Anybody had this? I’d like to hear about your experiences.
Not personally but a couple close friends have had this or other weight reduction surgeries. This seems to have a faster recovery time and less discomfort than the staple thing but it is still serious surgery and not to be entered into without some real thought and consultation with medical (and psychological) professionals.
I have it. Roughly 30 kg weight loss without special restrictions in my diet (there are a few things I should not eat, like pineapple and other excessively fibrous foodstuffs that might clog the passage temporarily, and that I can tell you is not a pleasant experience).
I am happy with it. The weight loss was ve-e-e-e-ry slow and progressive, to give time to my brain to “get used” to my new body weight and not assume that I was undergoing a period of famine, which would lead to my body trying to “correct” the situation ASAP.
And, of course, all this was done with full medical control and advice from my endocrinologist. It is not a thing to “dive into” blindly. It is still pretty serious surgery, with everything that it implies.
I know [del]a governor[/del] of someone who tried this.
Talk about Epic Fail…!
There have been other threads about bariatric surgery and I know several people have one.
I’ve consider either the band or plication but insurance nor only doesn’t cover the surgery they don’t cover complications. So if you need the band removed later the insurance company may not cover it. That was a major reason I never got one.
The adjustable port seems nice but the types of food restrictions could take some adjustments.
Maastricht has a long-running thread about her experience.
Not to nitpick, but SpoilerVirgin’s link is about gastric bypass, not gastric banding.
As somebody who treats a lot of patients who has had both, WRT gastric banding:
Pros:
-Not as invasive as gastric bypass since no actual stomach is removed and no intestines are bypassed.
-Adjustable, since the band can be filled or emptied to adjust the size of the stomach pouch
-Less worry about malabsorption of nutrients since the intestinal tract is not bypassed at all.
-Potentially easily reversible by emptying the band.
Cons:
-Does not have the impact on appetite that a bypass does since your hunger receptors are untouched; it is mostly a mechanical block to overeating.
-As with all weight loss surgeries, can cause nausea and vomiting if you eat wrong or eat the wrong foods.
-As with all weight loss surgeries you must be committed to dietary change. If you don’t eat enough protein you will have hairloss and muscle wasting and if you drink carbonated drinks you will stretch out your pouch.
-Weight loss is slower than with gastric bypass since again you are not actually bypassing any of the intestinal tract and there is no decreased food absorption.
-You will have a port that (IMHO) often becomes more noticeable as you lose weight; it can definitely be felt and often seen and some people do not like the aesthetics of having a disc permanently implanted under their skin.
It was my understanding that even though the lap band causes slower weight loss over more invasive surgeries, at the 5 year mark the % of excess weight lost was about equal between that and other surgeries.
**psychobunny **what is the port for?
To add or remove saline to make the band tighter or looser.
Thanks!
Not exactly. There aren’t many good long-term studies and those that exist have poor follow-up percentages.
(The above-linked table lacks a key but the acronyms are as follows:
LABS=laparascopic adjustable band surgery
LVSG=laparascopic vertical sleeve gastrectomy
LRYGB=laparascopic roux-en-Y gastric bypass
LBPD-DS=laparascopic biliary-pancreatic diversion with duodenal switch
The first two are restrictive-decreasing the size of the stomach and the opening to the intestines, while the latter two also include a bypass component that bypasses some of the intestines).
As you can see from this meta-analysis (from here) there does seem to be a difference in eventual weight loss as well as other outcomes.
A good review of the long-term-data available here.
I got it in November of 2012. Between the band and a lot of hard work, I was down almost 110 lbs right before Christmas last year, which put me just a hair above a healthy BMI. I have gained back about 20 lbs, but I have the regain under control now and I’m working on getting back to losing again. I can still overeat. It just takes longer for some things. I still have the same sweet tooth. The most helpful thing about it was having something to physically help with the binge eating while I was working on the mental part. I don’t know whether I need it any more, but I can’t say I regret it. I was feeling pretty hopeless a few years ago after a major weight loss and regain, so I might have just stayed too depressed to fix the problem without intervention.
I did it in 2012 and I lost about 60 lbs. Ideally I would like to lose an additional 45lbs but I believe that my diet needs to improve. I had an aggressive fill about 1.5 years ago and I haven’t lost enough weight for the adjustment to loosen up. For some time I had trouble swallowing water and now it happens maybe once in a while. I cannot go back to get unfilled as I have no insurance and cannot afford to pay out of pocket for this procedure, ie theres other stuff I would rather use my money on at the moment.
I know it sounds like a selfish response but my husband hates it. In the beginning he was afraid that I would lose a ton of weight and leave him, but obviously I didn’t. And now he hates it because he feels that when we go out to eat that I really cant enjoy myself therefore he cant either.
Other than food getting stuck, being uncomfortable and in pain and then throwing up when that happens, the issues that I can add to this are:
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I am continuously thirsty. I feel like I can never get enough liquid in me, which sucks because that too can come back up easily
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I can feel my port and its weird
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I haven’t lost anymore weight