BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I don't know why these threads make me giggle like a 6 year old calling someone poopyhead but damn, I can't resist!

Just a Drop discount info

There is a little history here. DS is a WLS type, it is kinda like extreme malabsorption and it makes your poop and farts so bad people could faint. I mean it's HORRIBLE! This is something DSers battle all the time. It's so bad if they fart the stench clings to their clothing. Others complain openly in public restrooms. I'm telling you, it's extreme. They are forever having to keep Fabreeze and specialized products with them 24/7. One bariatric surgeon was telling another person about a patient where he was removing her gallbladder. She farted while under anesthesia and they were gagging in the OR and since it was the middle of surgery, he couldn't leave the room. The gallbladder patient had DS.

He went on to say that if a DSer farted in an elevator, when the doors opened people wouldn't be rushing out of the elevator, they'd be dead.

There are WLS type wars on OH all the time. Bandsters tease DSers for stinking and they tease us for barfing. They are forever insisting they don't stink yet they keep companies like this in productive business! HA

This thread just cracked me up, I've been laughing since I read it. I just can't imagine my husband wanting me to buy EXTREME odor eaters for the bathroom and clothing. I can't fathom this conversation in my home!

It's not funny that DS patients stink so bad, it's not. But if you saw the horrific things they say about us, referring to our bands as laugh-bands, choke chains, if you saw how they degrade and insult banded people for being banded, maybe you would understand my childish laughter going on right now.

If DS patients eat carbs that is when it is apparently the worst. One piece of cake and they get instant gas and clear a building. Yeah, I'll take my choke chain any 'ol day over farts that are lethal and a stench following me each place I go.

From what I've read, exercise is correlated with success for all the surgeries. I think it gives people an edge.

With the sleeve, the main complications are in the beginning and some are quite serious. You can get a leak along your staple line and sometimes they are hard to heal. You can get a stricture where you can't get anything down and have to be dilated to expand out your opening. You can get a twist in your stomach and there are different treatments for that.

The other thing is that sometimes people have trouble with stomach acid. Sometimes the stomach makes too much acid at first. So most docs put us on a PPI right away as a precaution. But I didn't really have too much trouble with that. Another annoying complication is nausea. Again, this is more of a "just in the beginning" thing and it's much less common than the stomach acid.

After that, the main thing is that you should be taking Calcium supplements because calcium is not as well absorbed in a low-acid environment. Some people also need to supplement with B12 or Iron, but again, that is rare. The base supplements are similar to lap-band base supplements, in fact.

And that's about it. Once you get past the leak danger, and as long as you aren't one of the ones dealing with nausea, you are pretty much home-free.

Thank you so much McMadame! I appreciate getting the "real skinny" so to speak. I noticed that you've been very successful and was wondering when you got your sleeve.

Those possible complications do make me think that it is not a switch that I should take without a whole lot of serious consideration. I didn't know that there were staples involved. I should go to a seminar and see what the actual surgery involves.

Congratulations on your great success. I'm sure you're feeling very good about your weight loss so far!

The reason I mentioned exercise is because I have very bad knees and the kind of exercise I can do is totally low impact. The people who can kick up the exercise a bunch seem to do so much better with the band than those of us who have limitations. With the sleeve, if actual hunger isn't so much of a problem, it seems to me that you could enjoy a good deal of weight loss even if you aren't running 3 miles a day. Anybody who is totally inactive will have a problem with losing though, with either surgery.

Thanks so much for helping me out on this. I really appreciate it!

There are machines at the gym that are very low impact.

My gym just got some new ones that are like gliding in the air. A lot of people that have problems with their knees also do Water exercises.

The thing with exercise is that once you are used to it, you really miss it when you're not doing it. I get very annoyed when something interferes with my gym time.

I can't wait for the day when I can come up with the money to have my band removed and get the sleeve. I have so much scar tissue at my waist where the port and tubing are, it's hard to bend at the waist.I also have problems with restriction. I wish I had known about the sleeve from the very beginning.

How are these people taking anitbiotics all the time and not dealing with yeast infections? This is a big problem in my life.

Edited February 14, 200917 yr by Oregondaisy

How are these people taking anitbiotics all the time and not dealing with yeast infections? This is a big problem in my life.

That I don't know... I think it's the nature of the one they take. I think it targets gut flora only. But I haven't looked into it as it's not applicable to me.

