Gaelic Gal

I'm with you in the minority, Krista. I regret spending my entire savings ($14,000) to have the band put in, plus an additional $1000 on fills so far. It's been over two years and I'm only down 22 from my starting weight. I gained 20 back after the intial loss. I never feel full. I'm always hungry. I can eat anything. I learned to take my time eating and chewing, but all that did was drag out a meal to 30 minutes and still never felt full, so I just kept eating. My family doctor tried talking me out of the surgery, telling me there are other ways to lose. I work with people who have lost more weight than I have and they used the Medifast diet. For $14,000 I could have bought a lot of Medifast and lost more weight! The band has not been at all what I had hoped for. I knew it was going to take a lot of hard work on my part, and for months I gave it 100% effort. But what do you do when you still feel hungry, never get full, the fills cost $200 each and they don't seem to make any difference? I'm in need of some helpful answers and I'm ready to give this one more try if I wasn't hungry all the time. Gaelic Gal

Cheryl, I am new to this board and I had the lapband surgery also in Oct. 2008. I initially lost 42 lbs, but I was always hungry, never felt full, and never had any issues with things getting stuck until after my 6th fill. I began eating more and more and felt I failed at this. More than that, I felt the band itself had failed, since others I know lost so much and always felt full. I've gained back 20 of what I originally lost, haven't been for a fill since last May because I feel I'm throwing away $200 with each fill, and I'm depressed because I spent all that I had in savings in order to have the surgery. I don't know where to turn for answers, or encouragement, and the last place I want to go is back to the doctor's office. Sandy, I had my lapband put in when I was 58. I wish I had some encouraging words and a success story of my own. I have a hard time accepting any type of failure, so I'm still struggling to try and figure this all out. Of the six people I know who had the lapband put in, two of them lost an incredible amount of weight. The rest of us lost about 45 lbs average and have been stuck (or gained it back) ever since. Gaelic Gal