My story has been a long 10 year roller coaster ride both in weight and emotion!

I was banded at 18 in California. I was just under 250 at 5'1". I had an easy surgery and started losing pretty quickly. After a couple years, I was down almost 100lbs and feeling great until suddenly, in August 2005, I couldn't swallow Water. My band had slipped and badly. I went into surgery the next day to have my band fixed, but due to erosion, it was removed and as the surgeon put it to my parents, he "MAY have punctured my stomach trying to navigate scar tissue, but it was difficult to tell what was a puncture and what was an erosion." I was devastated to put it lightly and spent 9 days in the hospital recovering.

Insurance refused to replace the band (despite multiple appeals) because my BMI was too low. My surgeon and I worked through the year on appeals and by June, I had climbed back to my starting weight of 250. We found out in March that when my insurance changed at the beginning of the year, they had made WLS a contract exclusion and we had exhausted our appeals.

I decided that if I wanted my band back, I would have to pay for it and began looking into options out of the country. For a bunch of different reasons, I ended up choosing a hospital and surgeon in Mumbai, India. The surgeon in Mumbai told me that my first band was placed so high, that my scar tissue wasn't in his way at all. I now wonder if that is the only reason my first band worked so well. I had a new lap band placed in August 2006 at 269lbs (my highest weight) and went home filled with hope.

My hope faded as over the next year I only lost around 40-50lbs or so. Not a small amount of weight, but only half of what I lost the first time and only about a third of what I was hoping for. This band never worked like the first one. By 2012 I was back up to 250. My band has dilated for the 2nd time. I have unfilled, gone through nutrition counseling and slowly refilled twice, both times with the hope that I could do it... but it just isn't working.

My current insurance has a contract exclusion as well, and will not remove or revise my band unless it is life threatening. Instead of going through lengthy appeals (since that worked so horribly before), I decided to self pay again. My first thought was just get this band out of me... I just want to be done! I'm tired of being stuck and puking only to end up over eating in the end. But after speaking at length with my primary care, I started to consider revising to the Vertical Sleeve. I've been researching for a few months now and I've officially made up my mind... I'm going for it!! I'm terrified of failure, but I'm more terrified of being unhealthy for the rest of my life and never being the healthy active parent that my daughters deserve.

This time I am going with Dr. Fernando Garcia in Tijuana with Ready 4 a Change. His extensive experience with band to sleeve revisions gives me hope. Through verticalsleevetalk.com I have been able to talk to literally hundreds of his patients, so many of whom were previously banded. I have my surgery scheduled for May 11th and I'm fearful that I am starting to get my hopes up that this will be the right path for me. I am hoping that this roller coaster will take one final dip (hopefully at least a 100lb dip lol). My kids need a mom that can keep up with them and I know I can't do that on my own.

So sorry to hear about all your problems with the band! It had to be very frustrating! Thank goodness that there is other alternatives that will help you achieve your goals. Good luck on your success in the future!

So sorry to hear about all your problems with the band! It had to be very frustrating! Thank goodness that there is other alternatives that will help you achieve your goals. Good luck on your success in the future!

Thank you so much. The band definitely served it's purpose in it's life, but I am very much looking forward to moving on to something that will hopefully work better for me! My sister and mother are both very successfully banded. I have seen the great things it can do, heck, that it did for me! lol Just a disappointing situation, but it looks at though I may have found my light at the end of the tunnel.