Hello again everyone, I am pretty new here and have mostly been on the pre-op pages. I am in the process of getting cleared for my RNY bypass/revision from lap band placed 8 years ago. I am back at my lap band surgery weight, but the band has been wide open for a few years. Anyways, in preparing for this elective surgery, I have been very honest with myself about the extremely low (0.4% I see a lot) chances of dying with this surgery. After having the lap band, I also realize (somewhat) about long term effects from the band.

I am not near 600 pounds (I am about half that), but I watch "My 600# Life" to help motivate me to move forward with the progress. One of the things I saw on a recent show was dental problems caused by what I think was the bypass. Lately, it seems as if Dr. Now has been performing more VSGs (Probably in an effort to reduce anesthesia time), so it is possible it was a VSG. Being the inquisitive type, and just recently finishing graduate school, I went into research mode. I've found some indications that teeth erosion (Some coined it "Meth mouth") are common with any form of weight loss surgery. I've read several hypothesis for this, but I won't go into it. I suppose I'm trying to find out how widespread it is. Thus far, NIH peer-reviewed studies show some correlation, but I want to know from y'all if this is true. This is sad, but while I can afford the RNY surgery with my insurance, I cannot afford replacing teeth with implants. I've had bruxism over the last 30 years (Worn a night guard for the last ~8) and my lower molars are hanging on for dear life. I'm a sneeze away from 4 crowns as it is. Nevertheless, I don't want to "help" the teeth decay.

In doing this research, I found another discomforting parallel, the increased prevalence of esophageal cancer with WLS patients. I believe the main theory is that GERD is changing the cellular structure from repeated contact with stomach acid. The studies that I have read (At least what I can remember right now) included RNY in the groupings, which confuses me because my surgeon is telling me that there is zero stomach acid that can contact the esophagus. I would have expected this with the Sleeve patients, but not this. So my second question is how widespread is this? For people that have been on the boards a long time, does this affect many people?

Last question- Are there any other long term consequences from vitamin/mineral deficiencies, assuming one takes the daily supplements prescribed by the doctor? I'm wondering if the body is "stealing" calcium from teeth since it doesn't get much any more?

Thank you in advance. I know this is a morbid/deep post, but I want to make sure I am well informed before I go through with this procedure.

You had the band, lost weight, no fill, gained it back, sooo my conclusion would be that you will likely continue to gain and even if you lose some weight the traditional way, keeping it off will be the main issue all of us battled before surgeries, plus you already have dental issues that aren't going to go away regardless. Becoming diabetic will ruin teeth as well, plus internal organs and blood vessels....you are headed to become diabetic at 300#s.

If you need dental work in the future you will find a way to get the money somehow. With weight loss many people get promoted or find better paying jobs, or have energy for a second seasonal job just for special income.

FluffyChix and Sosewsue61 - I'm not looking to attempt to (Again) lose the weight without some sort of assistance. When I was in my 20's, I went from 263 to 163 entirely on my own. I was the poster child for the Subway diet. I went there 7 days a week, ate the exact same thing. Ate under 1000 cals a day, and burned almost 1000 a day (According to the calorie counts on the gym equipment). But as with all of my "successes" I gained it back quite quickly. Mistake? Maybe it was because I didn't incorporate heavy lifting. More likely, I did not have the support with discussion boards and blogs and so forth like this. I have always seemed to have a problem with the maintaining weight phase.

I work in a highly scientific field, so being impartial and rigorously examining all paths and possibilities has essentially been ingrained in me for the last 15 years. It is because of this that I go to the nth degree down the pro's and con's path. Although bias is verboten within my field, I admit to myself that I am biased towards getting the surgery. Because of that, I think I spend more time trying to counter my bias examining potential.

My intent for this post is that the two issues I mentioned are often not mentioned in "standard" (less academia) literature or discussed as a side effect during information seminars. It was a completely new angle for me to study, but I wanted to get some empirical evidence from my own population, since I am not satisfied with the conclusions made by the researchers thus far. As Creekimp13 mentioned, while informative, these studies (for the most part) concentrate only on WLS patients, and not the double blind "gold standard" of research. Granted, I am positive it is difficult to track WLS candidates that did not get WLS, but I would think such data would exist in simply brilliant record keeping such as the Framingham Nurses study.

I agree, my path, without significant intervention, is ultimately diabetes and then cardiovascular death. Grandfather died of 2 strokes and a heart attack at 57. Father had a quintuple bypass in his 50's. Other grandfather died of a heart attack. (Granted grandfathers smoked like a chimney and were both alcoholics). Diabetes runs in my family, and thus far with an a1c of 4.9, I'm doing quite well, but I know that it is inevitable, and frankly it is the #1 motivator for me to get the surgery. Fix the root cause (obesity) and dozens (if not hundreds) of other related complications disappear or are mitigated by a great deal

Sadly, I agree that dental work is in my future for sure, and if one wants something enough, they will make it happen by working extra jobs or lifestyle modifications (conserve money). I suppose my biggest concern is that the extraordinary cost that is inevitable, will be a recurrent expense (Due to the WLS-induced decreased longevity). That being said, I wholeheartedly admit this involves a lot of speculation and future prediction, something that I believe no one is skilled at other than the Lord.

Thank you both for your honest and candid opinions, I am all ears, believe me. FluffyChix, thank you very much for sharing your resources, later today I intend to go through it.

Edited March 21, 20188 yr by CyclicalLoser
better word choice LOL

I totally get where you're coming from! And I also get your need for anecdotal evidence based long-term results from us--the target population.

I was and am totally the same way!

The reason I asked my initial question was because when I first started my journey I began asking questions from the perspective that I was trying to support my argument with myself: that I could do this on my own and that these surgeries were far too risky.

Then it changed and became me asking questions to try to support me having a balloon or lapband procedure (minimally invasive and reversible).

Then it finally changed to getting down to the nitty gritty of the rewards/risk assessment for the surgery I actually needed (at least an RNY if not a full DS).

So lol, what I'm inelegantly trying to explain was with each sequence my questions and even word arrangements were slightly different and actually were posed in a way to lead into getting the responses I wanted that would justify my current position. LOL.

See what I mean?

And sooo now, for the dental stuff...if it gets bad enough, there's a dental school here that I would go to--but hopefully it won't. But having said that, I'd still have gone through with my RNY just to have that 38% reduction in cancer recurrence even at the risk of losing all my toofies. (Also a reduction in cardiac complications from chemo and a familial pattern of CHD and CHD deaths.)

I hope you will stick around and post a lot and ask a lot of questions too! I do personally heart science geekery!!!

Edited March 21, 20188 yr by FluffyChix

One other procedure to consider is an endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty. Not sure if you get the benefit of ghrelin reduction with it. I had the laproscopic sleeve surgery a week ago and recovery has been easier than I would ever have expected. Best wishes to you, whatever you chose.