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Pretty sure Jacqui is meaning 'using the lap band in addition to behavior modification and a bit of honestly with yourself works really well.' I'm not a 'veteran' bander, but would agree with that sentiment 100%. Have had my share of problems too, a post-op port infection and port revision surgery four months post-op. As far as which forum this thread was posted in, might be a good idea to ask a site moderator to move it to a more appropriate forum where you will hopefully get more feedback. Good luck.

Camille, sorry to hear you've had such a hard time. Life can definitely set you back. Just start with the next meal. Keep the sweets out of the house. You can do it. Why can you not eat sweets with bypass? It doesn't seem it would be any different.

ME TOO! Her and I are both nurses and we talk about it all the time. Makes no sense but they did say they think there is a correlation to what is going on with her bypass.....especially the kidney stones. She actually got septic from the kidney stones which caused a massive UTI and it went systemic... landed her in the ICU. She has had consults with infectious disease, oncologists, rheumatologists, urologists... you name it. It is so frustrating that they can't figure this out. She was doing really good for about 3 months and just a few weeks ago she started feeling run down again and they ran blood work only to find her blood counts were all low again, white and red... they had to give her another Iron infusion.. matter of fact the day I had my sleeve. She came to see me after her infusions. They are sending her for more tests. I will add you to my friend list and email you if they come up with anything. Hang in there... I know its maddening. :/

I had RNY gastric bypass surgery whereas you are having duodenal switch so your requirements are a little different from mine. They are actually more extensive than mine. But having said this, I will make the following observations. Your surgeon office should provide you with a complete list of what vitamin requirements you will need to take daily. After surgery I found that I could no longer swallow medium to large pills. As a result I used pill crushers or pill splitters to make them small enough for me to consume. This condition lasted for a couple months and then I was able to swallow them again. Vitamin chemistry is important for absorption. Calcium supplements should be calcium citrate. There are also different chemistries of B12. I use the sublingual B12 and was told to use methylcobalamin. You cannot use a time-release version of B12. If you are taking iron supplements, it must be ferrous sulfate for the best absorption. Gummy vitamins are not absorbed properly and should be avoided. It is important to put a 2 hour separation between the vitamins that contain iron and those that contain calcium. So in my case I found that what works best for me is to take the iron supplements just before bedtime. I put my vitamins in a weekly pill container. I have one container for the morning and one for the night. And I use a very small glass bowl for my calcium supplements. I put my calciums in the bowl in the morning and take them throughout the day. If I am up and about I put my calciums in a ziplock bag and carry them with me. The directions I received also included a list of those who underwent duodenal switch surgery. These were: Four Flintstone complete chewable multivitamins daily. 1800 to 2400 milligrams calcium citrate daily [this can be tricky because the dosage rate is per 2 capsules - therefore this can mean around 6-8 capsules per day of the large size [horse pill] supplements. Even more if you use the petite size. A total of 5000 International Units of Vitamin D3 Daily. 1000 micrograms sublingual B12 weekly or a B12 injection once each month. 100 milligrams Thiamine (vitamin B1) weekly. I suspect that after surgery they will place you on a blood thinner for a week or two to prevent blood clots. As a result they will restrict you intake of aspirin (another blood thinner) for the first month or two. Also they may restrict you from taking any other vitamins or medicine during the first few months. Since you are taking prescription medicine for depression, you will want to work these through with your surgeon's office. The absorption rate may vary after surgery.

The latest, my GERD is getting better by my change in eating habits. Most days, I feel like a perpetual science experiment! I am afraid to eat. I don't want to have acid. My first visit to the nutritionalist is this week. I will have a clear plan at that point. If I am revised? It will occur in late March. Time will surely tell! Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using BariatricPal mobile app

Keep fighting! I had the same GERD/hernia issues since I was sleeved 5 years ago. Just had revision on 7/23 and have not had one second of heartburn/reflux. Make sure your surgeon does endoscopy. Meeting with nutritionist & behavioral will speed the process along too. I saw both of them before even scheduling surgery and I didn’t need to go through any of the classes again. Best of luck!!! We are rooting for you!!!

