I originally thought I wanted the Lap band, but the more I have been reading about it The more I am convinced it isn't for me. I even was a semifinalist in a contest to win one, but had to forfeit do to an emergency brain surgery(her 9th in 5 yrs) on my daughter. Last year my insurance company finally started to cover weightloss surgery and I started all the paper work for documentation for the 6 months of medically supervised diet and in the 4-5 month of documentation my mother almost died and because I a missed my appoints-I would have to start all over again. Than this yr, the ins company is lifting the 6 month medically supervised diet documentation as of Feb 1. So, I decieded to try again. I read about the gastric bypass, the gastric sleeve, gastric plication, mini gastric bypass. I am leaning toward the gastric sleeve at this point because of all the positive things on this post.

Yet in the back of my head, since I have been repeatedly disappointed due to circumstances out of control-I am in need of some friends to help me through this journey. All I hear are negative remarks from my friends and family regarding surgery. My mother told me, she wants me skinny, not dead. Friends tell me to just pretend I had the surgery and just eat less. Ok people, I have been trying that for yrs and it hasn't worked. I always keep my weight under control within 25 lbs, until a terrible divorce, custody battle, a sick child-who has a 1-50 brain disease and I focused all my energy to find doctors to save her life. Right now she is stable and I need to get this weight off to be around to take care of her. Any words of advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all who read this and help!

As it was told to me we could also die from our health issues related to our weight. I was also scared prior to my surgery and I still have concerns, but I would do it again. There is a lot of websites concerning these surgeries that you should explore and definitely check out the references of doctors and hospitals. You have a lot of stress already with your child's health and it is important to maintain your health also. Stay positive and dont let the negativity from your family and friends hinder your decision. For years I explored this journey and even bypassed surgery once. My boyfriend and son even asked me not to have the surgery, but I did it for me . You need to do this for you, your health matters also.

I've been overweight since I was in the second grade. I sort of thinned down a little in high school but was always a little too big. I fought through my 20s and had massive hip surgery at 29. I started gaining then and just never got control back. I was about 250 when I got pregnant with my son and after his birth got down as low as 240 but had a rough time at work last year and ended up pushing 270.

I started to actively work toward WLS in summer 2010 but my PCP derailed me and put me on Wellbutrin which helped for about three months. I got back on track in summer 2011 and had my surgery earlier this month.

My mom had WLS and she has been super supportive. I've only told close friends and all but one have been totally supportive. There are risks with any surgery but good surgeons screen you very carefully before surgery to make sure you don't have any health issues to make surgery riskier.

My son was a big motivating factor for me to have this surgery. He's just three and I can barely keep up with him and forget about catching him! Running when you've got fat bouncing all over the place is just misery. We're taking him to Disneyland at the end of February and I'd really like to be able to keep up with him better than before.

Having elective surgery is a scary thing to contemplate especially if you are a parent (glad to hear your daughter is doing ok) so you have many things to weigh and decide. For me, I knew WLS was my only hope and I'm so glad for the sleeve. I think I delayed looking into surgery as long as I did because I didn't like the bypass part of GBS so the minute I heard about the sleeve I knew that was the surgery for me.

Good luck with your decision. You will do what is right for you.

Regarding the comments family members are making....its up to you how much "weight" (pun intended) that you let them have in your decision process. I pretty much made the decision on my own, with the support from my husband, but my family and some friends werent completely supportive. Now that its done and I'm recovering, they have all come around and are supportive and helping out where they can. I can understand the concern for your daughter...my brother is going through cancer treatment and the majority of the energy everyone has is going towards his care. I went through all the thoughts like "am I being selfish to do this for me while he is going through cancer?" I spoke to my therapist AND the folks on here and got a lot of support that I was doing this to make myself healthier too, just like my brother is doing. And you know what...my brother actually became supportive (he was probably the most against my surgery) when I got closer to the date. Its a hard decision, and one that you have to make for yourself and what's best for your daughter. Good luck and make sure to seek the advice of the people that have your best interests (and yet can be objective) at heart. Hope this helps.

I'm sorry to hear you have so much stress. I too had family that wasn't that supportive. My brother also said to me if it's just about eating less....then why don't you just eat less and not have surgery? Well, why didn't I think of that? I thought sarcastically. In the end, I just stopped talking to my family about it and found this sight to be so helpful. Now, ironically my family is overly supportive once they started to see it working. My brother did say well I guess if you aren't hardly eating then you should be losing weight. Still not much support there, but that is ok. I seem to have this confidence that has grown overnight. My husband told me last night that he is finally getting the woman he married back. He didn't mean the weight. He meant my personallity. I didn't realize how much I buried myself in that weight, and I am only 4 weeks out.

I also thought I was going to do the band. Heck, I had researched and contemplated it for 2 years. Then, an insurance stumble forced me to use a different surgeon only 1 1/2 months before surgery. It was stressful and upsetting, but turned out to be the best thing in the long run. He was more experienced and had a better program. Anyway, he asked me if I ever thought about the sleeve because he really thought it was the best and would be the best for me. I went home and began researching it. Obviously, I chose the sleeve and am so glad that I did. I'm starting to meet people that have had the lap band, but wish they would have done the sleeve or that their insurance would have paid for the sleeve. I still have my ups and downs, but like I said I'm only 4 weeks out. I'm still getting used to it. I'm also realizing more and more how severe my food addiction was. Those are demons that I'm dealing with. However, I still think this was the best choice for me. It is ultimately your decision. Family is there to worry and I find most are uneducated about most wls. I would just research as much as you can and find what feels like the right decision to you.....9 times out of 10 your gut and what feels right is the right decision......hope this all makes sense. i have a bad cold and on some crazy meds for it right now so i don't cough and sneeze so much to hurt my sleeve.....good luck to you.