do i need revision?

[pickles123 0]

Don't kid youself, it is a diet. The band just helps.

[BJean 16]

123crod, if we had plenty of discipline, why would we need a lap band?

I, like many others, thought it would help curb my appetite. For me, it's only made it worse.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I was banded in September 2008. I have only lost 15 pounds from the band. I lost the other 60 pounds from my own diet, the 6 month pre-op diet, the liquid only diets before and after surgery. So I'm down 75 lbs.

I had to switch doctors last April because my first one was inexperienced and lacking in knowledge about good follow up care.

I have a 4cc band. I just got out of the hospital yesterday (Sunday) after being admitted from the ER Saturday night due to having food stuck that would not resolve itself. The pain was unbearable. The resident surgeon took out all my fill. (It was a little over 1cc - maybe 1.5 - I thought I had 2cc). But I still wasn't able to keep Water down. So they admitted me.

The pain resolved overnight and an UGI the next day showed that it was going through, not blockage.

But my bigger point is that the band has not worked for me like I have seen in the posts of successful bandsters.

I struggle everyday with hunger. But I just eat my 1300 calories and still don't lose weight.

I exercise everyday. About 4.8 hours a week. I mixed it up. Added weights and low impact aerobics to my treadmill. Still nothing.

I eat a healthy, low fat, sugar free diet. I don't drink with my meals. I don't have any unhealthy foods in the house. I get enough Protein.

I eat with a shrimp fork and baby spoon.

But the scale doesn't move.

So, now after this last episode I am feeling more frustrated. I am naturally going to be uneasy about getting more fills after this episode. I know I will have to in the future. And I know it was my fault that I got stuck. I ate too fast and probably didn't chew well enough.

But all that being said. I would think that even without the band, my calorie intake and exercise should promote weight loss, but it isn't.

I don't hold out hope for the band ever working for me like it has for others. And I am not one of those who is willing to put up with a tight band that results in pain, reflux and heartburn just to get to some number on the scale.< /p>

[minimeme 1]

CleosMom, something just isnt right. Have you talked to your primary doctor to see about maybe seeing an Endocrinologist? And I dont blame you about not wanting a device that is causing your pain.

I was very afraid that the band would not work for me. I have never been able to loose even 15 lbs. I went on the liquid diet back in the eighties (or was it ninties?) and lost, but not enough to keep me on the program. I got kicked off because they thought I was cheating and not being truthful. Now that was a kick in the gut. So, it really was worrisome for me. The thought that I might go thru something so sever and still not loose. Right now, it seems to be working, but I am still very early on. I may wind up in your shoes.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

CleosMom, something just isnt right. Have you talked to your primary doctor to see about maybe seeing an Endocrinologist? And I dont blame you about not wanting a device that is causing your pain.

I was very afraid that the band would not work for me. I have never been able to loose even 15 lbs. I went on the liquid diet back in the eighties (or was it ninties?) and lost, but not enough to keep me on the program. I got kicked off because they thought I was cheating and not being truthful. Now that was a kick in the gut. So, it really was worrisome for me. The thought that I might go thru something so sever and still not loose. Right now, it seems to be working, but I am still very early on. I may wind up in your shoes.

I have hypothyroidism and have spent the last 6 years getting the dose of synthroid right. After my breast cancer and meds my former dose that had been working wasn't working. So we tried raising, then lowering the dose and now have found the combo that seems to be working. I had my thyroid blood work done every 3 months for the past 2 years to get to this point.

So, I don't think it's my thyroid. I am going to be 59 next month, so age and declining metabolism I think plays a part. But a bigger part is that the stomach below my band is still producing hunger hormones. Hunger was my reason for obesity. It always took a lot of food for me to feel satisfied. I am not one who has to have certain foods - like fast foods or pop, etc... When I was hungry any food would do - Cereal, toast, a bagel, etc.. My goal was to be satisfied. And this was true when I was thin and could eat all I wanted and not gain. But that changed, obviously.

And that "wait 20 minutes" after you eat rule to feel satisfied never worked for me. It takes a lot longer most of the time for me to get to that point.

All that being said, if my insurance paid for it, I think the sleeve would have been the better choice for the reasons I overate. Not food choices, but amount - due to hunger. But I didn't even know about the sleeve then but reading all these posts, it seems like you should choose the WLS that most closely matches your bad eating habits. And for me, that was just eating too much of regular food due to hunger. And the sleeve seems to address that better than the band. My band certainly has never controlled my hunger. I am operating on pure willpower.

