and then the devastation of "failing" yet again. I need to learn as I go. It is only human to compare, and when I read that Jane Doe, RnY patient, has lost as much in six weeks as it has taken me a year to lose, of course it seems a good thing to accomplish the same thing in less time. Then I read about the toll it often takes on Jane's body...the gall bladder, the impacted colon, the malabsorption of essential nutrients, the dumping (which is a bad thing being promoted as a good thing), the "revision surgery" (which means "we screwed up and you need another surgery,") and the rest. I don't need those problems. And besides, maybe I'm a slow learner who really does need a couple of years to incoprporate everything I'm learning into my daily life. I hope that didn't further confuse anyone. Sue

Thanks Sue and CoffeeWench for giving us newbies reassurances from the long term post op perspective. :cool: I definitely agree that the lap-band seems to make it easier to learn good habits. It's easy for me to see what works and what doesn't for me, since my loss (or lack thereof) each month depends solely on what I'm doing and what I'm eating - rather than intestinal malabsorption doing all the work for me. That is, the malabsorption helps in the SHORT TERM. In the long run, malabsorption doesn't really help you. Eventually the intestines adapt to being bypassed and they start absorbing more calories. Then what? If you haven't learned good habits along the way, you start regaining all the weight. Either that or you have to go through the whole thing again with a revision surgery. Not something I want to have face!

Looking for others experience w band revision to a sleeve or better off mini GBP? I have the band and scheduled for sleeve. However I have read about Sleeve revisions to the mini gastric bypass. Don't want to be a double fall! the mini GBP scare me w the malabsorption issue though.

Thank you LosingIt2018 for responding, I'm kinda laughing at myself because now I have to chose which forum to post my intro, you see I've had the Roux en y procedure 18 years ago and had my revision 6 days ago lol maybe I'll post in both. And thank you also for welcoming me, I appreciate you.

Welcome....what did you have it revised to?

I'm reading through lots of threads where individual issues are addressed, and just wondering if there's a super thread anywhere dedicated to the day-to-day differences between the two procedures...? Haven't seen one yet, but imma keep looking... Just recently started considering a revision to VSG. Have had my band a little over 5 years and I haven't had any significant complications, but I'm going through the reflux vs. restriction game so the band isn't really doing much for me (for about 2 years now).

Hello, I was banded on April 4, 2007. I was at 285lbs and it is now 2009 and I am only at 263lbs:mad:. I have discussed this with my physician because she do not have a clue of what is going on:huh2:. I go get a fill and in less than a week my restriction is gone.:sad: Then I go right back to her and the same thing happens again:frown:. Then she restricted me so much that I could not even get a bottle of Water down. So I went back to get it unfilled. She talked to a DR in KY who told her to have me under fluro, drink barium and look at the band which she did. According to her she do not see any leakage:smile2:, she filled the band again and the same thing happen. I am tired because I have gotten 12 fills in 2 months and this is ridiculous. I have started to see another surgeon, i transfered my medical records to them, and they want me to go through the whole seeing a psychiatrist, and weight loss seminar etc and then he tells me we are going to take a look at the band and see if we can work with it!! I have been working with it for 2yrs. Can anyone give me some feedback of a Dr in Indianapolis who is not going to go through all this and understand what I have been through to help instead of trying to milk my insurance company and my pockets? I know "sorry to hear about my band" lol. Any feedback will be helpful. O and by the way, I work out six times a week for 1 1/2 hrs and my diet is nothing but fresh fruits and vegtables, steamed and baked fish or chicken NO SWEETS AT ALL, NO SODA, NO ICE CREAM none of that, and it is still not working. Can anyone give some advice on a DR. Thanks:lol::mad:

Awesome thus far! It's exciting when we come to terms to have weight loss surgery because it's not easy. In my case I am revision patient from and gastric bypass to DS. My bypass was done in 6/06 and I was pregnant in 2/07 I gained 42lbs back got pregnant again so that was a total of 4 can sections , gallbladder removal and a spinal fusion. My starting weight was 219 day of surgery today I am 211 I really have NO PAIN I walked every hour 10 times in the hospital and drank water which help with my bowl movement the second day and release of gas as well so the pca was gone that day I only had liquid pain meds. I also had so much scar tissue that more of my intestine had to be removed because it was attached to my abdominal wall. I am having problems with room temperature and cold water and suggestions

