RNY vs. Sleeve

[Djmohr 6,965]

I had RNY as well, I chose it because of the proven track record to cure diabetes and Gerd. I had severe Gerd.

I would not say that weight loss is any faster than the sleeve, you have to remember that everyone loses differently. RNY seems to provide more initial weight loss but slows over time and at the end of the day it seems they all catch up.

Recovery for me was a piece of cake. Very little pain.

I can eat whatever I want, that does not mean that I do. I have been eating fats since the very beginning and can even eat sugar. I choose not to over indulge because carbs slow your weight loss. Good fats keep you fuller longer.

The biggest part of recovery for any of these surgeries is truly adapting a new lifestyle around food. It takes time and patience, trial and error. You learn quickly what to do and what not to do.

I am now down 131lbs with 14 left to get to my ideal weight. Having bypass surgery was the best thing I have ever done for myself. My only regret is that I did not do it sooner, before I cause damage to my joints.

Good luck to you!

[jessicabell620 2]

Thanks everyone for your replies.. Think I'm leaning more towards RNY

[winklie 518]

@@jessicabell620

Buy "The big book on the Gastric Bypass" by Alex Brecher, yes they guy who owns these forums. There is a link to his books. It explains in extreme detail what happens when you have RNY, including the hormonal changes that the Sleeve group does not get, and just exactly what happens inside you when you have the surgery. A well educated consumer is a good consumer.

Link to book:

http://store.bariatricpal.com/collections/weight-loss-book/products/the-big-book-on-the-gastric-bypass

Edited November 10, 2015 by winklie

[jessicabell620 2]

Thanks I need to check it out

[vsgchick 117]

Good Luck with your decision! I had sleeve surgery on November 20, 2014 and I've lost 152 lbs (21 lbs to surgeon's goal). I had an easy procedure and recovery. I have no regrets.

Edited November 11, 2015 by vsgchick

[JengaBee 38]

Look into the mini gastric bypass. It's about 15 years old, is simpler and safer than the rny but with very similar results.

[Rena's got this 274]

I had the sleeve. If I could do it over again, I would have the bypass.

I can eat anything with my sleeve, and find that my portion sizes keep getting bigger. If I had the bypass I am pretty sure I would stay away from sweets a bit more because of the dumping syndrome that sweets seem to trigger. I had the sleeve in Feb, 2014, lost an initial 67 pounds before starting to regain. I'm really struggling to hold my weight steady. My sister in law had the bypass a few months before my surgery. She is at goal weight and is not having any trouble keeping it there. I don't think I'll ever reach goal weight, but I'll keep trying with the tool that I initially chose.

[The Candidate 3,215]

I had the RNY mainly because of concern over GERD issues. I also felt I would benefit more with both the restriction and malabsorption components. I am nearly four months out and have never dumped. But the "fear" of dumping helps me stay away from sweets and other bad food choices. I have no regrets. Best of luck!

[goblue9280 481]

Went into my original consultation wanting the sleeve, Doc quickly set me down the RNY path. The main reasons (as others have mentioned) was because of my BMI, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

The surgery went well. I had it done around noon on a Thursday, and was discharged around noon the next day so I was only in the hospital around 30 hours when you include pre-surgery time. I went home with some pain meds took a couple each of the first two days and then was fine. Slept a ton over those first few days, but by about day 4 post-op I had more energy than I had in months. Went back to work 6 days post-op (desk job.)

I have had zero issues with any foods. I never was nauseous or vomited. I have yet to experience dumping, but stay away from sweets and carbs as I'm too afraid to try them right now. I'm 6 weeks post-op today and am in my regular food phase, but have been sticking to mostly foods from the pureed and soft food phases. As of today, I'm down 46 pounds from the morning of surgery (67 lbs down when you include pre-op loss), so an average of almost 8 pounds per week which I know will slow soon. I'm able to eat 1/2 cup of food with no issues at mealtime. 2 to 2.5 ounces of meat (tuna, chicken or turkey) don't cause me any issues. I'm working cooked veggies into my meals now... have been sauteing zucchini the past few days with a little olive oil and some garlic.

Experiencing foods again post surgery is an awesome event. I don't know that my tastes for different foods have been altered greatly as I still crave many of the same things. However, being on the pre-op liquid diet, and the blandness of those first few weeks has greatly enhanced my taste buds. Vegetables I ate and barely tasted before are now full of complex flavors. Like the zucchini for example, I use a little fresh garlic so I pick up that flavor, but I also now pick up the underlying sweet flavor of the zucchini itself. Tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, green Beans... they all have these great flavor profiles I never experienced before. I haven't had much fruit yet, but the little bit of fresh cantaloupe and banana I had was amazing. The sweetness hit me like a ton of bricks. For me, that's probably the coolest part of this journey so far... finding out (and embracing) how full of flavor real food is.

