Need Buddy SOON! Someone who has gotten Bypass after failed Band.

I have not been successful with my band. I received my Realize band on 01/04/08 and have only lost 24 pounds in 3 years. I am a complete and total failure. I feel my eating habits resemble serious, deep addiction more than anything. I also hate that no amount of calorie counting, exercise or extreme dieting have been successful with this band. I feel I was misled and given completely false information by my Barix Clinic prior to my banding. I don't feel I'm taken seriously when I cry about my addiction to them. I thought this band would help me to feel full as long as I followed the "rules". I thought if I followed the rules (I'm NOT a rule-breaker), then I would be successful at least by the 3 year mark! This has never been the case. This band is painful with each bit of food I chew and swallow. Smaller bites don't even help. My band slipped (concentric slip...up and over like a mushroom) before Christmas. They did a complete unfill and I gained 20 pounds. When I went back to have it filled again, I didn't feel restriction at all until 7cc's were back in...and then absolutely PAIN and inability to even swallow my saliva. He removed 1cc and all is well because I can eat again...but back to eating anything again...eating right through the band becuase the restriction is not there at all for some foods (i.e. all the BAD foods)...and completely causing pain and inability to eat for the RIGHT foods.

I am a complete and TOTAL failure and I feel my addiction was far to great to receive the band. i picked the wrong surgery. I don't know what to do. I'm considering Bypass but what if that doesn't work either? Am I just always going to be this fat, horrific-looking blob of a woman? I'm crying each and every time I'm alone, and putting on a front to hide the embarrassment of my failure. I know people are questioning why I haven't lost any weight. I KNOW they are questioning because they are verbally asking me.

I just want someone to buddy up with me and help me figure out my next move. I've already made up my mind that I can not live with this band. I would like to see about revision but how deeply gruelling is the process to get approval? I have BCBS insurance.

At one point I had lost 48 pounds and never got any further...put almost all of it back on again in 1/4 of the time it took me to take it off. Please help me, because my surgeon doesn't give a rat's rear end about me. He surely thinks I'm a joke and a failure. I'm begging someone to please help me.

~Krista