BJean, I exercise like crazy and, if I don't, my weight loss suffers. It may be because I'm older and my metabolism is slower than average (though not a lot slower). It is also because I want to lose the 2-3 lb. a week that is average for my surgery and not settle for the 1-2 lb. that you can get with most diets.

Now, at first, you just can't eat that much. I was doing 500 calories a day to start! That went up gradually as my stomach swelling went down. So doing that period, the weight was definitely dropping off, pretty much no matter what.

But now I'm up to about 850-900 calories a day at almost 5 months and, if I want to continue to lose at the 2-3 lb. a week rate, I have to burn about 3000 calories a week in exercise. That's a lot of exercise and at a pretty high intensity. Of course, I'm doing that anyway because I'm training for my triathlon.

If I was okay with a 1-2 lb. loss a month, I could do a lot less exercise or I could eat a lot more.

I just don't want you to get the wrong idea...

Wow a triathlon~! That's awesome. That's serious exercise. Good for you!!

I started doing Water aerobics and that was the first step in helping me lose lbs. and get my knees working again. Before that I had 2 doctors tell me to immobilize my knee because of tendonitis. That was the worst thing I could have done. I had to go to an orthopedist to learn that. Thank goodness I got up and started moving again. That old "use it or lose it" adage is right on!

oregon, so you're wanting to switch to the sleeve? Are you nervous at all about having some of your stomach removed? I thought the sleeve just restricted your stomach. I didn't know they actually cut some of it out. That makes me nervous. If I have complications with the band, it can be removed. If I have complications from having some of my stomach removed, it could be disasterous. I guess the complication rate is low though, so that's one part of the equation.

Wow a triathlon~! That's awesome. That's serious exercise. Good for you!!

I started doing Water aerobics and that was the first step in helping me lose lbs. and get my knees working again. Before that I had 2 doctors tell me to immobilize my knee because of tendonitis. That was the worst thing I could have done. I had to go to an orthopedist to learn that. Thank goodness I got up and started moving again. That old "use it or lose it" adage is right on!

oregon, so you're wanting to switch to the sleeve? Are you nervous at all about having some of your stomach removed? I thought the sleeve just restricted your stomach. I didn't know they actually cut some of it out. That makes me nervous. If I have complications with the band, it can be removed. If I have complications from having some of my stomach removed, it could be disasterous. I guess the complication rate is low though, so that's one part of the equation.

You have to get really specific with yourself before you feel better about the sleeve. Just what is it that you think can go wrong with a sleeve where you would want it reversed assuming it could be reversed?

With a band lots and lots of things can go wrong with it. If it happens you remove the band and start all over again. If something were to go wrong with your sleeve you fix it and continue on with your life.

Long term a sleeve is MUCH safer than a band.

The thing is, we know what happens when part of your stomach is removed when it comes to complications. That part of the sleeve has been performed for decades on people with stomach cancer and bad ulcers. We know people can live without their stomachs, if they have to.

I understand the fear of wanting to reverse something because I've thought that way myself.

But it's from hearing stories about people who had operations that included malabsorption or from not having a pylorus valve (i.e., as in RnY), or from operations where they stapled the stomach but didn't remove the part not used to process food and the two pieces grew back.

In all those cases, people get weird and serious side-effects that can't be treated. Not all people -- it's a small minority -- but I wasn't willing to risk it at this point in my life. But people don't get that from partial gastrectomies.

What can happen is that some people have trouble processing calcium because of the less acidic stomach environment and some people have trouble getting enough B12 because there is less intrinsic factor.

But the later happens rarely enough that my surgeon doesn't even have us take B12 to start, but only if it turns out we need it. For the former, taking calcium citrate instead of calcium carbonate is usually enough. (Citrate doesn't need an acidic environment to be absorbed.)

Then there are minor inconvenience of sometimes eating too much and being uncomfortable. And a handful of short term problems that usually resolve themselves by 3-4 months out, but always by a year.

I am not the least bit nervous about having most of my stomach removed. Who needs it? Good riddance! All it has done is cause me misery by wanting it to be full beyond it's capacity.

I am more nervous about a piece of silicone wrapped around my stomach, possibly eroding my stomach to the point that I will not be able to have any other weight loss surgery, once it fails.

I am not the least bit nervous about having most of my stomach removed. Who needs it? Good riddance! All it has done is cause me misery by wanting it to be full beyond it's capacity.

I am more nervous about a piece of silicone wrapped around my stomach, possibly eroding my stomach to the point that I will not be able to have any other weight loss surgery, once it fails.

