My Daughter needs Lap Band surgery she is 16.5 years old and is 170 pound overweight. We have spent thousands of dollars on personal trainers and dietians and nothing has worked. If any one has a similar situation with names of doctors in the St. Louis Missouri area. It would be greatly appreciated for a referral from some one that has went through this procedure.

Yes, there are doctors who will do surgery on a minor here in the US. You can start calling around asking. Would be great if you could find one in your area, but if not, there are some in other areas.

How is your relationship with your daughter? I know teen daughter / mother relationships can be rocky in general, so it might be hard to know what's normal. I second (third? fourth?) the recommendation for therapy. Maybe even both therapy for her alone and therapy for you both together. But she needs to have a therapist who will keep her information private so she feels safe talking. I would never have told anyone how I felt as a teen knowing they'd turn around and tell my parents. And my parents didn't believe teens should have privacy from their parents, so journaling didn't help either since I knew they would have no qualms reading it. (kind of doesn't help unless you're writing your honest feelings)

All these camps, personal trainers, etc - were they her idea? If she really wants to lose weight, the Band is a great tool!

Im sorry Mom...you might be part of your daughters problem!

If she is 5'7, there is NO WAY she is 170 lbs overweight. You expect her to be 110 lbs? She should weight about 145 lbs, which is 125 lbs overweight, heavy, but NOT 110 lbs.

Please love and support her. I hope she doesnt know your on the website telling strangers about her. I feel bad for your daughter. Good luck to her, and I really hope your more supportive than you sound.

PS-No doctor will give the surgery to a 16 year old, except in Mexico.

This is the first thing I thought too. There is no way that a 5'7 female should be 110 pounds. That would put her BMI at 17.2 which is considered "underweight." I'm thinking it should be labelled "heroin chic model thin". Please, please, please become more realistic about your expectations and look into the possibility that your need for a super skinny daughter is literally killing her.

Let her come here (without telling you her handle) and research the band. Maybe this is exactly what she needs and she will recognize the symptoms that the band can control. Or maybe she will determine that a life of constant belittlement about her weight and judgement of every bite she eats is making the situation worse and once free of that she will get healthier. Either way SHE is going to have to do the work to remain healthy for the rest of her life and if she does not buy into the band she will eat around it and you will have wasted more money.

I am not trying to sound harsh on you. I have no idea what your relationship with your daughter is like. The 110 may have just been ignorance about proper height/weight proportions. But I grow up with a mother who hated having an overweight daughter. I was 30 pounds overweight in high school and she put me on Cambridge and Optifast! liquid starvation diets usually reserved for the morbidly obese. (Damn the doctor that ok'd it too.) Had I simply been trained to eat better and exercise more I might never have gotten 100 pounds overweight. (Since I tend to gain weight only after an extreme diet.)

There are doctors performing this surgery on minors - and there should be. Too many teens have the addicition we all suffer from and I suspect your daughter does too. But she has to believe in it and your whole family will have to rethink how they look at food and relate with your daughter. I suspect you will also have to go into therapy (with her) to learn to relate to your daughter better.

Best of luck and I hope you stay here. Lots of great education here and as you can see we wouldn't let you get away with unrealistic thinking. :biggrin2:

I'm sorry but I don't think anyone under the age of 18 should be having such a life changing surgery.

At 16 I wouldn't have been able to do it. It takes a lot of willpower and I don't think a teen can deal with that... it takes a lot of willpower for all of us who are over 18 even OLDER.

Either way I don't agree with someone who isn't even an adult yet to have surgery.

Just my opinion.

Howdy!

Well I am 20 years old and was about 130lbs over weight before I got banded two weeks ago.

I highly recommend Lap Band. At such a young age it is easier to adjust to this life change. The band is really a tool to help someone learn how to eat, what to eat, and be overall more healthy. It is very safe, it's removable, and best of all it stays in for life. So it will always be able to help her.

I hope that helped, if you have any more questiosn feel free to shoot me an e-mail: kk0194@yahoo.com

Oh and one more thing I saw--whoever said that the DR won't do lap band if you're 16 is wrong. My Doctor performs surgery on patcients as young as 17. So there is hope for her and all doctors will do it at the age of 18. So don't let that be a determining factor.

Good Luck!

-Kareen, TX

Edited December 30, 200817 yr by Kareen022