Hi,

I am going through all my requirements for my surgery and did my psychological evaluation last night. Thankfully, it was with my own psychologist and I didn't have to see someone new.

He wrote a great letter saying that he thinks it's a great idea for me to have the surgery (yadda yadda yadda). However, he said to me "off the record, I want you to research the success rate of the lap band....my view of it may be skewed.....but I think there are more failures stats than successful stats.....because people learn to manipulate the band....."

So, ok, we have all heard stories of people who CAN eat whatever they want on the band but in small quantities etc..

but honestly, I feel many if not all the people who choose this route are seriously determined and succeed.

Can anyone tell me if they know of stats? where are they if they are listed somewhere.

Has anyone had the band for more than 5 years? what has been their success or challenges?

Thanks in advance!

I did a search on Google for "success statistics of Lap Band" and found the following:

LAP-BAND: Statistics subframe

Lap Band Success Rate

If You Are Considering Lap Band Bariatric Surgery Then You Need To Find A Good Surgeon

There are probably plenty more out there; this is just what I found after a two-minute look on Google. There might be some really good stats out there....I just didn't have time to really look.

Hope it helps!

You know, any patient CAN figure out a way to cause weight gain.

So, he is right in a way. You can figure out how to gain weight if you want to.

I'd like to keep an eye on this thread to see if anyone has the answer to '5 years' or so.

Great post!

I have been thinking about this long and hard also. Thanks for the thread. Not to many people have been doing this for a while. I can easily loose the weight without the band but seem to go back to my old ways. Wondering if the band will help me in the long term.

I have been thinking about this long and hard also. Thanks for the thread. Not to many people have been doing this for a while. I can easily loose the weight without the band but seem to go back to my old ways. Wondering if the band will help me in the long term.

Inamed came out with their 5 years stats just a few months ago. At five years people are keeping about half their excess weight off.

Not really great stats.

You know, any patient CAN figure out a way to cause weight gain.

So, he is right in a way. You can figure out how to gain weight if you want to.

I'd like to keep an eye on this thread to see if anyone has the answer to '5 years' or so.

Great post!

I just joined you guys today.. I have been having my band since feb 2003..It used to work great but since it slipped and I had it repositioned, it has not worked since.. That was about 3 years ago. I'm thinking about removing it or adding vertical sleeve. I have gained back 30 lbs. of my 60lb lost..very frustrated about the money down the drain. I thought this would be lifetime fix!!

One of the most recent articles I could find was in the Journal of Surgical Endoscopy. It showed for bypasses a 4 year success rate of 75%, and a failure rate of 5%.

For banded patients it showed a 27% success rate and a 34% failure rate.

This work was done by Brad Snyder at University of Texas Medical School in Houston.

But this is only one study. I think the study size was 309 bypass, 175 band. Remember that results can really vary from study to study, but I tend to put more stock into results published in peer reviewed scholarly journals. Research done by companies is always much harder to put faith in.

That being said, I think you just really need to do a lot of soul searching. Ultimately my decision came down to what I thought was going to work best for me. Not what had or hadn't worked for someone else. I definitely applaud you finding out all the info you can though ! Best of luck !

In case anyone else is wanting to do some reading of their own and is at a (large) university or hospital, try searching PubMed. Your university or hospital library should grant you access to many of these journal articles. PubMed Home

One of the most recent articles I could find was in the Journal of Surgical Endoscopy. It showed for bypasses a 4 year success rate of 75%, and a failure rate of 5%.

For banded patients it showed a 27% success rate and a 34% failure rate.

Interesting stats - they don't add up to 100%. Makes you wonder if they did maths!

I dont think the long term stats of ANY weight loss surgery are ideally what you'd want to see. You can eat around any surgery, and they all have their own peculiar complications - but liquid calories are pretty easy to do!

The thing with the band is you can ALSO adjust it, so you can fail to get fills that you need or you can do stupid things like unfill to go on a vacation etc. That doesnt help towards long term success.

And the fact is that any statistics take into account people who are ill, mentally unwell, physically disabled, non compliant as well as those that just dont have success. Chances are with any surgery if you are able bodied, and dedicated enough to eat well 90% of the time and exercise quite hard very regularly, then you WILL be a long term success. That sounds so easy but its probably a minority of people who actuall do this.

You can decide that you will and instantly wipe out about half the reasons for failure from your personal outlook.

Well, here's my take, for what it's worth.

If everyone took a look at the 5 year weightloss statistics of every weight loss program before trying it, no one would be on ANY weight loss program. If any of these programs were great, long term solutions, we wouldn't need the band. Granted, the band is a much more drastic measure than programs like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and even fentermine. However, I have tried everything else, and this is my one last hope! If I can keep off 1/2 of whatever I lose for five years, I'll consider that a victory! It will be far better than what I've EVER been able to accomplish.

Don't get me wrong, I fully intend for this to be a complete lifestyle change, and I hope to maintain 100% of my weightloss for life. I'm just saying that for me, it is definitely worth a chance no matter what the studies show! I plan on being a "results not typical" bandster anyway.:tongue:

Interesting stats - they don't add up to 100%. Makes you wonder if they did maths!

It does not need to add up to 100%. There are other variables such as someone losing a band to a slip. That may not be considered a failure for the purposes of the study. They may be taking only the people who keep their band for an extended period of time. We also do not know what they consider a success.

In my office 2 girls did the full gastric bypass and both didn't get even near goal and gained all of it back. They both were so motivated at first .. then .....they they starting to drink a lot of their calories and eat anything they wanted. Not good statistics but I'm believing it all falls upon the individual. The key is not your body but what goes on in your mind. I plan to do the Weight Watcher program with the band (keep my portions under control) and walk most days. Try not to feel guilty when I screw up and move on. Discouragement I really want to erase from my vocabulary.

I think statistics are skewed in so many ways. There is no way to tell exactly what they consider a success of failure and why people succeeded or failed. For some it will be easy and for others it will be hard. Some will lose slow and some will lose fast. I think Everyone is different and what we should all really be looking at is whether the band is working for each of us personally.

If there is a slip or erosion, that is beyond our control, most of the time. BUT, if we don't eat right and we don't lose, WE are the ones who failed, not the band.

As a trained Statistician myself (I have an invisible propeller on my head), numbers can be made to say anything depending on the skewing of the original data.

For me, I agree with some of the others (the gorgeous Jachut, for example). Because we are not commodities - ie we're not all identical, with equal starting weights and equal health problems and equal surgeons - numbers are meaningless without the qualitative commentary.

Before I had my surgery, I met with a woman who had the surgery 10 years ago at my surgeon's. It took her two years to shed the weight but she has kept it off for 8 years with zero problems. She uses the band to ensure her portions are smaller and she exercises.

For me, someone like her provides me with a better picture of long-term loss than a number, because I can talk to her, see what she's done, learn about the good and the bad and, based on her experience, I am more knowledgeable about how I can make 'Felix' work for me.

I'm having some issues right now but I can tell you that if I didn't have my band- in five years I would be as big as my house!