Hello all,

I'm really excited I've decided to start my journey of weight lost. My mandatory seminary is May 23. I'm stuck in-between the lap band and gastric sleeve. I've been researching but I'm still not sure. Any suggestions?

​ Congratulations on thinking about starting your new journey. My thoughts are: a Lap Band can be removed if need be. By-Pass, they staple your stomach and it can stretch and you can regain all weight back. I know of at least 6 people who did. The Sleeve, they remove a whole lot of stomach and it ain't coming back.

When I went to the seminar at the local hospital they showed a slide show and talked about everything for each type of surgery. I never thought of anything but the band. I am thrilled with it and you just have to remember it is a tool and all tools need to be worked with to work successfully. I hope I have helped you. Just ask any questions, nothing is dumb, stupid or whatever on this wonderful site.

Before you settle on the sleeve, ask your doctor about the band with further curvature gastric plication. It's where they fold the greater curve of the stomach in on itself, and sew it with two rows of non dissolving sutures. Then they place the band on top. The plication reduces the stomach to approx. 25-30% of its normal capacity; shape and size like the sleeve, without removing 75% of a major organ. There are a bunch of people on this site who have had it done, including me. I'm VERY happy, and sleep much better at night knowing that I didn't staple, re-route my plumbing or remove a huge portion of my stomach. It's reversible, and worth looking into......

Hi all. My 2 cents. I am at end of six month procress and hopefully will get sleeved in June. I am saying sleeved but tossed and turned a long time because making this decision. Yes the band is a simpler surgery and reversable , but why do you want to something reversable? I know some people who had struggled with the band and others who loved it, but the real problem here is a lot of people end of converting to the sleeve later on because of the band slippage or scar tissue. Not trying to pour cold water on the banders, I really thought in the beginning that the band was for me, but after alot of research, the sleeve seemed like a better long term approach. But for you successful banders on here, I'm glad to see its working for u. Hey gov Chris Christie did the band recently, so we'll see how he does..good luck to all and wish me luck!

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I'm really excited I've decided to start my journey of weight lost. My mandatory seminary is May 23. I'm stuck in-between the lap band and gastric sleeve. I've been researching but I'm still not sure. Any suggestions?[/quote']

I wanted the sleeve at first but being your stomach is cut, I opted for the band. If there are complications the sleeve is not reversible. That was enough to make me choose the band over the sleeve.

The sleeve was never on the table for me. I bounced back & forth between the bypass and the band. Then I was told about adding plication to the band, which sounded like the best of both worlds......without all the irreversible complications.

With the sleeve, any possible leaks from the staple line is a serious life threatening issue. You can end up on the hospital for 4-6 weeks minimum, which is a "time out" that I could not afford.

The bottom line is, whether it's the sleeve, bypass, lap band with or without plication, you can gain weight with ALL of them. None of these surgeries are a fix, they are only tools for us to work with. If we stick to the program and the rules of the surgery, we will be successful. When we veer away, the weight will begin to climb. Pick your poison.....at the end of the day, it all boils down to what you're willing to put into it.