Not to mention that the part that is removed is designed to hold a large quantity of food and pump out ghrelin, the hunger causing hormone.

Who needs it? If my appendix was harming my health I'd toss it in the garbage. Same thing with my excess stomach.

My surgeon calls it "right-sizing" of the stomach, btw. That's how I think of it too. I didn't think of my stomach as a "perfectly good organ" that I was "mutilating" (as I've seen some people put it) but as a broken organ that needed to be fixed.

But everyone has their own POV and some people can't get past the "ohmigod, they are cutting off most of my stomach and THROWING IT AWAY" reaction. I know it took me a while to get past that reaction myself.

My surgeon calls it "right-sizing" of the stomach, btw. That's how I think of it too. I didn't think of my stomach as a "perfectly good organ" that I was "mutilating" (as I've seen some people put it) but as a broken organ that needed to be fixed.

But everyone has their own POV and some people can't get past the "ohmigod, they are cutting off most of my stomach and THROWING IT AWAY" reaction. I know it took me a while to get past that reaction myself.

You know who the surgeon is that refers to it as stomach mutiliation, don't you? He's one that just happens to only do easy banding... nothing difficult for him! No sleeves, no bypass, only band revisions, and only those under a 50BMI.

No wonder his stats are decent, he only does easy no risk surgery.

I like that. Right sizing of the stomach. All I need is enough to sustain me, not all that excess that causes me misery.

I am happy that I got a band and lost weight, but I feel like I have a ticking time bomb wrapped around my stomach.

Oh I didn't mean to say that I'd want the sleeve surgery reversed. I meant that I might not have many alternatives if there was a complication having to do with the removal of part of my stomach.

Wasa, you've had really good results from getting the band removed and the getting the sleeve surgery, right? What went wrong with the band? I am trying to figure out if it's just me who is weak and therefore a potential candidate for the sleeve, or if I really should have experienced some kind of complication from the band before it is sensible to get the sleeve.

I've read posts of very successfully banded people who actually have great feelings toward their bands. They are "at one" with their band and would be devastated if it ever had to be removed.

I am not one of those people. I have had a limited amount of success and I am aware of the port nearly evey moment of every day. I worry about having this foreign body in me and worry that it might be causing damage in some way. I don't think those thoughts are very conducive to success.

But if I were to get the sleeve, I wonder if I would still be worried that I have a foreign body in me. I mean I would be an idiot to go through that surgery and continue to question my decision. In fact, I worry that I would feel even more frustrated than ever. (And weak)

The side effect of not absorbing B-12 is no biggie. I often take subinguinal B-12 now. And as far as calcium is concerned, I have had kidney stones a couple of times in my life and so I probably don't process calcium properly now anyway. The nausea is a little scary. I hate feeling nauseated.

Another problem that I can foresee is that my husband would have a heart attack if I told him I wanted to get the sleeve. He was very supportive of me getting the band, but he did question my sanity. He thought I was courageous and strong and all that, but he's not one to ever choose elective surgery for anything. I'm sure he's as disappointed in my band as I have been though.

oregon: a ticking time bomb... my feelings are not that different than yours!

Oh I didn't mean to say that I'd want the sleeve surgery reversed. I meant that I might not have many alternatives if there was a complication having to do with the removal of part of my stomach.

Wasa, you've had really good results from getting the band removed and the getting the sleeve surgery, right? What went wrong with the band? I am trying to figure out if it's just me who is weak and therefore a potential candidate for the sleeve, or if I really should have experienced some kind of complication from the band before it is sensible to get the sleeve.

I've read posts of very successfully banded people who actually have great feelings toward their bands. They are "at one" with their band and would be devastated if it ever had to be removed.

I am not one of those people. I have had a limited amount of success and I am aware of the port nearly evey moment of every day. I worry about having this foreign body in me and worry that it might be causing damage in some way. I don't think those thoughts are very conducive to success.

But if I were to get the sleeve, I wonder if I would still be worried that I have a foreign body in me. I mean I would be an idiot to go through that surgery and continue to question my decision. In fact, I worry that I would feel even more frustrated than ever. (And weak)

The side effect of not absorbing B-12 is no biggie. I often take subinguinal B-12 now. And as far as calcium is concerned, I have had kidney stones a couple of times in my life and so I probably don't process calcium properly now anyway. The nausea is a little scary. I hate feeling nauseated.

