I am to be sleeved in Sept. but I am getting so anxsious that I am considering changing to the band. My husband is neutral an is supporting what ever I do, but my sisters and my kids are not on board at all, My one sister is very informed in health matters and is sort of holistic and not always trusting of Drs, my kids tell me it is a cop out and why would I take such a risk. This just adds on to the anxiety I have about the surgery and the life style change. Can others relate to this situation and help put my mind to ease

Jayzer, I am so there with you. After all my research I would not do the band as 82% eventually get a revision to a sleeve. Why go through this twice??? Also, I have my sister who is supportive but there is no way I am telling Mom till afterwards. She has always been after me about my weight and I know what would come out of her mouth..."you can do this on your own, you've done it in the past before" EXACTLY, and have gained it back and then some. The VSG will be just the tool I need to regulate my potions sizes which I am not capable of doing. Please keep me posted on your journey. I have 2 months left of the 6 month supervised diet for my insurance so I should have my sleeve end of Sept or early Oct. By the way, this is not a cop out, we have tried in the past but we (do to genertics or metabolism or whatever) can't keep weight off like skinny people do. WE NEED THIS TOOL!!!!

I wouldn't suggest doing the band over VSG... in my opinion. I first was going to do the band and changed my mind after seeing how many people decided to do a second surgery to revise from LAP band to VSG. I did tons of research before making my decision, and although I have gone back and forth about whether to go through with it (I am def. going to do it at this point... only 1.5 weeks away!!! so excited), I NEVER veered from what procedure after I decided on VSG.. Remember, it's just my opinion based on my research. I know someone personally who had LAP band with not so good results, but I also see that many have had success with it if they didn't have much to lose. I think it is totally up to the person's preference. One reason I chose VSG is that I wanted really good results (I have a lot to lose), but I didn't want a foreign object in my body (LAP band - my fears = band slipping, body rejecting, band growing into body tissue, going through a procedure and not seeing big results) and I didn't want my body functions altered/re-routed (Bypass - my fears = basically I wanted something a little less invasive and VSG was a good compromise)... The middle road was VSG. VSG, although only recognized as a procedure in and of itself in last several years, was part of the DS since the 80's. Many patients would get the VSG part done as a precursor to the DS, but it was realized that the VSG on it's own was successful for losing weight and became a stand-alone procedure. So, it has been around for awhile. There is not vitamin malabsorption issues. Your body parts still function as normal - no rerouting. No foreign objects placed. Can tolerate NSAIDS better than some other surgeries (although it is recommended you don't take them at all if you don't have to). Etc... Many things influenced my decisions, and those are some of the reasons. I wish you the best in whatever decision you decide on. Remember, this is your decision - not your sisters' or kids'. Whatever makes you and your hubby feel comfortable doing, do that. If it is LAP, then do that. If not, then don't choose what someone else wants for you. I hope I was able to help some... Best wishes on your decision! I know each procedure has it's pros and cons, and you just have to decide which is right for you. :-)

By the way, this is not a cop out, we have tried in the past but we (do to genertics or metabolism or whatever) can't keep weight off like skinny people do. WE NEED THIS TOOL!!!!

SO TRUE!!!

I for one would NOT have a plastic gizmo (band) floating around in my gut for love nor money. That and the cost of upkeep, did they tell you it's $200+ each time you get a saline fill / removal to expand or shrink the band?

YES, the sleeve is more invasive and perhaps a tad riskier as there is actual removal of tissue. But you'll have to make up our mind and then stick with it. While it's nice that others support you ultimately the ONLY opinion that counts is YOURS.

I was right where you are now, I was doing the band up to a month before my surgery than said if I'm doing this surgery than I'm doing it right the first time. I knew the band has a lot of trouble and every one who has it seems to have problem. My kids were worried about me having 80% of my stomach removed and wanted me to have the band and I understood their concerns and we talked about, but I knew the sleeve was the right choice. I also heard some mean stuff from my friends and family. Now 8 months later and 76 pounds down, they said they were happy with my decision and I get to everyone I told you so!