[catwoman7 10,874]

Goblue9280 - my sense of taste intensified as well - sweet things tasted sweeter, salty things tasted saltier - and everything seemed more complex than before

[DavidOso 272]

i had the sleeve. laproscopic and robotic! i was only to be in overnight, but couldn't keep fluids down. so two nights. morphine in the hospital but NO pain meds once i got home. started walking the day i got home, half a block then a block etc. one big plus with the sleeve, over a period of several years(once weight goal is achieved) your stomach NATURALLY stretches back out- never to pre-op size- but enough that you can eat a reasonable plate of food again. (smart and healthy choices)

you will NEVER be able to eat a heaping Thanksgiving plate again. i do take a B, D-3, and 2 Multivitamins a day, but that is it. with the rny you have malabsorption issues for the rest of your life. that scared me off the rny. i'm about a week shy of four months post op and have lost 138 lbs. i feel great, not tired or hungry, and i do Water aerobics 3 days a week for 60 mins. what ever you choose, embrace it with no regrets. this is your chance to live! use it wisely.

[jessicabell620 2]

Thanks David

[heather5565 959]

i had the sleeve. laproscopic and robotic! i was only to be in overnight, but couldn't keep fluids down. so two nights. morphine in the hospital but NO pain meds once i got home. started walking the day i got home, half a block then a block etc. one big plus with the sleeve, over a period of several years(once weight goal is achieved) your stomach NATURALLY stretches back out- never to pre-op size- but enough that you can eat a reasonable plate of food again. (smart and healthy choices)

you will NEVER be able to eat a heaping Thanksgiving plate again. i do take a B, D-3, and 2 multivitamins a day, but that is it. with the rny you have malabsorption issues for the rest of your life. that scared me off the rny. i'm about a week shy of four months post op and have lost 138 lbs. i feel great, not tired or hungry, and i do Water aerobics 3 days a week for 60 mins. what ever you choose, embrace it with no regrets. this is your chance to live! use it wisely.

WOWSERS!!!! 138 pounds lost in less than 4 months? !?!?!?! Holy moly!

That's beyond amazing!

[Sajijoma 1,324]

I went with the rny. I am currently 9 days out. I don't regret my decision at all! In the very beginning, I thought the sleeve sounded better because "I can still eat all the foods I love" and "I don't want my intestines messes with! That sounds so invasive!" So what changed? Well, think about it. The sleeve isn't less invasive. I mean you are literally cutting out the curved side of your stomach leaving just the banana shaped "sleeve". With the rny all you stomach is still intact in your body. Your pouch is just separated from the stomach, but it's still there. Living and creating hormones your body needs to thrive. It's reversible in an emergency, and the stomach left behind is a safety net should you develop something like esophageal cancer later. They can take that lining and literally rebuild your esophagus. With the sleeve your kind of SOL.

And now, speaking to the part about wanting to eat all the foods you love, isn't that what got us all into this mess in the first place? Our love of sugar or fatty bacon cheeseburgers or whatever the pleasure may be. If you don't want to give them up, no surgery is going to work for you period. It's what we put in our mouths that our body uses for fuel, for fat storage, etc and if we want to get real, we want to say "ok I don't need a soda or cake or a double bacon cheeseburger with extra fries" and be ok with that.(can ya tell I miss burgers right now? lol) and Malabsorption sounds like this horrible thing, but it's not all bad. Yes, by rerouting the intestines you miss the ability to absorb certain Vitamins and minerals and will need extra supplementation BUT malabsorption also means you can't process refined white table sugar so you body flushes it out unused. It means that you can't absorb all the fat from your meal so some of that gets flushed out as well without going into the body where it's not needed and actually causing harm. Malabsorption means that not everything entered gets completely absorbed so some extra calories do slip out unused and is that a bad thing? Not really.

My final thought on why I chose the rny over sleeve is because I only want to do this once. Quite frankly surgery sucks! Being fat sucks! Being too tired and miserable to enjoy life sucks! I don't want to get the sleeve, start off well, then have the progress slowly slip away and feel like I made a mistake. Some people want that option to do something else if it doesn't work, but I want to go straight to the option that is guaranteed to work if you put in the work. There's a reason they sell the rny as "the gold standard" of weightloss surgeries and I sat down with myself and had a good long hard think about it and in the end, I don't want to be back here again and contemplating another major surgery and feeling more defeated than ever. I want to come out on top the first time and say "see! It's nothing to be afraid of!" And with over 25 yrs of solid data behind the rny, they have really got this thing down to a science! I can't believe how easy my recovery has been! I'm nearly back up to full speed(still have to get a drain taken out Thurs.) I should be falling back into my full exercise routine by the weekend. It's not as scary as it sounds, but at the end of the day, you are the one who has to live with your decision so you need to make the choice that you feels fits your life the best.