My doctor says the Lap Band is the best surgery in the world.

Why is it so much better than DS?

Is it true DS can make your colon burst?

My doctor says the Lap Band is the best surgery in the world.

Why is it so much better than DS?

Is it true DS can make your colon burst?

Well " Lap band surgery is the best in the world " is an OPINION !!

And why its better i suppose is a matter of opinion .

If you ask a DS patient they im sure will tell you DS Is better.

PERSONALLY I think its a matter of which surgery you feel you can be successful with .

Best advice do your research and decide which surgery YOU think is the best !

Mindy

My doctor says the Lap Band is the best surgery in the world.

No one WLS is the "the best".

Why is it so much better than DS?

Better in what way? It's less risky, but DS has better overall weigh loss stats. Plus DS patients often have awesome cholesterol numbers.

So it depends on what is better to you.

Is it true DS can make your colon burst?

No.

I think the others are right when they say it's a personal choice. For me, DS or RNY was never an option. I didn't want anything cut and changed forever. I would like to loose 100 pounds, but would be happy with 75. So for me, the band was a superior choice because it's reversible and adjustable. And since I didn't need to loose more than 100 pounds, I felt it would get the job done. There is always this weird, "my surgery is better than yours" when dealing with WLS sites, etc. I have no judgment for those who have chosen another WLS. That's their choice and they did what they thought best for them, just like I did. If a person is successful with their WLS, then chances are they think it's the best thing ever.

My doc thinks the band is the best surgery in the world as well. The reasons are obvious....#1 he's banded and has lost a lot of weight himself, and #2 he's incredibly busy and makes a lot of money. So consider those things when your doc makes that statement. :thumbup:

Repairable

Replaceable

Removable

I don't see these as advantages because they are all things that are necessary because of the band. If you didn't have a band, you wouldn't need them.

I'm trying to think of a good analogy. How about this:

An advantage of a car over a horse is that you can replace the brakes when they go bad.

See how that's not an advantage? It's more of a leveler. As in: cars have parts that can go bad but you can easily replace them so that makes up for the fact that the parts go bad.

I think those things are definite advantages because when you have a complication with another type of surgery, you can't go back and just remove, repair, or replace the permanently altered stomach/gut.

But the lap band puts permanent scars on your gut. That's how it stays in place -- via scar tissue. It's very misleading to say that you can have your band taken out and everything goes back to normal. Yet, that's how the band is marketed ... as this safe surgery that isn't permanent.

It's misleading.

Not so misleading, Mac, IMO. I think most people realize that "easy removal" is a subjective term when talking about a surgery. I mean, truly easy removal would be if the docs installed a zipper up the abdominal wall. But compared to rerouting or removal of digestive organs, the band IS easily reversed.

Having said that, I do think there is a huge instructional gap in the information that different surgeons give. I personally know that "safer" does not equal "zero risk", but I can see how the general public could confuse the two if the doc didn't explicitly spell things out