I agree with you that it should not be a winner/loser type of thing. However, I've seen that happen and I think people need to understand what mindset their doctors come from. Its going to be getting you in for surgery. You haven't been far enough out yet. Its only 7 months for you. Wait until you hit the 2 year mark. Or even the 1 year. Its not a secret that there is not a lot of support for many in terms of that support like what you are talking about. Go to long term support groups and that's what you hear about. To be successful, the ones I know aren't in any specific program, they're more attached to the long term type of groups that are more online and the like. Either that or they get revisions. I'm also saying what I said because the surgeon, he stated that my anatomy is normal and there is nothing special about it. I can be treated just like any other patient. If that is true, that would be true for all sleeves. He goes against the ASMBS in that sense. One of the reasons why I say investigate your doctor. Had I known his outlook was this way, I would have thought differently. Its that far end, long term, look that you are looking at, that many people don't ask about. Its the surgery, its the big event. Its not what happens after when I've gotten regain. How many patients and what protocols do you do then. You don't see that advertised. You are right from terms of the persons' point of view, but the surgeon is not graded by the ASMBS for COE's in terms of how many people and how long people stay in a program. They are graded on # of surgeries done. As for satisfaction, again do you see any intro sessions that talk long term satisfaction? How they deal with complications 2 years out or more? No. Its the surgery. Medical ethics. If you allege a HIPAA violation and get your care dropped, and there are laws against retaliation, would you wonder about medical ethics? I sure would want to know if that situation came up. What about you all?

Many band patients later have to revise to sleeve due to complications or ineffective weight loss.

Wow! Nice job- you look amazing! HW 242, SW 236- (Bypass 12/20/17) GW#1- 199 [emoji736] (2/11/18) GW#2- 175 CW 184 5’6”

I'm looking at a revision from sleeve to DS loop too. How are things going now? Also, you mentioned you were self pay - do you mind sharing the cost? I'm looking into insurance but might end up being self pay too. Thanks and I hope you are doing great!

Dear Presurg: This surgery will not limit what you eat in any way. Within a couple of months, you can stuff yourself to oblivion and gain weight as fast as you ever did. I'm three months out...and if I wanted to? I could eat 3000+ calories per day easily. Lot of people do this. They start eating crap every couple of hours and manage to gain back every ounce they've lost before they've even gotten to month six. Reeses peanut butter cups go down very easily after surgery, so do potato chips and ice cream and french fries and nuts.... and it doesn't take many of these indulgences for them to add up and turn into a disaster. While you might notice a little nausea after a gut load of sugary things, sleeve patients don't generally dump like bypass patients. It won't be hard for you to overindulge in sweets. Also, lots of people continue to experience lots of hunger. Ask me:) I know:) I had no nausea, never vomited, and was ready to chew my leg off two weeks after surgery I was so hungry. If you do not correct your eating habits and apply a metric feck tonne of self discipline, and work....this surgery isn't going to do squat for you. Some people are looking for a magic cure. If this is you....don't bother. You're still going to have to diet. And count calories. And write down every single thing you eat every day of your life for months and months. You will still have to pay attention to measuring everything you eat. Looking up calories. You will have to exercise...and then exercise harder to break the stall you've been stuck on for weeks. The average experience with sleeve....is to lose about 60-70% of your excess weight in 18 months and then gain about 12% back. If you have 100 pounds to lose, you can expect to lose about 65 in 18 months if you have a typical experience with gastric sleeve...and then gain back about 12 within two years. (and these are people who mostly follow instructions, eat 1000-1200 calories a day and exercise 30 minutes a day) If you want an exceptional experience...where you get to your goal weight....you'll have to work really really hard to get there. And pay attention to what the people who have actually done it have to say about it. I'm a little older than Blizair09...and we have different diet philosophies....but he's one of the hardest working posters I've seen on these boards and I admire the hell out of him and have learned a LOT from his experience. You could do a lot worse than to listen to him. One final word of (unsolicited) advice.... If you smoke again after surgery, you will swallow nicotine. Your saliva will be infused with it and it will wash right down to your stomach. Nicotine impedes healing and is strongly correlated with leaks post surgically. Both in the first few weeks AND in the first few years. Best wishes on your surgery. Here's hoping the peanut butter eggs haven't deterred your liver from shrinking.....many surgeons will just close you back up if your liver hasn't sufficiently shrunk. To get your liver to shrink you have to stop eating carbs nearly completely. You're defeating the point of the diet...by eating that candy.