Another problem that I can foresee is that my husband would have a heart attack if I told him I wanted to get the sleeve. He was very supportive of me getting the band, but he did question my sanity. He thought I was courageous and strong and all that, but he's not one to ever choose elective surgery for anything. I'm sure he's as disappointed in my band as I have been though.

For 8.5 months now my band is sitting in an OR baggie on my dresser while I think up a way to kill it before it spreads its evil to others.

Wanna know the truth? For a long time I thought I was the only person with such severe band problems. I told a few people I wanted to revise to a sleeve but I was afraid to announce it here because I would be the band loser that I am. There was only one person that I found in the beginning that had sooo many problems with that piece of crap. I went on saying the band was great because I really thought I was in the minority with the kind of band problems I was having. The one person that had the SAME problems as me was Julissa, another poster here who went on to revise to bypass just a few weeks ago. I didn't lie, I honestly thought the band was a great thing for most people. I didn't want my weird ass band problems to discourage someone else from getting banded. What was I supposed to say? I did not slip, I did not erode, I did not have pouch dilation, no esophageal dilation, just band intolerance. What is that? A nut diagnosis?

I've learned a LOT since I had my band removed. I am not in the minority, I am in the MAJORITY. The band sucks. Every newbie loves their band, they see the scale moving. To hell with the puking and various forms of stoma spewing, so what that you can't eat in public for fear of hurling up some slimed piece of restaurant food. The scale is moving. What else in life matters? Heck, I put my marriage on the line over the band. I wanted weight loss like I wanted nothing else in life. I was determined to make this work.

I exercised every single day, hard cardio for 1-2 hours daily minimum. That's why I don't have any sympathy at all for people who whine that they don't like exercise, they don't want to, they don't have time. Total crap, if you had time to research the band, have surgery, and go through all that you have time to exercise. I hated exercise too, still do. But it's like cleaning the toilet. It's something you have to do.

My symptoms... everything except slips, erosion, and dilation. I may not have had those but I had everything else. You know what I have come to realize? I know exactly what band intolerance is now. It is not a psych diagnosis, it is a physical problem. You know how everything affects restriction? Time of day, time of month, weather, temp, temp of food (hot, room temp, cold), stress, emotions, bloody everything. What will make another person a little tight would make me obstruct. If my food was hot or cold, my stoma would clamp shut. EVERYTHING had to be room temp including protein shakes. If I was the least bit on edge, it would clamp shut. If I was just a little annoyed with a phone call ... that meant I couldn't get water down. I would slime on water with an unfilled band. If everything was going perfectly, I was not rushed, stressed, moody, etc., I could guzzle water. If someone called and said they'd be 10 minutes late I might be just a little bit annoyed and that's all it took. My band was shut tighter than a virgin on prom night (phrase stolen from a great x-poster here). I could eat steak without hardly chewing when things were good. If the setting was anything but perfect I'd slime on water.

Then Mr. Bubblebutt and I decided to split and with all his game playing and usual couples "stuff" I couldn't get any solids down for 4 months. Now, I had been asking my doc for a revision for a few months and he declined, he didn't feel the risk outweighed the benefits. He felt I had learned to work around the problems, I was at goal, I was doing well. He just felt it was an unnecessary surgery. Then when I couldn't get anything but liquids down for months then he started pushing for a revision. He'd email reminding me that he was looking at his OR schedule and my name wasn't on it. I was going through my 2nd guessing, wondering if all this was in my head, I just didn't know what to do. Finally I was losing a lot more weight than I wanted to or intended to. So I finally scheduled the revision.

I had esophageal spasms (verrry painful), esophageal damage resulted in the end, stoma spasms, reflux, an inability to eat solids, I never wanted to eat in public unless it was with another banded person. I'd go to lunch with Denise but never someone that didn't have a band because they wouldn't "get it". My voice was starting to sound like a cross between a frog and a boy in puberty... esophageal damage. My teeth were suffering from barfing. It was a non stop battle between me and my band. I hated it, I resented my band and there were days if I would have known how I would have ripped it out myself.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore and scheduled the sleeve. My biggest fear was that the sleeve would make my problems permanent and forever. THAT is why I was dragging my feet, I was scared to death that this was never going to end. I couldn't decide between banded life and fat. It really is a hard decision. Finally my doc just looked at me and asked me to trust him. I DO trust him, so I left it at that.

Life has never been better since after the post op diet. I don't keep plastic bags in every room, my purse, my car, my desk, and everywhere else to barf in. I don't need them anymore. I have no food intolerances AT ALL. I eat four small meals a day. I don't struggle in the least to maintain. I don't exercise much because I don't need to. I have my life back AND I'm thin.

