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I'll keep this short because my laptop died and this is from my Kindle. I think this discussion is a waste of time and that the original post was highly inappropriate. This is a SUPPORT GROUP for people who are already banded or who are seriously considering lap band surgery. It is not for just anyone to post whatever they think about the band including incorrect and unscientific information. I hope the original poster will please refrain from further replies. The depth of emotion that you evoked tells me your negative posts are not welcome here.

AGREED !! This is a SUPPORT group !! the decision to do any surgery is hard enough we don't need this here.there could have been a positive way to tell people considering WLS that there are options .the original poster was very inappropriate and we all should stop commenting and feeding into this.

From my own impressions I thought the sleeve is more suitable for people who want smth low maintenance and the band requires more maintenance. The end result is in the end up to you. Of everyone I know who has done both sleeve and lapband I see that half of them got thin and half didn't. It boils down to you when it comes to success and failure.

when it comes to the band experience, here is what i think are the advantages of the lap band:

- adjustability. I am also still single no kids and hopefully that's in my future. I want a healthy breast fed baby and to do so I will need to eat more. And I will gain weight - it's part of the experience and the beauty of being a woman. God made us this way.

- restart. Fall off the wagon? Get tight again and start over

- proven. I know someone who had the band 10 years ago. It's been around for a while longer than the sleeve, so you know pretty much what to expect be it good or bad

- I still have my complete stomach. If one day I need to remove part of it due to a tumor or something, I'll have the full 100% not 40%

Its disadvantages are:

- high maintenance

- reflux and heart burn

- slow weightloss, and hard work, no different than being on a diet but it makes you stick to it for the long term

- risk of slips and port problems

The sleeve has different advantages and disadvantages, so it's about choosing which advantages you want more and which disadvantages you can deal with more.

Best of luck with the sleeve. i am curious to see what you will say ten years from now. I am too risk averse to go through a surgery that hasn't hit the ten year mark, but thank god for gutsy people like you and early bandsters!

I was going to reply to this topic yesterday when it was first posted but at that point I was unable to reply to any threads.

My thoughts on what I was going to post at the time were:-

That it is wonderful that the OP had a made a decision about WLS that suited her.

That she must be visiting and reading a different sleeve forum to the one I read.

When I read stuff on that forum yes there are a lot of happy people BUT there are also a heck of a lot of people that have had complications, especially leaks. This is in a very small group of people. There are a number of people that have had serious life threatening complications which seems to be very rare on this band forum. There are also a number of people that are struggling with issues such as hunger, food intolerances etc. And I think that the majority of sleevers have to take an acid reducer as a matter of routine because the incidence of reflux especially initially is very high.

I think what this proves is that a person gets out of something what they want. The OP is looking for confirmation that her choice to have a slleve is the correct one so she reads the sleeve board and sees a positive message. I don't want a sleeve unless I have no choice, to me having so much of your stomach removed is scary so when I read the forum I focus more on the negative. I am sure neither is right nor wrong.

However this issue has of course become very contentious and understandably so. You have to question the motives of someone that comes onto the band board just to post about how much better the sleeve is. And for some reason people that have decided to get the sleeve do this all the time. One wonders what sort of reaction we would get over on the sleeve board if we did the same thing. I am sure it would not go down well.