Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to pop on here and share my recent story in the hopes that it will help either someone going through what I went through OR to help guide anyone looking to get a lapband. Let me start by saying that the lap band is an amazing tool. I was banded 4 years ago at a well known clinic in downtown Toronto. The band helped me lose 97 pounds, I met a wonderful man who I married and gained a lot of confidence. Prior to making the decision to be banded I researched everything I could about the band. How it works, how the surgery works, sucess stories etc. What I failed to do was research the after care that is available at the clinic you choose. Clinics love sucess stories, but when things fail with the band, that's the true test if you chose the right place or not. I'll try to make this long story short: 6 weeks ago I began having upper abdominal pain. I knew it was the band as the pain felt similar to when I was healing from being banded. I contacted the clinic and tried to see the surgeon. This is when my nightmare began. I couldn't get a proper response from the clinic. I couldn't get assistance from the surgeon, 5 hospital visits to deal with the pain and find out what was going on with me, multiple pages to the surgeon from the ER docs at the hospitals and still assistance was very minimal. An endoscopy at the last hospital finally discovered my band had eroded into my stomach. The surgeon from the clinic would not remove the band until it was eroded 50% into my stomach (it was at 25%) so they could remove it using a new tool they had purchased. I begged and pleaded as I was in so much pain and constantly on pain killers (it was affecting my life, my work, pretty much everything). No dice. They sent me on my way. My family doc suggested I seek some other opinions as she was concerned about more critical risks to leaving the eroded band in place to erode even further. I went to see a surgeon she recommended and I also found Dr. Cobourn at the Plastic Surgery Clinic in Mississauga. Both surgeons recommended I have the band out immediately. I began working with Dr. Cobourn as he had a lot of experience placing, removing etc lap bands. He was so amazing! He explained everything to me, what would be done, healing time and confirmed that if I indeed wanted another band in 4-6 months I'd be able to get one. He checked me into the Mississauga hospital and within a few days of seeing him my band was out and I'm on the road to recovery. If I had seen Dr. Cobourn first, I would've had this dealt with in a week instead of being in pain for 6 weeks and not knowing what was going on with me. In my dealings with Dr. Cobourn and his clinic (which I was not a paying customer but they helped me anyways) I now know how critical it is to make sure the clinic you choose provides you with full support both for living with the band but also for when things don't always work out with the band. I was basically left in limbo for 6 weeks and had to go to another clinic to get treated. I'm just thankful I found Dr. Cobourn, thankful that he was a doctor that actually cared more about the person than the money and thankful that he helped me. I do not want to discourage anyone from getting a lap band. I'm an odd case and it's not that common to have the band erode. A lap band does work and I'm proof of that. What I do want to do is encourage you to choose the right clinic and make sure you know what aftercare is provided so you don't have to go through what i went through. It's a very scary thing to be in pain and be constantly turned away.