When I showed my mother the video of the procedure yesterday and some of the before and after photo's of some of the people on this site she brought up a good point. She basically is concerned that I would have the surgery lose the weight only to end up working my way back up to overeating etc and stretching my stomach out and then gain back the weigh. She has a few friends that had stomach stapling of the 80's done and they regained to end up having gastric bypass, another friend has bypass about 6 years ago and has gained all the weight again. Now both of those people I mentioned were women that were extremely overweight to start with and had weight issues pretty much since childhood so I don't know if that might be a deciding factor also.

Since the studies on the procedure are only on the record here in the US for 5-6 years (I think) I wonder if in the long run it may be one of the statistics to reckon with?

Would having the lap band keep that from happening due to the adjustability of it? Any thoughts or theories?

Pouches stretch. With the band you get a pouch, so even if you have restriction, you can stretch your pouch, and eat more food.

With the sleeve, the portion of the stomach that remains (if your surgeon dissects the fundus completely), is mainly muscle so stretching is very minimal with the sleeve. There is not any of the stretchy, flabby part of the stomach left behind like with the old stomach stapling, and even gastric bypass. Your stomach will function just like it does now only with a smaller capacity.

I can honestly tell you that I would not recommend a band to my worse enemy because of the stats that are rolling out for regain, reoperations, revisions, and overall complications from the last 4 years on the band. Well, and the other fact that the band screwed me royally, and destroyed my stomach tissue. So, I'm pretty biased towards the sleeve since I've lived with both.

I agree with Tiff. From all of my research and what my doc has shown me, the tissue that remains (my doc uses a 32f) the muscle fibers run a different direction and are not subject to "stretching". That is not to say that you can't consume "easy" calories (liquids, ice cream..etc) that will cause you to take in more calories than you burn

in the orientation class earlier this week, the instructor states Kaiser no longer does the Band and at times will not do the RNY, unless the surgeon sees its best for the patient. She stated Kaiser overall did 7 lapbands last year and reversed them all. its seems all their doing is the Sleeve.

Pouches stretch. With the band you get a pouch, so even if you have restriction, you can stretch your pouch, and eat more food.

With the sleeve, the portion of the stomach that remains (if your surgeon dissects the fundus completely), is mainly muscle so stretching is very minimal with the sleeve. There is not any of the stretchy, flabby part of the stomach left behind like with the old stomach stapling, and even gastric bypass. Your stomach will function just like it does now only with a smaller capacity.

I can honestly tell you that I would not recommend a band to my worse enemy because of the stats that are rolling out for regain, reoperations, revisions, and overall complications from the last 4 years on the band. Well, and the other fact that the band screwed me royally, and destroyed my stomach tissue. So, I'm pretty biased towards the sleeve since I've lived with both.

Yeah, I'm wondering just how much it is even possible to "stretch" the sleeve. I'm thinking that weight regain with the sleeve will mostly be due to too many "slider" foods and soft calories. That doesn't make it impossible, but much less likely than with the band or the bypass. Plus the hormone thing shouldn't be underestimated. My girlfriend, at 6 months out, says that to this day she still just never feels hungry. That's not trivial at all.

Hi, When I was at my one month post op the nurse coordinator from the hospital told me that she was amazed how much better the sleeve patients recover compared to the band patients. Kaiser olso told my friend who attended their options class that a high percentage have to have the band to be removed after 2 years.

Nancy

I had my band for 2 1/2 years, had it removed due to slippage in July. My 12 week wait is now up and I am getting my sleeve by dr Aceves in Mexicali next Friday! Make sure that you make the correct decision for you. At the time, i did not really have a choice, it was RNY or band, and I did not want the whole malabsorption thing. So band it was. i will tell you this, if the sleeve was available back then, i probably would have still gone with the band, as the not so invasive of the 2. Hidsight and all, now I have to fork over $$ because of an insurance occlusion of 1 WLS per lifetime and I will not be changing policies anytime soon! so there is my story. I will check back with you in 2 weeks and let you know the pain difference between the 2, but i can tell you that i DID lose weight with my band, just couldn't keep it off or keep the band in me!!

Patti