kimmr

This is a very intersting topic for me. Through this whole WLS journey, I've come to realize that I experience hunger differently from a 'normal' peson. This has never really occured to me...why? I have no idea. Of course I experience hunger differently from everyone else, othewise I wouldn't be 100 lbs overweight (I'm not that far overweight right now, but that's where I was when I started w/ the band). So, before I was banded, if I didn't eat when my stomach started growling (ok, I could put it off for a few minutes...maybe 10 or 20), I would get weak. Literally, I would feel like I might pass out. If I bent over and stood back up, my vision would be black for a a couple of seconds. Also, my hands would shake. That was normal to me, that's how I've been my entire life. I thought it was how a person experienced hunger. Naturally, I've stuggled with my weight my entire life. So when I got banded, that went away. It was bliss. Prior to banding, I struggled timing my being hungry with meal times that I want to have with my family. If I was hungry, I ate (cause the weakness crap sucks, and it's hard to work through that), but then it would be dinner time an hour later, and I don't want to miss out on that, so I'd eat again. With the band, if I was absolutely starving (a whole different type of starving), and it was an hour before dinner, I could literally eat 1 or 2 bites of something, and that would fend off the weakness crap. THEN, I could eat a bigger meal at dinner time, end up being full, and then I was happy. Now that my band is mostlly empty, the weak/shaky feeling is back. If my stomach starts growling, and I don't do anything about it (my coworkers can hear my stomach growl....is that normal?) quickly, I'll start getting shaky and lightheaded. So, of course I'm gaining. In today's world, if I'm starving an hour before dinner time, 1 or 2 bites WILL NOT tide me over, I need to eat a decent amount. So I do, then eat dinner later. Just like the old times. Mornings are particularly bad for me. I eat a Breakfast at home at maybe 6:40, come to work, stomach starts growling at 8:00-8:30, so I have a second breakfast. By 10:45 I'm starving for lunch, so I eat lunch early, maybe 11:00-11:15. I do better in the afternoons, I don't start growling until maybe 2 or 3. But for some reason, I'm need to eat 3 times in 4 hours in the mornings. Anyway, if the sleeve actually takes away hunger, I don't know what I'd do with myself. I felt hunger with the band, for sure, but I could squash it with a couple of bites. Now, it takes significantly more for me to not be hungry any more. Thoughts?

@Dorrie - hubby supports me in what ever I choose. He loved me at 250 lbs, he loves me at 175, he'll love me again at 250. I just don't want to be at 250. I finally got to be the person that I've always felt like inside (turns out, I do have style, I like to play sports....things I never knew because it wasn't really feasible with my weight). He's willing to go through all the financial crap to pay for another surgery. He (and I probably should, too) views my weight problem as any other medical problem....just because insurance doesn't cover it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. BionicBroad pointed something out to me last week....if I was a cancer patient, would I be second guessing my decision to pursue treatment? Of course not. Cancer would kill me if left untreated, obesity will too. And, I agree, I maybe be looking at some sort of depression. But I have no idea how to tell. I do know that we have loads of other extremely depressing **** going on in our lives right now....hubby's little sister is dying of ALS (at the age of 23), his Grandma that we've been closest with over the years is really starting to go downhill with her Alzheimer's (she had to ask our names at Christmas), his mom is going crazy because she's losing her daughter and her mother at the same time, and she refuses to see a counselor, my Dad's house just burnt (not totally, but he's out of the house for about 6 months), AND then, I get this awful band news. All that, work, and raising two preschoolers. I feel like if I didn't have to think about my weight and gaining everything back, as in, if I had the same peace of mind regarding my weight that I did this past summer, I feel like I could handle everything else. Like, if I felt like I was healthy, and I was going to maintain my OWN health, I could deal with everything else. Also, FYI, I'm not putting off the counseling. I desperately want to go, truly. I just had to wait until after the first of the year to get 3 free sessions. I doubt my problems will be solved in 3 sessions, but that should give me a few weeks to get the ol' HSA deposit for the first of 2012. Rahnava....I'll PM you. Thanks for your insight.

Hi everyone, I'm in the same boat....got banded about 21 months ago, and now it keeps slipping every time I get a fill, so it cannot be properly adjusted. Therefore, I have a useless band. I'm looking at revising to a sleeve. Seems to me that the band might be going extinct in a few years. If only I had known....

Thanks everyone, good to know. I'll see if I can track down any more people who fit this criteria. Did you do well with the band before it failed, and then has VSG at a relatively low BMI to either lose the last few or just maintain?

Bionic, can you explain your insurance coverage? The would cover a revision but not a virgin sleeve?