Hi,

I had the band and had it revised to a sleeve 3 mos. ago. It was the best decision I could have made. I was very nervous. The band did not work for me. I had it pumped with Fluid, and then I couldn't eat anything, and I would vomit. I then would have to get fluid taken out, and then I would gain weight. Every time I went to get an adjustment, it cost $300. I was so happy to get it out. Now, I have no more pain when I eat, and I don't vomit any longer. It has been 3 mos. since the sleeve, and I have lost 38 lbs. I never lost that much with the band. Believe me, everyone is nervous. I was doubly nervous because I had to have the band removed, and then be sleeved at the same time. It was no cop out. You are making a decision to have a different relationship with food for the rest of your life. It is not a decision made lightly. It was the right decision for me. I was a constant "grazer" with the band, and was always looking for something to nibble on. With this tool, the hunger is cut dramatically, and therefore, the grazing has stopped. Hope this helps you.

Rootman is soooooo correct! I know a person who just had emergency surgery to get that band out of there. It looks to me like a flea collar in your stomach and some call it "bariatric bulemia." Don't do the band. The sleeve is the most wonderful tool to permanently get you on track to live a healthier life. I wouldn't trade the results for anything. It has not been hard. I was ready and educated about it. But the band? NO WAY. Good luck----your very own decision about your very own body. Once you totally make up your mind, you will, I hope, feel happiness abound in your mind as I did!

I am to be sleeved in Sept. but I am getting so anxsious that I am considering changing to the band. My husband is neutral an is supporting what ever I do, but my sisters and my kids are not on board at all, My one sister is very informed in health matters and is sort of holistic and not always trusting of Drs, my kids tell me it is a cop out and why would I take such a risk. This just adds on to the anxiety I have about the surgery and the life style change. Can others relate to this situation and help put my mind to ease

It is normal to be nervous about the surgery. After all, it is a major surgery. Stuff can happen unfortunately. However, you need to research your options and make up your own mind. Only YOU can make that decision. Research not only the operations, but also your surgeon.

My sister is a nurse and a nursing instructor. She is dead set against ALL weight loss surgeries because of the risks of complications. She went ballistic when I was just talking about some friends who were having weight loss surgery and was not even thinking of it myself. Well, any surgery has risk, so that doesn't hold Water with me.

Personally, I had a friend who had the lap band surgery by one of the best surgeons in the area he lived in. Almost 3 years after the surgery, he had to have the lap band removed because it had eroded and caused an infection so bad that the top of his stomach (the pouch) had swollen to the size of a baseball and turned white. Since the removal, he continues to have issues. Recently, he found out that his stomach is DEAD - it does not function normally. They scoped him and found that his stomach has a LOT of undigested food in it (they could tell him everything he has been eating). Apparently during one of his surgeries (I am guessing the first one), the vagas nerve was somehow damaged and therefore his stomach will no longer contract. He has seen 2 different specialists in recent weeks and they are not sure how to correct the problem yet.

I had never considered the lap band - partially because of his experience, but also because of many other reports of unsuccessful lap band surgeries. I also did not like the fact that a foreign piece of plastic would be placed in my body. But again, this is just me. You need to decide for yourself what surgery you want. Once you make up your mind, do not let anyone else change your mind.

Your kids are probably reacting the way they are because they are scared of losing you since they love you so much. I don't know how old they are, but perhaps explaining to them that this is a tool that will help your diet work for you permanently this time will help. The sleeve really is just a tool. It's a tool that many of us need because we don't have the ability/willpower (or whatever you want to call it) to make the needed changes ourselves without help.

It is normal to be nervous about the surgery. After all, it is a major surgery. Stuff can happen unfortunately. However, you need to research your options and make up your own mind. Only YOU can make that decision. Research not only the operations, but also your surgeon.