[BJean 16]

Cleo's - I remember reading posts like yours when I was early into having my band. I was convinced that they just weren't doing it right.

I was banded in September 2006. Now I understand how your experience can happen for anybody. There are some people whose bodies and temperament are well-suited to the band and they become extremely successful. Then there are the others. They come in many shapes, sizes and ages.

It's frustrating to see a post like yours and many times in the past reading people go off on you claiming that you're cheating, not exercising or other things that they've decided you've done wrong. (I'm not talking about the sweet post that minimeme just posted.)

We're not all made the same way and it isn't surprising that we don't all have the same experiences and successes or failures. My story sounds so much like yours though, it's amazing. My family has watched me work very hard at doing everything right. They've watched me eat slowly, only eat certain things and still suddenly leave the table in extreme pain. Sometimes what has never been a problem before, now suddenly at one meal can cause so much pain that it is nearly unbearable. I've had more than one evening at a nice restaurant with friends or business associates, that wind up with me spending most of the evening in dire pain in the bathroom, praying that I can just vomit and get it over with.

It isn't as if I don't know what to do. I've been through this for years. Getting something stuck is just so random and my guess is that often it is caused from stress and/or adrenalin from the situation. That's the only variable that makes much sense.

Having a prosthesis that is causing me pain and isn't helping with my appetite or weight loss, seems to me to be a worse case situation. And that is why I am seriously considering getting it out and possibly resvising to a sleeve. I just don't think that the lap band is healthy for me.

For others, it is the perfect answer. And they are to be comended for being able to make the thing work for them as it is designed. But all bandsters should be supportive of each other whether we've been successful or we haven't. Because there are no guarantees that one day, they won't face the same problems that you and I have today.

[4pyes 0]

Wow--I can totally relate to what you guys are saying! So glad I'm not alone!

In some ways, I feel I got the wrong advice from my nutritionist. While I've been struggling, she said that I needed to eat until I felt full and eat when I was hungry. She said that when the lap band was at the correct fill level, I would not feel physical hunger. I guess this is true for some people--apparently not me:smile2:

Cleo's mom--that interesting what you said about the stomach producing hunger hormones. Maybe some of us just produce too much.

I have endocrine issues also. I did not have a weight problem until after my daughter was born (she's almost 2). Before her, I was 198 lbs my entire adult life. While pregnant with her, I had hyperemesis (extreme vomiting) which means I couldn't keep food down during the pregnancy and basically starved the whole 9 months. A week after I delivered her, I had emergency gall bladder removal and I gained 40 lbs in 4 weeks!! then continued to gain another 30 until I got up to 269. My doctor then found that I had a tumor on my parathyroid which I had removed this past summer. Needless to say, my body has been through alot the past 2 years.

With all that being said, I wonder if my body is just still freaked out. I've decided that as long as I'm doing the best I can, that's all I can do. I really want to get to at least 210--that would be great for me. Maybe it will take me 5 years to get there but that's ok. I think my doctor was right and that the sleeve would have been better, but since insurance didn't cover it, I'm just going to deal with the cards I'm dealt. Frustrating, but its better than the alternative:confused:

[BJean 16]

4pyes, I'm impressed with your attitude, especially after all you've been through.

I get so tired of hearing people be judgemental about overweight people. No one has a clue why someone eats so much that they become obese. No one does it because they want to be fat and unattractive. And many of us have more discipline and patience than they can imagine. Every obese person I have ever met got there through doing nearly every diet in the book. Those diets took a ton of discipline. So what happened?

I was listening to a public radio station yesterday and a woman (doctor) was being interviewed. She has done significant research and wrote a book that has just been released. I wish I could remember the name of it. I was driving and couldn't write it down.

In it, she says that people should never diet to lose or gain weight. Diets don't work. That's not news, really. Most of us know that for a fact. But the part that I appreciated hearing was that she has learned that for a person who is overweight or underweight, it is one of the worst things in the world to eat to either lose or gain weight because often the result is that it wrecks the natural matabolism.