So thank you, Pat, for your honest words. I don't know why I beat myself up about this. I know you're right. I've got something in my genes that makes us fat. My mom died of a cancer that was very hard to detect because she was significantly overweight. She's been gone 19 years now, she died when I was 12. Her mom has had breast cancer, but survived. My dad's mom has diabetes. All of my (literally, all of them) aunts and uncles on my dads side are obese. They get new knees like normal people get new cars. My dad is the smallest at maybe 5'5", 225 lbs. I did the band because I didn't want to leave my own girls without a mom. I did something 'once and for all.' Now I come to find out that I made a mistake, or what seems like a mistake, and I just don't want to be doing this again in 5 years. What's funny is that my husband has been saying the exact same thing...."It's not your fault, there's nothing you can do about your genes, we can figure out how to pay for it, we want you to be healthy..." but for some reason, it's totally different coming from a person that has been in my shoes. He understands my pain, but he's never lived it, so it's just not quite the same. I also know I'm being unreasonable about this because we've had all sorts of tragedies in our lives over the last year. This just adds to it, and makes me feel like I'll never again get to a happy point in my life. I hate living like this, truly. This is why I'm going back to counseling.

This makes me cry, I read it in the bathroom on my cell phone! I'll respond from home where I can cry openly.

I'm a bandster with a slip and I'm considering the sleeve. Are there any old sleevers out there? I know the procedure itself isn't much more than 5 or 6 year old, but where are those people? How did you make the decision to go to a sleeve, not knowing what it's like in 15 or 30 years? I'll point out the obvious....I basically went with the band not knowing what it's like in 15 or 30 years (cause those people don't exist, either), but I did it under the guise of being 'reversible.' Of course, now I've come to find out that the band can do all sorts of damage and has a massive failure rate. How do you know that the sleeve isn't going to stretch and you won't gain everything back in 10 years?

Ms Broad....I applaud you. I wish I could be so confident. I know I'm scared because my band failed, and I don't want to do another failure. I think it would also make a difference if I was back up at my higher weight - I was banded at 241, now I'm at 173 or so, but that's up 20 lbs from my lowest with the band. I would be more willing to make what I feel is a very drastic decision. But at the same time, why should I wait until I've gained (cause I know it's going to happen...)? Isn't that what everyone says - that they wished they had done it sooner? Why can't I be normal and not need WLS in the first place? I'm setting up some counseling next week. I'm having a really hard time dealing with these feelings of, "I hate being me." Such feelings are totally new to me....I have a beautiful family who supports me 100%, even considering this revision. I don't know, this band failure thing has really changed me into a person I don't recognize. Can you feel my pain?

Keke...did the band work for you? Did you gain everything back (assuming you had lost)?

You're totally right, UX, I know you are. It's just that I never get to 'talk' to someone with a VSG that's 10 years old. I don't know how to find those people. And clearly, they won't be poking around on a WLS website, because they wouldn't have had that surgery for weight loss. I don't know, I'm just so gun shy. I research and thought about it and finally committed to lap band to be done with my weight problem once and for all, and now here I am dealing with it again. I'm self pay, too, so that doesn't help matters. I don't want to screw over my kids' college funds. But man, I'm terrified of gaining everything back. I lost 90 with the band, but have gained back 20, and I'm definitely not slowing down. I know the rest is on it's way back. My poor psyche is so freakin' fragile. As I explained to my husband, I've never loved myself more than I did when I was moving along smoothly with the band. And now.....it's all back to the same old feelings of crappiness.

Huh..."refuse to live in fear." How does one get to that point? I'm a long ways from that!

Thanks for all your replies, ladies (I think, guess I don't know). I figured I wouldn't see much until after Christmas, as I wasn't looking here much myself. I'm absolutely terrified of gaining it all back. Truly scared to death of it all. But, I feel like as I'm considering the sleeve now, I need to make end-of-life decissions. I feel like I'm making a permanent decision, so I need to think...gee, in 30 years when my stomach is shot to hell cause so much stuff has been cut off and rearranged and whatnot, am I going to be happy that I made this decision now at age 31? Does that make sense? And the, along the lines of Cowgirl, I'm sort of pissed to find out that the band does cause permanent changes. I thought I picked an option that WAS totally benign, and then I come to find out that it's not. I just feel like I made a mistake with the band, and now I'm uber senstitive to making another mistake by going with the sleeve.

Thanks Ateam, I'm glad to hear from someone. Currently, my BMI is about a 29, but I'm steadily climbing, so I'm positive I'll be above 30 shortly. What was your band story? Were you a higher BMI at banding? Did you lose with the band?