There is no way to describe the difference between life with a band and life without. I did not know that I am not the minority, I am the majority. Maybe most don't experience things to the same degree that I did, but they experience it. No sweet spot,.. you know... when I was sleeved and started on solids I was in for the shock of my life! I had NO clue what REAL restriction was all about. Holy crap! what a concept! I realized how much I had been white knuckling it unless, of course, life was not ohhh sooo perfect and I couldn't drink water. THIS is easy, banding is HARD!

In my heart I can never suggest banding to anyone. Stats show you are going to lose half your excess weight on a temporary basis. Sure, some beat the odds... I did. But I paid dearly for it. All this time I could have had a damn sleeve!

A band IS a ticking time bomb. It may not mess up today, but you can bet it will tomorrow or the day after. I dare you to do something... out of the thousands and thousands of posters posting here, find five people that have had a band for 10 years or longer. Just five. Not 500, just five. Try it. Find them, introduce me to them. I want to see how well they like their band. I'll bet you can't find five people that are still banded and happy. Shoot, I'll bet you can't find five banded unhappy people.

You know, I wasn't sure how or when I was going to tell everyone I got sleeved. Kira did it for me. Ooupss... she didn't realize I hadn't told anyone here or on my doc's board I was getting a revision. She was calling the hospital and when I was in recovery she announced it here, on OH, and my docs board I was in recovery. Heh... that was weird. I have a different ID for each board but all the regs know all my IDs. I've never hidden them. I don't even know why I have different IDs on various boards. Anyway, since I had my revision and I have been verrrry open about it I've had four docs contact me and tell me since Kira announced my revision and since I have been verrry open about it since that time they are slam dunked with revisions. None of us really wanted to talk about problems other than slips and erosion or dilation. Since I've been my usual vocal self people are realizing they are not alone and they are doing something about it. We ALL thought we were failures and we weren't. I was just lucky that I was determined enough to lose weight with the sucky band vs. falling into soft food syndrome and I grant you, that would have been easy but I didn't do it. I stuck to my guns, I wasn't going to go through all that and not lose, it wasn't going to happen.

So if anything positive came out of the band in my case it is that I am very vocal and the reason that I am so vocal about how much the band sucks is because nobody else was speaking up about the "kind" of problems and the degree of problems I was having and I thought I was the only one. That's not even close to truth, now I realize it's COMMON and if my speaking up makes others realize they are not alone in band failure, all the better.

I have not had a single day since 6/3/08, the day of my revision, that I haven't had a PM or email on here, OH, my doc's board, or someone giving out my name/email address where someone hasn't asked me about revision from band to anything else. Before my revision it was once in a blue moon someone would ask about a revision and what was necessary, who did them, how to get ins to cover, etc. Today it is DAILY. That's not us failing, that is the band failing.

Again, the band is a great way to lose about 1/2 your excess weight on a temporary basis. Inamed doesn't even put their long term weight loss stats on their own website! They did for a short time and people were up in arms. Now they removed the numbers, the actual stats, and infer it's a LOT of weight loss. It's not a lot of weight, it's 55-60% of their excess weight. Big deal, if a 50+BMI person loses half their excess weight they are still obese in the end. That's not great. It's better than 50BMI but obese is not great. It's obese.

Once in awhile I get PMs from people that have revised from band to sleeve and they mention that they feel sad when someone announces that they have a date, they are getting banded. For those of us that have been there we feel sorry for those folks because we know a majority of them are going to be in the same boat as us. I know the emotional turmoil, the feeling like a freak of a failure, the band problems, reflux, pain, etc. It's hard to be excited for someone when you know what their future is likely to hold. Re-ops for banding is between 30-50% depending on which study you look at and that's for those less than 5 years out!

Check out OH boards. Just scan the topics under the band forum and compare it to the sleeve forum. Bands are all about they can't get restriction, they are stuck, they dilated their pouch and they are on liquids, they dilated their esophagus and they are on liquids, they are not losing well, etc. Then scan the sleeve boards. Most old timers don't post because they have no issues and problems. It's newbies posting to tell how great the weight loss is.

I'll shout it from the damn rooftops! The band sucks! The sleeve rocks! No maintenance, no adjustments, no aftercare, no nothing. It's sew and go. Get surgery and go home. You are done.

I gotta tell you, writing that felt damned fine!