Currently have lapband placed since 3/07. Band has worked and done it's job but now it has started to slip and i have gained 35 pounds. Getting revision done this coming tuesday and feeling nervous after i met with the surgeon yesterday for the pre-op consultation. He says it will take about 2 hrs to do revision. That is more time consuming the removal of the band and all the scar tissue that needs to be removed. I am concerned about the scar tissue. Have had the band inside for 8 yrs and i know scar tissue has built up but im concerned about how much tissue there really is inside. Also wanted to ask if it is appropriate and safe to do removal of band and perform sleeve at the same time? Just feel like this is alot of stress for the body all at once. I know that many patients have gotten this done without problems but just want to get opinions from all of you if possible. Also i got EGD done and surgeon just mentioned band slippage, mild gastritis and GERD. No mention of hiatal hernia or scar tissue.. Would welcome all suggestions.. Thank you

I did my revision two weeks ago today. Had my band since Nov 2005. Doc got in and said it was a mess the worst he had ever seen. He did a great job and fixed a hernia too. I am so glad I did it all at once. I feel great now that the band is out!

I had mine in 2008 with the revision this past February. The Dr. Didn't see until he was inside me that my band had slightly slipped and he said I had minimal scar tissue. My recovery from the revision went very smooth.

I had the band for 10 years. I chose 2 separate surgeries to revise because 3.5 years ago there wasn't that much evidence but it seemed safer. I had no complications.

What does surgeon say about risks in 1 surgery vs 2?

I think revisions have "about" double the complication rare as virgin sleevers but it's still low.

So I think that this might be slightly controversial and different surgeries have different approaches. My surgeon is at a top teaching hospital, bariatric center of excellence and placed my band in 2007 (also 8 years ago). I went to him to discuss the revision and he told me that although some surgeons do it in one procedure he doesn't because he feels that overall the sleeve surgery is low risk but doing it as one procedure (the revision) doubles the low risk and although the risk is still very very low of a leak to him, it is unacceptable to unnecessarily raise the risk. I was quite disappointed because I have young children at home and did not want to have 2 surgeries but I trust him and also feel like I don't want ANY even a slight increase in risk if it can be avoided. So I had the band removed about a month ago and am getting my sleeve in June. The band removal was really easy - I was home by 11am comfortable resting in my bed. I was slightly groggy from the anastesia for a few days but within 3 days I was in the park with my kids and completely back to normal within a week. Now a month later I have zero pain (was sleeping on my port side within 2 weeks). Now I am very happy that I separated the procedures because the band removal was so easy and I can just prepare myself for the sleeve without the worry of recovering from the band removal (port pain) while dealing with the recovery of the sleeve (whatever that will be)! BTW - my band was in for 8 years too, I also did great with it and my surgeon said that the adhesions were not bad at all.