I went to Tijuana mexico. My surgery was on June 20th. I used MBC and they were all very nice and professional. The hospital was clean and they take very good care of you. I had bypass and I can give you a break down on what I paid. $5895 for the RNY, $390 for the companion, $395 for the hernia, and $395 for BMI 49+ = $7,075 Sent from my BE2028 using BariatricPal mobile app

I am assuming the bypass has resolved the issue?

Im hoping we can work together on this let me tell you a little about my story -- LAP-BAND® 9/2005 02/06 - slip 03/06 - re band throught the past 5 years I have STRUGGLED and the ONLY time i lost weight was when the bad was so tight I barely could drink Water. One day I would be able to eat yogurt, the next day it would get stuck -- it was this way constantly and Id never know what i coul or couldnt eat unless i tried - so in teh end I have a band with 1/2 fill so i can eat normally but it defeats the purpose of even having TWO surgeries because here I am weighig in 10lbs les then my 1st surgery and 10 more then my second.... Just went to the Dr. yesterday and he suggested I look into the bypass revision. He made it sound really good but he also didnt leave out the fact that because it is a revision - the risks are automatically higher for compications. I sit here wondering if my body had this many compications with a simple band who will ti react to a bypass? Maybe I will do great with bypass and i will finally see results Ive been striving to see forever what is I am the 15% that thigs go drastically wrong My job now covers this revision - if I waitr health care might change ................................... I too dont know what to do! Complications? What kind of complications? Like is its "dumbing" more often.. k I can handle that.. If its leakge... that can cause death.. IDK I wish I could survey 100 ppl who had this themself! Help for us both What ever we decide , we r not alone! sry for typos - at work tryign to do this fast w/out boss seeing XD Lisa (yes im lisa as well)

Jake, Thanks for your suggestion because I know I needed to hear it. When people ask me about what the hardest part to having a Lap Band I tell lthem it's the tinkering with it that gets old. Filling, overfilling, taking it out, etc. I still am glad that I did it though and the problems it has are not near as bad as being twice my body weight brought. A friend of mine who had gastric bypass told me that while I would leave behind the problems that the weight brought me, I'd be taking on new ones. That was the best advice I ever got before surgery and the most true. Hope you do well with yours. Mine is doing some better. Been taking the Prilosec and holding down food again. It's hard work to be this thin LOL

My sleeve surgeon just did a gallbladder removal for me a couple weeks ago. I saw him today for follow-up and he chatted a bit about a bariatric surgeon conference he just attended in Sydney, AU. Just as background, my surgeon does mostly sleeves and the occasional bypass. He used to do a ton of bands but now only does the band if the patient insists. He still maintains a lot of bands. He said that the band is way down in Australia and whole areas of the country have no band surgeons anymore. He also said that the re-operation rate (for all types of re-operation) is as high as 40% with the band. He said that the band has a lot of potential points of failure, including that the port can flip, the needle can puncture the band during a fill and cause a leak, or lots of other ways that are not really direct failures of the band. He seems pretty down on the band now but wants to give his existing band patients the highest standard of care. He also confirmed that Allergan has sold the lap band to another company, Apollo Endosurgery. I googled that and found a story in the Wall Street Journal. http://m.asia.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303471004579165961441181356?mobile=y He said that the sleeve is gaining massive popularity because of the low complication rate, high success rate, and that they are starting to feel really confident about the long term prospects of the sleeve, starting to see some patients with more than 10 years sleeved. He said that the sleeve may stretch 3-5% over time but then it stops. He said it is like taking a t-shirt and cutting off a sleeve. You can stretch the sleeve but it will never be nearly as big as the shirt. The bypass is going to be around a long time and is still very well regarded. It is the #1 choice for people with reflux or bowel diseases and it is the best salvage surgery for people who have reflux problems after the sleeve. The DS is very uncommon these days because the sleeve works so well on its own. This is my surgeon's summary to me about the state of bariatric surgery in Australia today from the point of view of the surgeons.