My husband and I have been together for 11 years, married 5 of those 11. When we began dating I was very healthy and active. In the past 11 years I have had 7 surgeries and a few illnesses that have taken their toll on me and needless to say my husband. I am having revision surgery tomorrow due to a slipped band and my husband is being a jerk. He's been this way for about the last 4 surgeries. I was hospitalized twice for kidney stones in the last six months and he didn't come to the hospital one time and the other he came and didn't even give me a kiss, no support nothing. He is usually supportive, but doesn't seem to have it in him anymore when I am sick. I have discussed it with him and he just says it gets hard after a while and he's just worn down. Which really worries me because what else is he tired of? I know I'm probably reading too much into it, but it really hurts me that he can't find enough love to support me. He has maintained his active and healthy lifestyle in spite of my health. But I try my best to keep up with him but I know I must slow him down some. Has anyone else experienced this? Have any advice?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/832964 Medscape Family Medicine Which Diets Work? A Side Order of Perspective Michael J. Joyner, MD Disclosures October 13, 2014 Reevaluating the Healthy DietWhat constitutes a healthy diet? Until about a month ago, the conventional wisdom told us that a healthy diet was low in fat and salt, and involved eating Breakfast. Since that time, the news has reminded us (or perhaps re-reminded us) that it is not that simple. A recent, widely reported study showed that low-carbohydrate (carb) diets might be better.[1] Before that, we heard that either too much or too little salt in the diet can be bad,[2] and before that we heard that skipping breakfast may not be so bad after all.[3] All Diets Can Work; Most Don'tBefore anyone switches to a low-carb diet, it is important to remember that all diets can work in the short run. However, most diets fail in the long run,[4] and sticking with a diet is far more important than whether the diet is low-carb or low-fat. If you look at people who lose a lot of weight and keep it off over many years, a consistent pattern emerges.[5] When more than 10,000 real-life "biggest losers" (people who have lost at least 30 lb and kept it off) were surveyed, most succeeded by doing a few simple things: • 78% eat breakfast; • 75% weigh themselves regularly; • 62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week; • 90% exercise about 1 hour per day; and • Most eat a low-calorie, low-fat diet. Among the weight regainers in this study,[6] reductions in leisure-time physical activity, dietary restraint, and frequency of self-weighing and increases in percentage of energy intake from fat and disinhibition (less self-control) were associated with greater weight regain. The advocates of low-carb diets will come back and say, "But the new study is a randomized clinical trial!"—and thus it should trump the observational data. A bigger randomized clinical trial[7] that followed weight loss in about 5000 patients with type 2 diabetes for 8 years showed that those who lost 10% of body weight and kept it off for 8 years did pretty much the same thing: [P]articipants who at year 8 maintained the ≥10% loss versus [those who[ gained above baseline weight revealed that maintainers reported higher activity-related energy expenditure (about 1500 vs 800 calories per week) and a greater number of weeks in the prior year reducing their calorie and fat intake. Weight [loss] maintainers also were more likely than full regainers to weigh themselves daily or more often.... What About Salt? The news about salt is hardly surprising. It has been known for years that blood pressure is salt-sensitive, but only in some people. The risks associated with excessively low-salt diets have also been known for years. However, determining exactly who is salt-sensitive can be difficult, and the biggest problem from a population health perspective is too much salt leading to high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease. Public health guidelines are sometimes blunt instruments, and given the overwhelming link between too much salt and bad outcomes,[8] it is probably acceptable that the guidelines are straightforward and even oversimplified. Before You Skip BreakfastBefore you start skipping breakfast, keep the data from the real-life biggest losers in mind. They tend to eat breakfast. Also, the classic epidemiologic studies by Lester Breslow, who lived to age 97 in good shape, suggest that eating breakfast helps people live long and healthy lives. The Conventional Wisdom Lives OnMedical guidelines and evidence come and go and are subject to regular revision.[9] However, sometimes the newest findings lead people to jump on bandwagons related to the latest and greatest studies, when a longer view might be helpful. In the case of diet, this is amplified by public anxiety, along with pitchmen and others promoting diets with magical properties that melt the pounds away and make them better than any alternative. However, before you adopt a high-fat diet, stop worrying about salt, and start skipping breakfast, keep the long-term outcome data in mind. So far, they have stood the test of time. Of greater importance, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, recognize that you are going to have reengineer your life by eating less, exercising more, weighing yourself regularly, and turning the TV off. Unfortunately, there are no magic bullets.

