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I chose sleeve because due to my medical history and some medications I take, my chance of ulcers would up significantly if I went with the bypass. (still pre-op though!)

Hi elcee, I had the band placed in 2006. Last year after years of battle and complications with my band, I revised to the Gastric Sleeve. Well since I always go big or go home (in my sarcastic voice) I had a stricture and severe heart band so was converted to the Gastric bypass almost 3 weeks ago. The eating for each is different but there is a definite difference in the lap band and the bypass. with the bypass, you have to take small sips of liquid...im progressing in introducing new foods. I can honestly say that even though I'm still in the early learning phases I wish I had started out with this procedure. It definitely provides structure and discipline in the new way of eating and making good choices.

That’s a great question... I will put the question to the folks that did mine and see what they say. The way I understood the difference between the two was that both surgeries did the pouch for a stomach but the bypass also rerouted the small intestine. But I am no expert 😉

Thanks for the info. I recently heard that stretching out the pouch for bypasses is very hard to do. Like you said you have to overstuff yourself on a daily basis. I don't know how anyone could do that without being/feeling sick.

Hi Guys, My first post on the forums, so please let me know if I'm posting in the wrong place! I'm tentitively booked for Lap Band surgery on Nov 4 with Smartshape in Vancouver, Canada. I've done a lot of research myself, but have found the company to be somewhat pushy for the sale and less eager to supply information about the process, what they provide etc. I know they provide 5 years post op covrage, but so have have had no luck in getting them to provide to me in writing exactly what this entails, under what circumstances and stipulations etc. I' be really grateful to hear about other experiences with SmartShape, particularly their aftercare support and services and if anyone has ever had any issues with them. I'd also love to hear from anyone else in the Vancouver area who has had the surgery! My only other reservation is that alot of people seem to get the band revised to a sleeve. The band has been "sold" to me as something you can have for the rest of your life, so if you've had a band for many years, I'd lovee to hear your experiences too. Thank you all for your help!

I think (though correct me if I'm wrong) the bypass with MGB is longer than with RNY therefore I don't feel it is necessarily a good indicator of what her experience would be. My bypass is almost 9' which is why I have this side effect. There is a MGB group on FB that is very helpful and has so much support and information. Perhaps ask to join and post this there as well.

I live 30 miles east of Springfield and am seeing Dr Matt Simpson through Cox. Mine will be a revision of a VBG to a bypass. Good luck!

I get the hiccups when i had my original surgery in 2002 I told myself the Dr installed an alarm! Here i am 5 days post op revision and my alarm still kicks in when I'm full .

I’m 15 years post surgery. I’ve never taken any pain reliever other than Tylenol. Has anyone else’s doctor suggested an alternative to pain relievers? I was told they were working on an Ibuprofen cream years ago but I haven’t really found something that works. Is anyone else worried about the future with pain as we age? I’m 55 years old and have been very lucky to have minimal body aches. Please let me know if any long term bypass people have solved this.

I just started the Puree stage of my diet. I made a batch of Pureed Chicken thighs made from skinless boneless chicken breasts with every iota of fat removed. I thinned it with low sodium chicken broth until it came together into a paste. I combine this with pureed hard boiled eggs and a little light mayo and greek yogurt to make a simple egg/chicken salad. I also mixed the pureed chicken with broths and strained cream soups to add a little protein and flavor. My body seems to be tolerating the chicken in pureed form just fine. I was a little concerned about introducing chicken back into my diet after talking to a friend who had Gastric Bypass about 8 years ago. She said Milk and Chicken were nightmare foods for her. I understand how you feel about chicken wings, and that crunchy fried texture. (I love my air fryer too). I have a few pounds of chicken wings, 2 wing-ettes per zip-lock bag, in the freezer waiting for the 'regular food' phase of my diet to start, after soft foods. My plan is to slow cook them in a sauce of some form until they are tender. It wont be crunchy, but they still will be wings. I have them in pairs of 2 for portion control. I'm going to treat them as, well, a Treat, and consume in moderation. Good luck on Soft foods, and your weight loss journey!

