my date is nov,19 . i am excited and scared at the same time. im in the process of moving this week so ive been a little overwhelmed but at least it takes some of my thoughts off of the band. when i went to the surgeon last week she said that she would do the band but didnt want to. she said that the bypass is better and she is going to stop doing the band in a few months. she said that the fills are painful and i may not lose much weight with the band. its hard because i feel more comfortable with the band but im worried that i wont lose the weight. i am trying to be positive but listening to her made me a little unsure that this will work. i do have to say though that whenever i think of the bypass i get anxious and scared. my husband and my friends dont think that i am going to go through with it. i know that the closer i get the more nervous ill be.

any feedback?

andrea

This is, of course, totally your decision, m'dear. Have you read everything you can find about each surgery?

Yes, the Lap Band will take three years to lose the weight you would lose in one with the bypass (somehow that seems more natural to me though). My surgeon tried to talk me into bypass one week before surgery, saying my acid reflux could become worse with the Lap Band. He said "You'll lose 100# in a year, even if you don't want to."

But I decided to stick with the much less invasive Lap Band--I'm older, though, and tend to be cautious. Somehow bypass seems so radical.

You know if you need this surgery--for your health and well-being. Yes, it's scary when the time finally comes--but we've all gone through it and you certainly can too.

My best wishes to you in your decision...

Andrea:

I didn't have any pain with the fill that I had, but I've only had one. My doctor didn't use fluroscope with fill, just felt for the right spot, injected fill, and put a bandaid on it.

Good luck making your decision.

Sue

Interesting that your surgeon should say that because it seems like I've read several times that more and more practices are switching to the bands and they expect it to be the leading bariatric surgery in just a few years!

You might want to consider getting a second opinion. Will your surgeon still be there to give you fills if she's moving away from banding? If you go to the fills forum on this board, you can read about the experience of others. I've rarely heard of a painful fill.

Good luck!

There are some great threads around about why people chose the band over GB:

http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f17/why-band-43800/

http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f15/my-first-group-support-meeting-37474/

This is just MO, but if it were me, I'd see if I could get a different surgeon - one that is confident in the abilities of the band. How discouraging to have the person that is making such a change in your body not even have faith in it. I can understand your frustration with family and friends on top of your own surgeon. Just do your own research so that when the doubts come up from other people, you can come up with the answers to hush them up.