I am new to this group. I am trying to decide which way to go. One day it's GBS and the next it's Band.

A little about my background. I am 69 yr. old. (Old enough to be grandmother. so some of you ) I have had a life long battle with my weight. I am currently at 242 at 5'4". I have significant lower back pain which limits my life in so many ways. Has anyone had relief from such pain following either surgery. I would love to be able to walk further than 30 feet or so. When we go on vacation I spend a lot of time sitting, waiting for the others to go see the sights. I figure I still have some good years left and want to be able to enjoy them with my loved ones.

im not gonna tell you that the bands gonna cure your back problems. but i can almost guarantee that your back pain will decrease quite a bit once you've got some weight off. good luck

I have a sour note story. I had severe pain in my feet, back and hoped the band would diminish the pain. I've lost over 100 lbs. I woke up one morning and out of the blue had worse pain. Bottom line is I had done damage to my body carrying the extra weight. The good news is the pain in my feet disappeared so did the Type II Diabetes. My sleep apnea resolved. With regards to your back, my advice to you is to seek out medical intervention for your back by going to a spine specialist. Weight loss will help you. I can only venture a guess that you would feel better losing the weight but I would try a neurologist or spine specialist to address your issues with your back.

My best to you in achieving good health. In the meantime, A "TENS" unit is the one device I use that gives relief.

I think for me it helped. I had problematic sciatic pain and a chronic heel issue, the combination of which was enough for me to say enough is enough, I have to lose weight for once and all. I was taking a few too many NSAID's for my liking and i had to have a cortisone injection into my heel, which gave me relief for 12 months, enough time to get into running.

After banding, I took up running and i have to say the pain got much more problematic for a while. My sciatic symptoms were occasional sharp shooting down the buttock and back of the leg pain but that had resolved a lot several years after my last pregnancy. However my right leg was just dead. It felt heavy, numb and sometimes hot. I'd get sharp bolts of pain but more often it was diffuse, achey and just made me feel plain unwell. I spent literally thousands of dollars on physio and nobody could figure out what the hell was wrong. There was no disc problem, nothing identifiable except that upon deep palpation the final physio I saw was baffled that the leg just felt "different" to the other one.

I finally went and saw an acupuncturist - I'm not a big believer in natural therapies, but I was desperate. It took 9 months of dedicated and expensive treatment, but he encouraged me to keep losing and running, and he worked with me. Eventually he thought he'd done all he could and told me just to start coming bimonthly for a "tune up". Anyway, I woke up about six weeks later and realised I felt GREAT. The pain just gradually had gone away and I've never had a problem since.

I dont think the band and weight loss cured my back, but I think I couldnt have gotten the results I did without it. And I put hours and hours and hours into core strengthening exercise and that REALLY helped - I mean I can now jump on a trampoline whilst laughing uncontrollably and not leave a puddle - and I'm almost 42 and have had three big babies - that alone is an indication about how strong my core muscles are! Core strenghtening really is KEY in helping back problems, the issues weak hip muscles and such can cause are extensive. Truth is, I believe it was getting really fit rather than actual weight loss which has helped me.

Hope you find some relief, its a huge downer, really depressing to have constant pain.

It depends on WHY you have lower back pain. If the weight is exacerbating it, then losing will help. However I'd think you STILL will have to walk and exercise to strengthen it. If you are having the surgery ONLY for that, then discuss it at some length with your surgeon. No bariatric surgery will "cure" back pain...it treats obesity which can (or may not be) causing your issues. Good luck!

I agree with Restless Monkey. I had back pain years ago, which caused pain and numbness down into my legs, feet and toes.

It turns out I had two lower discs in my spine with hairline fractures and some of the material was leaking out and pressing on my spinal cord.

I tried therapy for over a year and finally agreed to lower back surgery. That healed my back pain and most of my leg pain and numbness, but because I had "ignored" it for so long, I did have some permanent nerve damage so parts of my leg and thigh are going to forever be "numb."

However, if the back pain is from weight, once that stress is removed from the muscles of the lower back, you should begin to feel some relief.

For the record, when I went on vacations during the period when I was in such pain, we always rented a wheel chair so that I could participate in all the activities with everyone.

Thanks for all your input. The back pain is only one of a myriad of reasons for considering WLS. I've already had two back surgeries but still have this residual pain.

I just want my life back. I am riding a recumbent exercise bike in hope of building up leg muscle strength. Walking is very limited, 5-10 min. at a time.