I am not sure if my profile is still active, I'll have to go back and check. I used to belong to lapbandtalk.com which I beleive ws rolled into here. My surgery was 2008 and it was hugely successful. I went from 270 down to my goal weight of 195 in a year. My wife with the full bypass went from 300 to 160 where she has been for about 8 years.

We were featured as successful examples in a commercial for our local hospital. I was feeling so good I rekindled my love of running and finally finished the lifetime goal of a marathon in 2011. Shortly after that my back began to fail and my weight went up a little, but still way below that former high. I eventually needed spinal fusion surgery and I couldn't do much physically for a long time and my weight ended up as high as 240 again. I still have the band and it is set to a pretty good place, I have to be careful what I eat, but I did manage to gain weight again. Part of it was depression not being as physically capable. I don't think I waited long enough. 16 months after surgery I am finally feeling like I can do physical things again and have finally motivated myself to try again. Here we go round 2, this time I only need to lose 25-35 pounds.

Welcome back! Never ever ever give up on yourself. Keep posting!!

Hi there, I miss Lapband Talk -- great to have more banders on here as we are such a minority. Sorry about your back. My husband had PEEK cages installed a couple of years ago after some horrendous years -- this was his third surgery L4L5S1. He's doing great and it sounds like you are, too. Way to go regrouping to get the weight back down. I am working on the last chunk. You know how that is. I have become a major walker; don't think I can run due to joint issues. Love being an exerciser now and cannot believe that's me saying it. Band has changed my life.

Welcome back......

I can certainly understand the reasons to stay away...I did for about a year, then came back....a lot of veterans don't stick around here and move on..... it does start to get old.

I'm about to take a leave of absence again.....(can't believe I'm even posting this)

This surgery, IMO is for life....forever changing how and what we eat....we just have to get out of the way and let it do what it was designed to do.

Congratulations upon your success....we need more Men on this forum...

Like B52 and Bandista I miss Lapbandtalk. I am sure that is why some of our veterans have signed off. It gets very discouraging to have your choice to have lapband talked about negatively all the time. There are a very few of us who still come here for any advice or encouragement. I check in some but mostly get aggrevated. Even though I chose Lapband over the other WLS forums I still get the same ole "My surgery is better than yours" on here. There are many , many successful lapband patients who were here at the beginning but have since moved on. Sadly sometimes change is not for the better and I for one loved the lapband site. I don't think that there are any bad surgeries and I encourage everyone no matter what type of surgery they had or are going to have but my choice should also be respected.