Hi there,

I have been considering the lap-band/realize systems for months now and I have lots and lots of questions. I found that this is an excellent forum and hope to become an important member of this community and hope to have many of my own questions answered at the same time.

A little about myself: well, I'm 44 years old and over 100lbs over weight for my height (5'9") and age, and have been for most of my adult life. I am married with two boys, the youngest of which about to graduate high school in a couple of weeks, and I have 1 cat with 2 more coming in mid-May (yeah).

My mom had the bypass surgery when I was in high school, and after seeing all she has gone through, and is still going though, I would never recommend the bypass surgery to anybody. I'm sure there are circumstances where it would be better over the band, but that's for the doctors to decide. I just know that my mom is still very overweight, is now a Type 2 diabetic, has severe malabsorbtion issues, acid reflux so bad she wakes up spitting up into a cup 3 to 4 times a night, and many other medical issues related to the surgery. Granted, some of her medical issues she probably would have ended up with anyway, but many of them are a direct result of the surgery.

Needless-to-say, I have very strong opinions on bypass vs banding, but I am not so opinionated as to not listen to other points of view.

I have researched bypass as well as banding in the last several months and am still very convinced that banding is the way to go for me. Now, since I haven't seen the doctor yet, he may say otherwise, but I'm hopeful.

I welcome any questions, comments, or general chit chat, so feel free to chat me any time.

Thank you and I look forward to being a part of this wonderful forum.

I was just banded on Thursday. I had researched each of the surgeries for 5 years and obviously concluded that the band was best for me. Quite frankly, over a 5 year period, they yield the same average weight loss, so with them being worlds apart in terms of complications, safety, etc...it was a no-brainer. The clearest difference to me is that the band patients have to work with their tool moreso than bypass patients. Feel free to fire any questions away...

Hi Stephanie1972,

Thanks for replying to my post.

Well, along with lots of wls questions, I'm also not sure what to do in a forum. For example, should I reply to this post with my question(s), send you a private message, send you an email, or should I just find a section that makes sense for my question? (I warned you I had lots of questions...that's just me :smile: )

So, here's the first question then we'll see where it goes from there: I already know there are no surgeons in NM that do this type of surgery, so I've been looking at a few surgeons in AZ. How do I find out how many surgeries for Lap-Band (or Realize) they have performed?