She went on to say that we should all only eat to stay healthy. If we focused on our health instead of our appearance, our appearance would be what nature intended. And that we absolutely must learn to accept that we are not all designed, genetically, to be the weight that the insurance companies have decided is healthy for everyone. And she said, there is no magical weight for height that should be accepted by society. Some of us are meant to be big teddy bears and some of us are meant to be giraffes.

The worst thing we can do to our bodies is to fight our genetic makeup. That is what has put most of us in peril with being obese and developing late onset diabetes, hypertension and a host of other medical complications from obesity. And there are just as many problems that arise from dieting to lose weight. Anexoria and bulemia can ultimately kill you. And underweight people have a shorter life expectancy than overweight people.

Listening to her made me wish everyone in America could take lessons from her on not judging others and accepting people and loving them no matter what size they are. Listening to her helped me put everything into perspective.

It's too late for me. My metabolism was wrecked from extreme diets from the time I was 42 until I got the band. Long liquid fasts, church encouraged week-long fasts, the Stillman Water diet, the Beverly Hills Diet, the Blood Type Diet, the Body Type Diet, the Adkins Diet, the West Point Diet, the egg diet, the cottage cheese diet, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous, diet pills from the weakest over the counter ones to the strongest amphetamines, the 1000 calorie doctor prescribed diet, a month-long horrible experience at a fat camp when I was 48, and probably more that I can't even remember. You might think I'm making all that up. Well I am not. I've done each and every one of them and some for extended periods of time like the Adkins Diet. Some for only a week or two, like the cottage cheese diet. All of them resulted in weight loss. Losing the weight was not the problem. The weight I regained when I started eating a normal diet was the problem and what got me where I am today.

I'll bet many of you have the same story - although I'm older so probably just did more years of it. Americans have it wrong and we're led by a group of doctors, insurance companies and an entire multi-billion dollar industry selling us on all those weight loss gimicks. We need to learn something from all these colossal failures. We need to understand that we're not all model material and accept it.

Models are unique, not the norm. That's why they get the big bucks. Doctors are beginning to understand how wrong they've been to put us on 1000 calorie diets instead of encouraging healthy foods and exercise. As for insurance companies telling us what we should weigh, well it's one more instance of how the insurance companies rule our lives and we're stupid for letting them do it to us!

We need to form a movement for health. We need to get the word out that dieting leads to bad health! We need to focus on extending our lives through healthy behavior. And healthy eating would probably help with getting us off all the antidepressants and certainly off all the meds we take because of a lifetime of unhealthy dieting.

Ok, I've gotten carried away, I admit it. But if this lady doctor's book becomes a runaway best seller, just remember you heard it here first. LOL

[Cleo's Mom 257]

BJean - you're absolutely right. It should all be about health and not about weight. That is why I will never use a ticker. I am not a number on the scale. I have been eating healthy for 4 years since I started on my own diet of healthy foods, no junk, low fat, smaller portions, etc.

By the time I got the band put in I had lost 50 pounds then another 10 with the post op liquids and only 15 more from the actual band. The band has NEVER controlled my hunger the way it was promoted.

My doctor is satisfied with my weight loss but I put pressure on myself to lose to get to that goal weight even though I doubt I'll ever reach it since I haven't lost any weight since last spring. But then I see that I am eating healthy and exercising every day and doing things that I never did when I was younger and much heavier.

So, I think we all need to cut ourselves a break and realize that, like you said, some of us are not meant to be thin or even a "normal" weight. I come from a long line of obese people on both sides of the family. I am the 4th person to have WLS.

I was a thin person. I weighed 122 when I got married in 1973. And I ate A LOT. I ate when hungry and I ate until full. So, if I was thin and eating a lot, why didn't I stay that way if I was meant to be thin? It's like a switch was flipped and bam! The genetics kicked in with a vengeance.

I'm not blaming everything on genetics but obesity is a very complicated condition and each person gets there for very individual reasons.

I agree that we need to quit chasing elusive goals and just try to be healthy by eating healthy and exercising.

[BJean 16]

It's too bad that we have to learn so much of this through our own experiences. It would be nice if the medical profession would give nutrition, exercise and wellness as much study and attention as they do to medication and surgical procedures to remedy every symptom they see.

C'sM: I'm impressed that you are getting yourself healthy, taking charge of your life and not depending on the lap band or medications or ridiculous diet extremes to take care of yourself. Good for you!!