Sleeve to RNY is very common. Sleeve to Nissen to RNY, doesn't make any sense. As far as I'm aware you can't do a Nissen after a Sleeve. The risks from a sleeve to bypass are minimal. But I doubt anybody knows exactly what this second surgery consisted of

How did you gain it back? Did you stretch your pouch? You just have to start over again. Gastric bypass won't do any more for you than the lapband. I know a couple of people that gained every pound they lost with GB back within 5 years of surgery. Prior to surgery I lost over 100 pounds and regained that plus interest twice. This is my third time losing the weight and I was hoping the band would at least slow down any gain in order for me to get a hold of myself before I gained it all back.

I myself am worried about the unwanted advice, partly because my BMI is around 34, and some "don't think I need the band". I am still in the process of getting my band approved, but I have chosen only to tell my husband, and 2 close friends. Both of which have had the gastric bypass. They are supportive and understand why I'm choosing to do this. After one of my close friends had the bypass, and hearing all the "advice" they had for her, I decided I'd rather keep it to myself, or just share with the selected few.

Hey Destiny...I just posted the other day that my primary doctor also wanted me to have the sleeve or bypass because I needed to lose more than 100 lbs. I went with the band despite what she said and if you look at my ticker below, you can see that I lost 117 lbs. and just reached goal. You can lose however much you want to lose as long as you work the program. And...you can run into trouble no matter which WLS you have if you do not follow the rules. Good luck with whatever surgery you decide on.

Wow I hadn't even thought of that. Thats considerable! I mostly thought down the line if I had to I could revise to RnY or DS... however just to have my sleeve re-done would be ideal! Good luck in your research, I'm not sure who does do this.

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.

I was weighing up the choice between a revision to a bypass or doing nothing - I definitely wouldn't be looking at going against my surgeon's advice. My problem ( and my husbands) is that I still have this belief that I "should"be able to do it on my own.

If you are 9 of 10 on the pain scale, call your surgeon ASAP. You should not be in that much pain. Or got to the ER. Take your pain meds every 4-6 hours. Stay on top of it. Heating pads help, walking helps tons. Although not as invasive as a gastric bypass or sleeve, band surgery IS abdominal surgery. They move your liver around, go behind your stomach, make holes in fat to thread the band through. Sounds pretty invasive to me.

Not absurd at all, the lap band can be very dangerous if rules are not followed, some people vomit their food EVERY SINGLE DAY, never follow rules, drink alcohol daily, carbonated drinks, never follow up when they have problems, keep the band dangerously too tight, etc... Usually when the band erodes, some surgeons will revise the patient to the Sleeve, Bypass or DS, but usually NOT at the same time, sometimes some surgeons will remove most of the stomach after a bad erosion and create a Sleeve like stomach. However, no one really know why band erosion occur, some surgeons speculate it can be caused by several things below: 1. The LapBand around the stomach gradually erodes into the stomach wall over time, and goes into the gastric lumen, as we have seen with other intrabdominal devices. 2.The stomach damage done during the LapBand procedure debilitates the layers of the stomach wall, resulting in erosion at a later time. 3.The sutures were placed too deep and trespassed all the wall layers of the stomach, causing micro perforations that generate leaking, infection and later erosion. 4.Events that happens inside the stomach, such as frequent vomiting, medications, ingestion of irritants as spicy or hot food, alcohol, etc. as well as a large adjustment to the band system, will produce an ulcer that penetrates toward the balloon of the band. http://arturorodriguezmd.com/lapband-erosion/

Revising the RNY to anything is difficult, which is why we don't see many revisions done; typically the most that is done is applying a band over bypass, or tightening the stoma to try to restore some restriction, but neither has a particularly good track record. I have seen a few revisions to the "traditional" BPD/DS performed which is very complex, and there are only a half dozen or so surgeons around capable doing that one. As the SIPS/SADI/SA-DS is being promoted as a simpler, more "accessible" procedure on a par with the RNY on a complexity basis, I wouldn't expect to see many surgeons with the skills yet to do a revision between the two. One doc to check into, who is in your neck of the woods, is Dr. Mitchell Roslin in NYC, who has done some of the RNY to DS revisons, and is a big promoter of the SIPS/SADI - if anyone could do it, he would be it, or he could tell you why it isn't such a good idea, if that is the case. Another possible in your neighborhood (just over the border in NJ is Dr. David Greenbaum who also does a lot of these complex revisions.