My sister is a nurse and a nursing instructor. She is dead set against ALL weight loss surgeries because of the risks of complications. She went ballistic when I was just talking about some friends who were having weight loss surgery and was not even thinking of it myself. Well, any surgery has risk, so that doesn't hold Water with me.

Personally, I had a friend who had the lap band surgery by one of the best surgeons in the area he lived in. Almost 3 years after the surgery, he had to have the lap band removed because it had eroded and caused an infection so bad that the top of his stomach (the pouch) had swollen to the size of a baseball and turned white. Since the removal, he continues to have issues. Recently, he found out that his stomach is DEAD - it does not function normally. They scoped him and found that his stomach has a LOT of undigested food in it (they could tell him everything he has been eating). Apparently during one of his surgeries (I am guessing the first one), the vagas nerve was somehow damaged and therefore his stomach will no longer contract. He has seen 2 different specialists in recent weeks and they are not sure how to correct the problem yet.

I had never considered the lap band - partially because of his experience, but also because of many other reports of unsuccessful lap band surgeries. I also did not like the fact that a foreign piece of plastic would be placed in my body. But again, this is just me. You need to decide for yourself what surgery you want. Once you make up your mind, do not let anyone else change your mind.

Your kids are probably reacting the way they are because they are scared of losing you since they love you so much. I don't know how old they are, but perhaps explaining to them that this is a tool that will help your diet work for you permanently this time will help. The sleeve really is just a tool. It's a tool that many of us need because we don't have the ability/willpower (or whatever you want to call it) to make the needed changes ourselves without help.

Thanks for all the good advise. I have done a lot of research on both the band and sleeve and was concerned about the poor results with the band. I am going to keep my surgery date for the sleeve and pray that all goes well. It sure helps to have some support out there.

Hey jayzer, I know that making the decision to have 85% of your stomach removed isn't one that any person should take lightly. I see that you've decided to go ahead with sleeve surgery, but I can also see that you still have a lot of concerns. For your own peace of mind, you might try writing out all of the concerns and doubts that you have and that your loved ones have, then address each individual item one by one. It might help to ease your mind a little if you can organize your thoughts about what you're preparing to go through. Good luck to you.

You will always find people who disagree with going for weight loss surgery. I had some people initially supportive but once I went through with it and had issues, they bailed on me. Then I had people who were not supportive to begin with that are my biggest supporters now.

Originally I wanted the band. I knew nothing of the sleeve. At orientation the head of bariatrics at my hospital told us point blank that they take out more bands than they put in now. Some people are very successful with the band, many are not. For me, knowing how many have to be taken out was not worth it. I wanted 1 surgery, not potentially two. I also did not want the food restriction. Now I realize some sleevers have food restrictions but I do not. I have no problems eating whatever I want, just in very small portions. And the weight has come off wonderfully! Even though I went through the initial complications, it was worth it. I feel so much better now being at a normal weight and not feeling like a fat slob like I did before.

Ultimately you have to make the best decision for you and remember not everyone will support you in it. But all that matters is that you do what you need to do for YOU.

You have gotten a lot of good advice! I understand your concerns and know how kids opinions can throw off our better judgement. But I agree with everyone that it makes much more sense to do one permanent procedure rather than the band which requires expensive upkeep and could result in additional surgery. I was sleeved on July 5th and feel great and have lost 22 lbs in the last 3 weeks. I told several people beforehand and everyone had an opinion. One person suggested that I just work on the problem behavior because I should be able to do it on my own with discipline. My reply was "See, that was Plan A.......I tried that...for 25 years. Then I went with Plan B! Plan B worked much better!" And don't get me wrong, the sleeve requires a lot of discipline also, heck, you have to change a lot and give up a lot. It is not a quick fix or an easy way out. You will still work for it, but you will just see results much faster which will increase your motivation instead of knocking yourself out for weeks and losing ounces.