Btw, I did meet with my doc today and to get revision surgery to the sleeve, it will be $22,000 cash out of pocket. Doesn't seem like such a reasonable solution now. He does think that my band has either slipped or I have another hiatal hernia and wants me to get an upper G.I. Lots more thought and research for me.

[123crod 170]

123crod, if we had plenty of discipline, why would we need a LAP-BAND®?

I, like many others, thought it would help curb my appetite. For me, it's only made it worse.

I really have to use discipline with my lap band otherwise I would still eat whatever I can. I look at it this way I have to work really hard to lose it and then I am hoping the band will make it easier to maintain it. But yes I have to use discipline. I have not had a diet coke in 5 months to me that is discipline I miss my diet coke.

I am so sorry for all of you who have had so much trouble. You all scare me to death that it could be me at anytime along the path. Right now I am stalled for 2 weeks even though I am doing everything and I think what if that is it 41 lbs is all I am going to lose and it is scary.

I wish they had a better way to know how certian people will respond to the different type of surgeries because we are paying alot of money for this.

Cheri

[BJean 16]

Please don't let some of us who have problems create any for you. It sounds like you're doing well and I'm sure you'll continue to do well.

Plateaus are not unusual even for bandsters. When I was successful, I hit a couple of plateaus and thought that might be it for me. Then in a couple of weeks I'd drop another pound or two.

When we're in the prep stage and in the liquids and soft and mushy stages after getting the band, we lose so fast that we're hoping that pace will continue. But it doesn't and that's normal.

Hang in there and don't worry too much. Some of the bandsters here think their band is their best friend and they would be devastated if they had to get it removed. I'm hoping you're in that group!

[BJean 16]

Btw, the nurse and I talked for a long time and she said that when you have the sleeve you have to eat 5 times a day. The dietitian in their office gave me such a hard time for trying to eat 5 times a day. She said that with the band you absolutely MUST stick to the 3 meal plan.

When I related that to the nurse, she said that she is aware that the dietitian believes that the 3 meal a day plan is for everyone, but they have learned that some people do much better if they eat more often. Those are the people whose band does not curb appetite.

Nothing seems to be written in stone with these things and we are all different. When we come in contact with someone who is too rigid in their thinking, we have to continue to listen to our bodies first and foremost.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Despite WLS being around for awhile, we can see from the posts on these boards that the surgeons and nutritionists vary greatly in what they advocate for both pre-and post operative plans.

Some doctors don't require a two week pre & post operative liquid diet. Some require one day before and a couple of days after. So which plan is right?

Some say no caffeine, others in moderation. Some say no carbonation, others once in awhile.

Some tell you to eat a varied healthy diet, others say low carb.

My point is I don't think they know what the path to success with the band is and we should trust ourselves and our bodies. If something isn't working then it's time to change and if your doctor is resistant then that says more about him/her.

I am going to be very reluctant to get any fill after my being hospitalized after being stuck. I am fine with where I am at this point and just want to get over my fear of eating after that last episode. If I start gaining a lot of weight I will re-evaluate my situation. But for now, I am glad I am fill-free.

[Nanook 2]

I'm one of the original "failed bandsters" who thought the band would work for me and got it a couple years ago when there still wasn't enough information out on it. I actually "thought" it would restrict me from eating sweets and junk and that was the type of food that went right through. Being a type II diabetic, perimenopausal, hypothryroid etc...just added to the problem, also on antidepressants. Anyway my GERD pain was so bad it put me in the ER one night and after that with the weight "gain" instead of loss and the GERD hospital stay I was able to have my insurance cover it's removal and becuase I felt like such a failure I didnt' revise. I learned more information about lap bands on this site after I was banded but by then it was too late.

Anywho long story short I gained a bunch of weight after my band was removed which made me feel even better:thumbdown: so I decided since my daughter had RNY and was successful that I'd give myself one more shot as long as my insurance would cover my revision which I'm lucky enough to say it did.. I'm not saying it was a breeze, longer recovery, more pain and you're restricted from the very beginning no guesswork there or "bandster hell" but it worked for me. I'm never going to be a "Tiger Woods' mistress" but I've lost a chunk so far and I'm off my diabetic meds and keep up with my vit/supplements and appear to be healthy and happy. Anyway the band is a great tool if it works for you and stays in good working order if not well there are always other options. Good luck and health to all of us! Nancy.