This is truly just a rant b/c I'm fuming about something. It's my catharsis. Please don't even read unless you're really bored. My graduate program unfortunately involves a lot of group projects. They're not my favorite, but I understand why they do them. So far, they've been tolerable experiences, and a few have been positive (was in a group of self-starters, we could agree on natural work divisions, etc.) This semester is a completely different story. I was put in a group with 3 other people. At first it seemed ok - up until it was too late to request a group change, anyway. We have a project due tomorrow. It's a very large project that required several additional documents, a lot of research, a nice presentation, etc. As of Friday, two of us had submitted work for the project - kind of. I had submitted several paragraphs to paste into a final presentation, and all of the attachments we needed except for one. One other person in the group had submitted a half-assed final project document (the skeleton -- still needed all the text/attachments/etc.) -- based on a template I built and submitted. It had a total of about 6 sentences in it. Of the two other people in the group, one had offered a lot of criticism on the work I had done, but had not offered up anything of her own. The fourth person has not contributed one single piece of anything. She has asked us for clarification on the assignment, and told this week she wouldn't have internet access for one day (that was on Wed). We haven't heard from her since. I'm working to maintain my GPA and this is my last required course so I'm being extra careful. So I took about 10 hours yesterday and built the entire document. Places where I didn't have the data, I just made something up as a placeholder, then highlighted it so it could easily be found when whomever owned that piece decided to get it done. I created about 3 powerpoints, 5 word documents, tons of tables & graphs, etc. I then told the peolpe in my group that since the template was hard to use, please don't make changes to the document directly. If you don't like the template, that's fine -- you're welcomed to redo it. But if you are ok with it, just printscreen or copy what you want to change into a basic word doc and indicate what you think should be changed. Do you think anyone did that? Nope. They made their suggestions right into the document, so not only did I have to line-y-line compare with the original to see what was different, I also had to spend about an hour reformatting everything. Then, they had a lot of criticism on some of my tables. I told them "These are just drafts I created so we would have something there, these will need to be refined for submission." I guess they can't read, because those disclaimers were completely ignored and they kinda jumped on me about how they want to see something more professional (umm... then freaking SUBMIT SOMETHING?!) One girl, while making changes, managed to delete 11 of the 14 pages in the document. When I reverted it back to a version that had all the pages, she became irate that I had "disregarded her feedback." Umm -- no, I just had to get back the content. I figured that was more important than your suggested revisions, which were poor quality and not accurate anyway. I've written the proffessor, emphasizing that I'm not a whiner or tattletale, but trying to elicit her help in getting these people motivated. This project, though it's large, is just a very small piece of an overall semester-long project and I can't solo that one. I did make it clear that the one person had contributed nothing. She hasn't yet responded to me. The rules for grading this are -- everyone shares 95% of the grade, with the last 5% coming from peer evaluations that the rest of the group does on you. That means that if our group gets 100% on the project, everyone is guaranteed a score of 95%. Including the one person who has done zero. And I've been pretty direct wtih them, telling them they need to quit deleting the content, quit messing up the template because it costs me more time, etc. Of course part of the peer evaluation is how well they liked working with you. And Ive butted heads with 2 of these people in prior classes, and two of them are buddy-buddy. If we get 100% and everyone has their 95%, it's within the realm of possiblities that the buddies could give each other good feedback, give me crappy feedback, and they'd walk away with a higher score than me even though I've essentially soloed the entire project, and have to submit it with the group's names. I hate it when dead weight gets free rides. This professor has been very reasonable about some things that have happened in other classes I've taken with her. Hopefully she will be able to do something in this case. If not, I'm one irritated student, and going to have a serious talk with my group about the amount of effort they expect from me toward the larger semester project. Fooking deadbeats.

I've had both done, first the lap band in 2007 and it's removal and then the revision to RNY in 2009. I wasn't the type of person who did well with the lap band and was never satisfied and would eat around it. Also wasn't aware ahead of time all the foods that would go through without an issue. I had type 2 diabetes and always had cravings for sweets which never went away with the band and since they were the easiest to get down I ended up gaining back the weight I had lost on the preop diet. So you have to know what your "issues" are before you choose a surgery. Of course there are risks with all types of WL surgeries but chosing one that will work is also a very important part of the decision process. Good luck to you with your decision, Nancy.

Had my band for 4 yrs. it slipped last year and I had nightime reflux - really bad. Everynite I woke up choking on stomach acid. No heartburn, really tho. before my revision almost 4 weeks ago, I asked my dr about this same thing. He said about 50% of people will get worse reflux, some it will be the same, some it will get better. Haven't had reflux in almost 4 weeks now. However, about a week into it I started getting almost contant heartburn. I take RX Prilosec and that helped alot. Haven't needed any Tums since switching from Pepcid back to Prilosec a couple weeks ago. So I guess the answer: it's controlled by ppi's. My doc keeps everyone on them for 1 yr. then we'll reevaluate. if I have to take 2 pills a day forever, so be it. Good luck!