I'm looking forward to joining you on the loosing side too! I am 53, also have hypothyroidism/Hashimoto's and had a full hysterectomy in December of 2014. I'm revising from LapBand to VSG-just waiting on insurance approval/surgery date. I'm hoping that VSG will finally give me the opportunity to get to a healthy weight. I was down to 200 and stayed there for almost three years with the LapBand, but since I started experiencing swallowing issues, my weight has increased back to 235. I'm okay with losing slower, I just want to lose. I have an entire wardrobe of smaller sizes that I can't wear anymore and I really liked the way I felt and could move, etc. You know, they say 50 is the new 30:)

I had a revision from sleeve to mini bypass over two weeks ago and have followed everything to a "t" including daily walks and have lost like 3lbs!!!! When I had my sleeve 7years ago I was prolly 15 lbs down the first two weeks!!! Can someone say something to make me feel better ❤️‍🩹

First – I don’t want this to deter anyone from surgery. Everyone’s experience is different. You have to make the decision for yourself. My battle is in no way an indicator of how you will respond, even if you identify with my experience. Don’t let this post influence you to do it or not do it. No one is a poster child for or against bariatric surgery. Anyone who claims to be is doing a disservice to all who struggle with obesity. I was banded almost 4 years ago and I stuck to the program religiously. In 2003 I started thinking about surgery. It took me 2 years to get the courage to do it and was intent on success. Besides being obese I am also a manic depressive. It comes and goes and I have always aggressively perused treatment. I tend to fall in to periods of depression and have to climb my way back. I usually do. The Lapband worked for me. I went from 307 lbs to 230 lbs in just over a year. I was working on the last 20 lbs when my depression returned in the fall of 2007. I immediately increased my treatment so I could stay on course. Treatment wasn’t working. In December of 2007 I lost my Grandmother to a stroke. I spoke to her in the morning, she was fine. By 10PM that night I was in an E.R. She died the following day. Already in the midst of a depression her death coupled with business problems sent me in to a tailspin resulting in the worst and longest depression of my life. This fall will be 3 years and I have yet to come out of it. I changed my course of treatment in 2009 and have improved some, but still have a long way to go. As a result of all of all of my progress has been erased. I re-gained 68 lbs of the 77 lbs I lost. I am back at 300 lbs again, a number that invokes pure horror for me. I am still severely depressed but hopeful my improvement will continue. Logging in to this site is a step for me. I’ve started to consider going back to investigate getting an adjustment. I don’t know if that even is possible after so long. I know that the band doesn’t retain all of the fluid over time, but I was almost maxed at my last fill. I’m not ready to do it yet; any adjustment would be in vain right now. I need to get to a place where I can follow the program. I have also started thinking about a second surgery for a gastric bypass. Apparently this is becoming more common with people who have had not had success with banding. I haven’t made that decision and won’t really consider it until my depression improves dramatically. Bypass is much more dangerous and doing it now would be useless. Either way I am terrified that this will be an ongoing cycle. I have little control of the onset of depression or its severity. I just have to recognize it and fight, but losing a bunch of weight only to gain it back when my brain gets chemically out of whack is a horrible thought. Losing 77 lbs might have been the hardest thing I have ever done. The prospect of doing it over and over is horrifying and does little to motivate me to start again. What’s worse is the new weight came back differently. My waist is bigger than last time I was this heavy. My reflection appalls me. All of that time and effort only to be back where I started, it was so hard to get to a place where I could do it. I don’t even know where that place is now or how to get back there.

I've heard that the sleeve is much less complicated than bypass. Though, I don't know what kind of insurance you have. Some insurances won't cover the sleeve, and will only cover the bypass; not sure why. I would definitely try for the surgery again. 475 pounds is extremely worrying and very detrimental to your health. I'm 249 pounds right now, and even I am risking a lot by being this big. You should never feel ashamed. I think that anyone who can get to your size must have a thyroid problem. In my opinion, it seems impossible to be that size by just eating alone. Something isn't right with the body when it allows itself to get to that size. So, it isn't your fault. I see now where you said you are going to see another surgeon. I am so happy about that! Please keep us updated. <3

RNY was recommended by my surgeon but he said I could choose either. I choose RNY because I wanted a one and done. I didn't have issues with GERD but I didn't want to chance having problems with reflux after the sleeve and having to have a revision to RNY. Very happy with my decision. Not worried about skin and such. I did this for my health as I was facing 2 knee replacements. Now I think I can survive without them - still can't jump but I can walk without pain and that's all I care about.