I am supposed to meet with the surgeon to talk about my surgery. That office assumes that I should have already made my decision and that I should be calling them to schedule "which" surgery I want; lapband or gastric bypass. I thought that I should be discussing my options WITH the surgeon. Does anyone else think this is weird? But the bigger question is, if you can do lap band surgery, why would you ever want to do gastric bypass? I hear that after 3 years the weight loss is similar and with lap band I don't have to worry about putting 'seams' in places that were not meant to have seams.

THE wt loss is quicker with the bypass, but u generally have 2 work your butt off with the band.i workout 2x harder than before the band everyday i regret the decsion to have the band and wish i had had the bypass

I don't know what the major difference I will feel once I have the bypass on Thursday but am looking forward to it. As one who never did well with the band this was my only choice. It's really difficult to know which surgery to choose in the first place, initially I wanted the RNY but chickend out at the last moment. In hindsite that was a mistake but I was fortuneate not to have major complications with the band and was able to have my insurance pay for the removal and revision to RNY.

At my age with my comorbs I believe the RNY really is the best solution for me. I know ahead of time that any surgery can fail in the long run but I did have different expectations from the band which were not realistic. I also know that with the RNY my diabetes II will "cured" in a short amount of time. I also know that I don't have to worry about restriction variations with RNY as it will be there from the start. Dumping syndrome occurs somewhere between 40% and 50% of the people who have RNY so its not something you can count on so you still have to be careful with your sugar/fat. Drinking before and after eating is something you have to restrict also as you're basically a self flusher now because you don't have the pyloris valve anymore. And chewing very well is important so that you don't stretch your pouch or your new stoma.

Anyway I'm having RNY because I want to lose weight and I didn't with the lap band. Whatever that percentage is that doesn't lose with the band I am a part of. I'll post when I can to let people know who aren't RNYers themselves what it's like to be a bypasser and compare it to being a bander. I'm curious to know what the small pouch feels like compared to a banded pouch and what foods I can tolerate etc...

So whoever can come up with the best way to decide which surgery is the best fit for each individual wins the lottery in my book because it's not always an easy thing to figure out beforehand. Good luck to all of us who are having or had WLS as it's not easy for anyone, Nancy.