Hope all goes well with your surgery today Shortgal, my thoughts and prayers are with you at this time. :cool2:

Thank you all for your well wishes but unfortunately things did not go as planned.

I was expecting to wake up with a locked band, but woke up with no band and two drains in my stomach. The band was eroding into my stomach.

I am devastated, of course, to lose the one thing I thought would help me keep my weight down.

I am not against lap bands because this happened to me. I know they work for many people, I just wish I was one of them. I did not even have my band long enough to get to my goal weight and I was a self pay. Emotionally, it's been tough.

I am trying to tell myself that I did not have restriction for the last three to four months ( actually I never hit my sweet spot) and yet with my walking, I was at least maintaining the 45 pounds I've lost.

While I would like to lose more weight, I know that might not be realistic for me, so my goal is to at least try hard to maintain where I am now (which hovers between 171 and 175). That's not a bad weight to be, but I am short and that still makes me obese, just less obese than before ( which is good).

If I am unable to maintain my weight, I will consider an alternate WLS procedure, but I would have to self pay again. My ins covers it only with a five year history and I wouldn't want to wait five years. And I never really wanted GBP.

I wish you all the best of luck in your personal journey to better health and a happier life. I will most likely not join in on challenges, as it is too mentally defeating for me to know I can't keep up adn I am trying to stay positive.

While I am happy to see your success and all the others on the forum, it is hard to watch people get to goal, knowing I probably never will, so for my own benefit, I am trying to steer away from time on the forum. I hope you can understand that.

I actually came on to start a new thread to inform you of my complication and then saw that Sades started this one.

Thank you all again for your support in the past eight months. I will be thinking of you all, even if I am not here on the forum to tell you.

Judy

Judy,

I am sorry for your lost, My heart hurst for you, I ill keep you in my prayers

I searched the pages to find out what happened with your complilcations. I am sorry to hear that your problems have continued and that the band is no longer an option. Continue with your hard work and by all means enjoy your son's wedding. He won't care if mom lost 45 pounds or 100, just that she is there for his on his special day!

Hi Everybody, I'm new to the group, I am going to have the lap band proceduer in about 3 weeks, I would like to know if anyone has a liver condition, I have A fatty liver and it has turned into cirrhosis, my Dr. assured me the lap band proceduer would not hurt or do any harm, but I can't stop worrying about it. I need to lose about 45 pounds, he tells me this is going to help my liver. Any help would be appreciated.

BB

Bradley, there's a search engine you can use at the top of lapbandtalk. If you enter liver cirrhosis (sp?) you should be able to come up with threads that talk about it.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this, Judy! I've read most of this thread and it sounds like you've got the right attitude. For now, please relax and enjoy your son's wedding! You will look fabulous! I'd love to hear about the dress you chose! :shades_smile:

Thanks Kendra, It's been a rough month of rollercoaster emotions.

I had someone look at the same x-ray that the Dr. diagnosed my band as unlocked and I now know that was a bunch of B.S. ( which I always suspected.) Somehow my Dr. screwed up and the bottom line is I am out almost $20,000 and have no band. Malpractice is a waste since the malpractice laws requires me to have suffered a severe injury ( as if $20,000 and 2 surgeries isn't enough injury. I am trying to deal with it all the best I can, not easy tho'

I LOVE my dress for the wedding. It is full length and sapphire. The top half of the bodice is sheer and it has a jacket that I will wear for the ceremony. The dress was sleeveless (which wasn't working for my new flabby arms) so the store bought more sheer fabric and they are adding sleeves. The seamstress is great and is fitting me perfectly. I feel so good in it. I will post a photo after the wedding.

I read about your last test and that things are looking good, I am very glad to hear that and hope it continues on that path.

Take care and thanks for checking in.

Judy

Oh, Judy, there must be some way you can recover your financial damages. Have you sat down with a lawyer? I'm sorry if you've already gone through this in this thread and I missed it.

Your dress does sound beautiful! I can't wait to see it! That's some great shop you found that can customize it so well. It's going to be a lovely day and I can't wait to hear all about it!

My Dr. seems to have done a great job "covering his tracks" and proving what happen does not seem possible. I believe it was the same problem as Sades ( that he never put the band around my stomach), I think he thought he would just go in and fix the real problem ( not lock my band) but something went wrong with where he placed it which caused some complication ( not erosion) so he removed the band and devised a cover story. He did not even put me on a post op diet after the second surgery, so how could I have been eroded? He never did a floroscopy after the first surgery or at anytime, that would have proved if my band was placed wrong.

I ahve been told to ask for a CD of the surgery, but the hospital does not have one. I was told by the hospital IF there is one the Dr has it! I doubt he'll admit to having one. It's just all so frustrating. Plus since he is claiming erosion and that is a possible complication of being banded, why would he pay me back? I get mad everytime I think about it, but that attitude is not good for me, so I'm trying to get over it all. I was just VERY unlucky.

P.S. my dress and the alterations were pretty expensive, so it better fit right!

Hey Shortgal. I can't wait to see your photos. Your dress sounds fantastic!

I'd talk to a lawyer too if I were you - and maybe ask some of the nurses that helped with the surgery, whoever works in his office, etc, if they know how to get evidence about what actually happened. Maybe they could give you a lead on where you could take this. I'm sure that there is someone who works for him that doesn't like his practices and would be helpful in giving you some hints along the way of what you could do to sue his a$$!!!:thumbup:

Linda, His PA was in the room with me when they both told me they "think" my band is unlocked. Trust me, He signs their pay check and they are not going to help me. It wouldn't matter if they did, a person has to prove serious injury, I've researched it. It sucks big time.

It's opened up a whole new world for me. I doubt I would be as trusting next time. I should have insisted on more tests etc. before believing my band was unlocked, because it did not look unlocked on the x-ray to me. I trusted the Dr.

And I suppose you can get into legal trouble if you post his face all over the internet telling everyone what a con job he is too. It is very unfair.

I know you're probably going to roll your eyes at this, but I've found after every travail there is usually a reason behind it. Every single time I have suffered, I have grown in ways that have helped me deal with the next hurdle in my life. I'm sure there's something here that will help you in the future that you will be grateful to have learned. Rolling your eyes yet? But it's true, really.

Linda, No I am not rolling my eyes, I totally agree with that, but being out almost $20,000 is tough to swallow right now.