My WLS journey has been at a Bariatric Center of Excellence in a major Medical Center. The Weight Loss Center here has done thousands of surgeries in the last ten years. The program is discouraging patients from pursuing the lap band procedure because of the risk of complications. In my classes, I met two lap band revision patients that have had multiple issues. After talking with them, I am very comfortable with my decision to do the sleeve.

RN on surgical floor and soon to b pt myself, yes abdominal binders are on everyone of our bypass n sleeve pts. Helps hold everything in place to relieve the pressure and pain. A lot of belly drs make their pts wear them.

Hi, I am just starting to look into the lapband surgery. I have been dealing with my weight since grade school, although looking back it really wasn't til the end of college that my weight was really out of control. I viewed a seminar from the WISH center and put my name in to receive a call and schedule an appointment for a consultation. Did any of you lapbanders consider the gastric bypass surgery? Why and why not? Thank you, Karen

Hello fellow bandsters, I'm brand new to all this, stumbled on this website and have been hooked on it ever since. I live near Joliet IL and hopefully (pending insurance approval) sometime in May. I've been doing the 6 mo Dr. supervised diet, and going to all of my required dr visits getting their approval. My surgury is going to be at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet by Dr Lahmann. The center is called BMI. He does gastric bypass and the LapBand. Would love to get to know anyone else out there from this area. (and elsewere):smile:

And it was only a seminar! After a slightly stressful drive over there, because GoogleMaps is the worst, thank god for my iPhone.... Ty and I arrived about 10 mintues late. I had this image in my head of them turning us away because we were late and I was so scared that I would have to wait a month to go to the next one, but they let us right in, lol. It was amazing to see and hear all the facts about obesity in America, I was shocked by some of it. The doctor running the seminar kept calling it a disease, that obesity is the fastest spreading emidemic in America and that we should consider it a disease. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know that due to genetics, some people are more proned to being overweight then others, but I really feel like it's more of a culture issue. Our portion sizes in America are out of this world. When I first arrived to Japan in January I honestly thought I was going to have to order two of everything when we went out to eat beacuse the portions were so small there, but after about 2 weeks I found that I could "survive" off the portions that they served just fine, that it was indeed, enough food. We learned about the 4 different types of surgeries that they offer, and all the pros and cons. Then they had three lovely ladies come up who had had the surgery and give their story. That was actually pretty cool, until the audience started focusing more on succes stories, then having important questions answered. That was the frustrating part. I thought that people there would be more prepared like I was, with a list of important questions and ready to just open fire while the surgen was there. And when did raising your hand to ask a question go out of style? My arm got so tired while being raised and having to wait because people were just blurting out questions that I had to rest it on Ty for support. (I don't wan to sound like a b*tch and say that no one should have been asking questions but me, lol, it was just a lot of questions were about clothes and such, and before and after pictures. I just wanted to tell everyone about this site and say "go there! They have awesome b & a pics! but please, I need to know some things first!" but I didn't ) So, as we were walking out, I was eager to set up the next appointments for Ty and me and when I spoke to the lady in charge of that, she asked why we hadn't filled out the insurance sheet (where she calls and checks with our insurance for free) and I told her that I had called about 2 weeks ago and that our insurance didn't cover the band because our employer has decided to exclude it from our coverage. ( I was proud that I could tell her verbatim what was told to me 2 weeks ago) (and I also thought this was something she must hear everyday) She asked if they covered any other WLS and I said yes, gastro bypass and she said she wanted our information, because it's almost illegal for them to cover one but not the other, because the band is FDA approved. So that is what I am doing today, filling out the insurance forms for Ty and myself to fax in. If we can save 30,000 by not self-paying, I'm sure I can find it in my heart to wait a bit longer to have the surgery, plus 30,000 can buy me the new boobs that I've always wanted, or at least some jeans that fit right after I lose weight. lol Sorry this was so long, I was just so excited about last night, I would have posted last night if the drive home wasn't 2 hours long, but luckily for all you folks, it's time for me to get ready for work and finish my last day of training. Hopefully I passed the test yesterday so that I'm not going to training today for nothing. Happy Friday! ~Shelley