I originally was going to have a band, was dead set on the band… why? Because it seemed non-permanent. It was adjustable; it was removable. I was so sure that once I lost the weight, I'd be able to have it taken out and be normal.

But my surgeon - who DOES do bands - told me I ought to really think about the sleeve or gastric bypass. He said that bands are a huge money-maker for surgeons, because they require so many adjustments. And that they are falling out of favor among good surgeons in Europe for this reason, and because of complications, lower success rate. (They have had bands here much longer than in the US, so they're ahead of the curve.)

I researched the band and sleeve some more and decided to have the sleeve.

First off, you have the general risks of an implanted device. This is not inconsiderable.

Secondly, you have to have regular maintenance. And it can cost a lot. What if you choose to travel and need an adjustment while you're somewhere else? From the band boards, it seems like a LOT of band doctors refuse to do adjustments on patients they did not operate on.

And if you read the band forums, you'll find that quite a lot of folks have had to have emergency adjustments because their tummy swells up suddenly and they couldn't get anything down, not even Water. It's not a freak occurrence… it seems to happen with regularity.

It also seems that proportionally, MANY more people have bad side effects from the band -- ranging from slipping, erosions, having the band get "stuck" in the tissue, to tissue death. Like Nancy Rivers friend whose stomach "just stopped working", or somebody else on here whose mom had a slippage that cut off blood flow to the stomach and it "died" and she had to have a huge part of her stomach removed, leaving her with a type of sleeve but horizontal instead of vertical.

And… these can happen at ANY time, not just during the healing process.

The equivalent with sleeves are leaks, which are extremely rare after a few months post-op, and strictures. Both of these are easy to spot and relatively easy to fix, unlike band erosion or slippage, which can be silent and happen ANY time.

While at first glance, the band LOOKS safer, the "late complication" (not immediately post-op) rates have been reported as high as 26%! (See http://www.bariatric-surgery-source.com/lap-band-problems-lap-band-complications.html -- the 26% figure seems to come from one of the only studies which actually looks at complications a long time post-op.)

And if the band erodes into your stomach, you may be looking at permanent tissue damage which could restrict your choice of follow-up surgery.

Sooooo... once I found out all these facts, it was a no-brainer.

Did removing 85% of my stomach seem drastic and permanent? Yes.

But the appeal of the band seems to be mostly an illusion.

The band may be reversible… unless you have a complication which permanently damages your stomach, or worse yet, kills off part or all of your stomach.

Plus, if the reason you want reversibility is so you can go back to "eating normally" after you lose your weight, and you have no complications, it's pretty much certain that you will simply gain all the weight back. (Denial at work. I know it cuz I thought this way, too.)

The band may seem like the most flexible choice... unless you have an erosion or slippage which necessitates a new surgery, and then you may not be able to CHOOSE which one you get because of the damage to your stomach.

The band may be adjustable... which seems like a great idea, until of course you need an emergency adjustment, or have a hard time finding a new doctor who will take you on as a patient when you move. Or until you end up paying for it regularly. Or go thru a cycle of repeated adjustments, none of them being "just right." (A lot of folks talk about this on the band boards.)

The sleeve, on the other hand, is very low-maintenance. Once it's done, it's done. Some folks have issues with swelling and getting food and water down, but then they get IV fluids and they HEAL. And once you're healed, the risk of leaks is tiny… much lower than the risk of band erosion or slippage. You don't have to constantly worry that if you eat a little bit of this, or that, that it'll get stuck or cause slippage.

Many banders also report that they are always hungry, because the rest of their stomach is the same size it always was and it is EMPTY. The sleeve removes the stretchy part of your stomach that makes you feel hungry, so it kills 2 birds with one stone: you are rarely if ever hungry, and you also REALLY cannot eat much.

So that's why I chose the sleeve and I don't regret it. Hope this helps.

My Doctor told me the band is showing a 25-40% faliure yet world wide. The Sleeve is the way to go.