how did you choose between lap band and the gastric sleeve? i was set on the lap band, until i read news reports about the problems people have long term with the band after 5-10 years...now i am worried...can you tell me what was the deciding factor for you? thanks

Another important factor is how is the procedure going to do as you age? I have gone through the parents dying and I can tell you, when you're 84, it's hard to get enough Water and nutrition with a regular stomach.

My goal is to live to 95 and at least the band can be loosened if needed so I can get more nutrition. Water is especially difficult with the elderly.

I believe it is extremely risky to not consider the aging factor. I have seen too much with my friend's parents and mine to ever consider permantently altering my stomach.

Just my humble opinion.

Sadie

Psssssssssssst........

OP isn't asking about bypass vs. banding, they are asking about a sleeve vs. banding.

BTW... OP... the newer bands are not promised to have fewer problems. There are virtually NO long term studies on the new bands because they haven't been around long enough to have large long term studies.

The stuff about feeling full faster, fewer slips... it's all hype at this point. Band makers hire many marketing folks to make bands appeal to us. A band is a band, it restricts food. It isn't going to make you feel full faster than another band. That's pouch size and has nothing in the world to do with banding but surgical technique by your surgeon.

The rest is sales pitch, hype, and theory.

For me it was simple. I didn't want my organs permanently mamed. I wanted something that was adjustable and removable. I also heard that you can't eat sugar and you dump. Those are 2 things I didn't want to experience. The lapband is a longer process but so worth it. Good luck with your decision.

For me it was simple. I didn't want my organs permanently mamed. I wanted something that was adjustable and removable. I also heard that you can't eat sugar and you dump. Those are 2 things I didn't want to experience. The lapband is a longer process but so worth it. Good luck with your decision.

You can eat sugar with a sleeve and you don't dump. That's bypass.

With a sleeve you still have to watch everything that goes in your mouth like banding.

But if the sleeve doesn't work out for you, it's not reversible like the band is. It's also not as safe as Lap band surgery because it takes longer to do and requires them to cut off part of your stomach. Finally, it's more expensive than Lap band, which is a factor for some people.

There is no way I am going to rearrange my insides in any permanent way to lose weight and I'm very concerned with the mortality rate as well. It wasn't until Lap band surgery came along that I've even considered WLS because it's the first WLS that met my criteria on those two counts.

I'm still somewhat concerned with how new the surgery is and how many unknowns there are. It seems like TPTB don't 100% understand why the band slips, for example. I worry that I'll have mine put in and two years from now they'll come up with some revolutionary technique that makes slips something that happen less than 1% of the time instead of 3%.

But if the sleeve doesn't work out for you, it's not reversible like the band is. It's also not as safe as Lap band surgery because it takes longer to do and requires them to cut off part of your stomach. Finally, it's more expensive than Lap band, which is a factor for some people.

There is no way I am going to rearrange my insides in any permanent way to lose weight and I'm very concerned with the mortality rate as well. It wasn't until Lap band surgery came along that I've even considered WLS because it's the first WLS that met my criteria on those two counts.

I'm still somewhat concerned with how new the surgery is and how many unknowns there are. It seems like TPTB don't 100% understand why the band slips, for example. I worry that I'll have mine put in and two years from now they'll come up with some revolutionary technique that makes slips something that happen less than 1% of the time instead of 3%.

Bands don't work for some people and they convert to bypass. Sleeves don't work for some people and they convert to bypass. It's not a last step surgery.

Yep, it does require removing the better part of your stomach and in the beginning of my own WLJ that was an issue for me. But now that I'm at goal I'm realizing that I'm trying to figure out what's so great about reversible. Why would I ever want to be MO again? The only reason to remove a band is for band related problems. Slips, erosion, etc. So if the band itself causes problems you remove it. There is no band with sleeves. We struggle with fills and unfills, restriction issues, etc. to get what sleeves have from the day of surgery.

With a sleeve it is like perfect restriction all the time without fills or unfills. If that does not work it won't work in banded folks either so the next option would be bypass.

I kinda view my stomach as a faulty organ. It was never my friend. ;o) It holds too much food, it caused me too much frustration and emotional pain, it was a useless part of me. With a sleeve there is a nerve that is affected and it makes you rarely hungry. Most of us can deal with head hunger but it's the stomach hunger most MO folks do not tolerate AT ALL. With a sleeve there is virtually no stomach hunger, they just have head hunger to battle.

An appendix is part of your GI system as well yet we have no problem removing that when it is faulty but a portion of our stomach seems unbearable to fathom. It's weird... I just realize that now that I'm at goal my thinking is much much different vs. in the beginning. Something I sure didn't expect to happen.

You can eat sugar with a sleeve and you don't dump. That's bypass.

With a sleeve you still have to watch everything that goes in your mouth like banding.

awesome job on your weight loss wasabubblebutt!!!

banded 12.28.07

Dr. Michael A. Snyder in Denver

It was simple, I didn't know about the gastric sleeve at the time! I don't think it was even being offered yet in Australia. But I would have chosen the lapband first, simply because it was the easiest to reverse. I always knew that if things didn't go well, I could fall back on the more extreme gastric bypass (or now that I know about it, gastric sleeve first) but the lapband was going to mess with teh body the least.

and....is the reports based on older models of the LAP-BAND®? and the newer bands not as likely to cause long term problems? just want someone to explain it to me...thanks

my doc says that part of the problem was the older band. I gather that it (or at least the one he started working with) was not a complete circle, and the gap was where the band would start to erode into the stomach.

For me, it was safer for pregnancy. Honestly my regular doctor referred me to my surgeon who specialty is lap band. Not a great deal of information on the gastric sleeve at first.