Hey Favoredone: Welcome! I too didn't want to say anything to my family, because of the negativity, but what I did was, tell one at a time, and explained that I was not having the bypass (which they are negative of), and that I was having a new successful procedure that made your stomach smaller (no re-routing of the intestines), and that I was doing it; because of health issues that I have now, and could have in the future. They seemed to all be receptive, but it really didn't matter to me whether they were or not, because I am doing this for myself. My husband is supportive, but concerned. He is going to go to one of the seminars to get more info. to make him feel better about the procedure. I hope this helps.

Yeah, I don't think the surgeries differ much in terms of average weight loss. Otherwise most people would probably just choose the one that works best. (Probably one reason why no one likes the lap band anymore - it definitely doesn't work as well.) Since you said you're a grazer, perhaps you'd prefer a bypass or DS. With the sleeve, you feel much more of a restriction - I feel absolutely stuffed for an hour or two or three after a meal that would have been an appetizer before. It's that drastic reduction in the amount you can eat that does the work with a sleeve. In contrast, I've read comments from people who revise from a sleeve to a bypass, and they often say that they feel less restriction afterwards than they did with the sleeve. With the bypass, things slide through your system faster so you don't feel full for long, but you absorb less calories. I like the restriction, and I feel like it works really, really well for me. But I've never been a snacker - I like my 2-3 meals and that's it. I think people who like to eat often can make up for the reduced volume by increasing meal frequency if they try. I didn't really know that when I was deciding though. I decided on the sleeve because I prefer a less invasive procedure (all other things being equal), and didn't want to have to worry about malsorbtion, and I didn't have much of a reflux problem.

Do you struggle with reflux currently? If so bypass might be a better option. I had mild reflux so I decided to go with the sleeve. Zero reflux since I had it done a month ago. Dumping was a consideration for me too. I personally wanted to live my life having a slice of cake on my birthday or a cookie with my kids from time to time. Some people feel like they need the strictness of bypass that will never allow them to eat certain foods again. Malabsorption was a factor for me as well. FWIW, obviously I don’t know your friend, but I’d guess it wasn’t the sleeve that failed her. Slider foods, grazing all day, heavy carbs, etc. will definitely stall your progress and cause regain. My head hunger is for sure still there. It’s a lot of work! (I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m judgmental of her. I get it.)

Thanks for the encouragement. I think I was just having a pity party for myself and needed to hear that others are out the there too. I guess the other probelm is that so many think that this is supposed to be like bypass and the wieght just falls off. My sister is trying to get bypass but lapband was what I wanted and I need to remember the reasons why I chose the band over the sleeve or bypass. I didn't want malnutrition or my stomach cut. I knew what I was getitng into. I just see so many and have met mant who 6 months out have gone from size 24 to size 8 and that would be a dream come true...but I never have had the time to ask how hard or easy it was to get to that point. I was told an average of 3-4 pounds a week in the first few months then 1-2 when I get to about half or 3/4 of my weight gone. Is this wrong???? I guess I should feel lucky...one person is doing liquids for 21 days...I at least didn't have to do that. That is true will power and I commend all of you on your journey and your help. Thanks