Hi everyone, I'm new here and have a few questions. I have spent the past few months, almost a year on lapbandtalk.com forum because that was the surgery I wanted, and at the time the only one my Surgeon would perform on me. My surgeon was admit that because I have Crohns Disease the only true safe WLS surgery would be the band, or maybe an outside chance at the sleeve, but he felt best about band. Obviously at that appointment he gave me a list of stuff to get done before he would see me again, lose 18 lbs, see the food shrink, see the nutritionist, see the Diabeties dr, and all the normal WLS stuff. The Dr had told me it normally takes 6 moths to a year to complete the list, and get the ok from all the different doctors, Nutritionist and so on. I lost the 18 lbs in 10 days, and had all the doctors signed off on this within 3 weeks. When I went back to see my surgeon nobody at his office could believe I completed the check list that fast, and they put in my approval request for Band surgery. My insurance, which is good insurance, and the dr office says approves damn near everyone denied me, stating they needed more information. I gathered up all the info my surgeon told me to, it was resubmitted, and denied stating not medically necessary at this time. The surgeon then resubmitted the request, and it came back denied, Due to Crohns disease, and requested my surgeon call the med director at Blue Choice. Turns out the insurance company is worried about corrosion from the band, and with Crohns this could be really bad. My surgeons stance was that the band is really the safest way to go because if the crohns flares up they can drain the band, or even remove it if really needed. Long story longer, I got denied again, I called Blue choice Insurance myself, and asked to speak to the med director and was told they only talk to doctors, not policy holders. I have called Blue choice three and four times a week for months now, they still wont give in and let me speak to a med director. I would think as a paying policy holder I should be able to speak to the person who is making med decisions regarding my health, right? My surgeon keeps pushing too, without much luck.

Last week my surgeon calls me and says come in tomorrow I need to talk to you. I go in to the office, and the girl behind the desk tells me, no charge for today, doctors orders, ok great, a free bee. Instead of taking me to a exam room they walk me to the surgeons office, and he says have a seat, at this point I'm thinking oh crap, he is gonna tell its all over and no surgery at all for me. I was amazed at what did actually say, and confused by it at the same time. The surgeon proceeds to tell me that if I agree to switch procedures he has been lead to believe that the insurance company will cover me for the sleeve. This really blows my mind! I have crohns, which is a mouth to anus disease, meaning it can show up anywhere between those two places. While my Crohns has been restricted to my Intestine, and has not been active, it is always a concern, which is why I can't have the full bypass.

My Surgeon says we can most likely move forward very quickly avoiding the 6 moth wait for the sleeve due to the fact that I have been in a holding pattern for almost a year now. I want to get this done ASAP, but I also want to know what I'm walking into, so I'm going to continue to read every damn thread on this board that I can right up until surgery.

I have spent the past six days reading online about the sleeve, and trying to research the sleeve with Crohns patients, but I can not find any info regarding the two of them together.

Does anyone on this forum have crohns? If so how is the sleeve working for you?

Has anyone heard of someone with crohns having the sleeve?

Has anyone here had the band and switched to the sleeve?

Would you get sleeved again if given the choice?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Warrior, first off welcome to the forum you will get lots of good information here to sort through. I am sorry you have had such issues from trying to get approved but at least in this case they are really trying to figure out with your disease how healthy each choice would be instead of just deny deny deny. I do not have information about anyone having Crohns and having VSG or Sleeve surgery. There are quite a few band to sleeve revision patients here that can give you tons of info. I think there is also a specific thread topic for just that class of sleevers. I hope you find someone that can help you answer those questions, but I just wanted to welcome you to the site.

I am about 4 months out and don't regret the surgery one bit. I am glad I did not go through with the lap band (lapbandtalk) is where I actually found out about this procedure and quickly moved over here. Your situation is different though with your disease and there is an ask the doctor thread here and we get some great responses from some wonderful doctors regarding different scenarios. You may try asking for some info there!

Thank you for the reply, I will definitely ask the question in the "ask the doctor" forum. At the time I posted I was extremely Excited, or irritated, maybe a bit of both. I had been told that the band was the only thing I could have, and that how long it would take to get the band depended on how quick I completed my list. I busted my but getting that list of stuff done in just a few weeks, all so I could spend damn near a year arguing with the insurance company. I spent countless hours researching the band surgery, and then WHAM, guess what, you can only have the sleeve! The sleeve, WTF is the Sleeve??!! I had heard of the sleeve, but had no clue what it was, how it worked, or how it compared the band. I had been told the band was my only option, so why would I research the sleeve?. Being a person that likes to research for myself, and in this case hear from others that have been there, done that, here I am, and I'll be here daily reading and researching.

After doing a lot of reading on this forum, and reading everything I could find on Google, I am now almost kind of glad that I may be getting the sleeve. It seems as though in the long run, once the stomach is healed the sleeve may present a lot less problems than the band, and no playing around with, fill, un-fill, fill. Now I just hope that I can get approved for the sleeve, I need this surgery so bad for health reasons, and I'm getting tired of playing around with the insurance company.