newbander

Greetings folks. I'm just under two months from getting my SAGB over in Europe. Has anybody had the omentectomy done along with the band?

You'll be fine. I had a tonsillectomy 6 months after my band. Recovery for the tonsills was worse than the band! ouch! sorry :]

I understand pasta is troublesome. What about spaghetti sqaush or is it too fibrous? Love the stuff....

Binges happen. You're still 70lbs down. You need red meat.

Anybody have an open surgery done? Just wondering how much pain you were in post-op and recovery time etc....I'm just wondering how many days post op before I can go for a walk for an hour or so...thanks.:help:

Niki which band did you get? I think there are some overreactions to the "open incision" issue. Lets just say I'm having some other work done concurrent. Whether or not its done laproscopically doesnt really matter since I am still getting a "band". Folks should also realize that laproscopic surgery is not the be all/end all of surgical procedures and can lead to post op complications to including a higher rate of band slippage (I'll try and find the article I got that from). Rather than having a soft percise hand controlling things down there during installation steel probes are being used and you can bang into other organs during the procedure. This is commonly the cause of post op complications like infection, bleeding etc... Lap surgery also takes twice as long as open for banding. Also regarding the c-section comment, its not really and applicable comparison since I am only having the fascia between the abdominal muscles cut as well as the fat above and below it and the skin, no big arteries and not real bloody. Compare this to a damaging a large blood vessel rich organ like the uterus.

The infection risk is higher mainly for more morbidly obese patients (My BMI is 35 as is my age) especially those having bypass. Although there's a higher risk of infection post op there is also a lower risk of later complications in terms of slippage, correct band placement and erosion which I am more worried about. I'm having the Swedish Band installed in Europe.

Its the only way my doc operates. He says its a six inch incision from navel to sternum.

Its a gallstone or gallsludge. You need to restrict your fats since they are what triggers the gallbladder releasing the bile. You can try a medicine called ursodeoxycholic acid for a few weeks. This might help dissolve the stone/sludge. Unfortunately for us, a rapid weight loss can cause a stone in about 20% of rapid weight loss patients. Its higher than that sometimes. Keep an eye on it and if it gets worse get it taken care of.

So, if I had my hyst to remove the faulty tubes and ovaries, is it possible that I still have the metabolic issues that go along with this disorder? Yes. However depending on the amount of weight lost it may have reduced the insulin resistance significantly. If this is the case, could this have been an issue with why I gained 76 lbs in less than one year back when I was 19 years old? Absolutely. Insulin resistance and obesity are inter- related with each other. Example, women pack on weight during pregnancy rather quickly. This is because the entire insulin axis tilts. From an evolutionary standpoint, gaining weight as fast as possible during pregnancy is good thing. It helps ensure the survival of the mother and child and ensures the mother can feed the child for months even if food was scarce. So the body cranks up the fasting insulin level which causes fast weight gain. Then you have issue like gestational diabetes pop-up. All related to each other. Conversely you have obese women who cant get pregnant who have PCOS. They lose 30 lbs and bango! (no pun intended :]) are pregnant in two or three months after weight loss. Similarly women with PCOS put on metformin can get pregnant even though they are still obese because it improves the insulin sensitivity which was causing the skipped periods and messed up ovarian function. Could it have been a factor in all my weight issues ever since and why I've been a slow loser even with the band? Absolutely. This is why its so important to curb your carbohydrate intake even after you get banded. You still have high fasting insulin levels for a while until some significant weight loss has occurred. Insulin release upon carb intake slows or stops your weight loss. 5% of Gastric bypass patients gain all their weight back! Why? They become sweet feeders. Same issue us banders have to watch out for. would having the hysterectomy/ovary removal have basically cured the metabolic issues associated?? The full hyst would not have cured the metabolic syndrome.

I keep seeing clear broths listed. I'm planning on adding some fats and aminos to my post op soups to keep the metabolism high stave off pre-fill hunger pangs and prevent muscle mass loss. Anybody's doc forbid fats in the soup?

Just remember guys that even though we are losing weight our appetites can still be messed up due to insulin resistance so we will crave snacks and sweets. Add some fats to your dinner, that should put the kibash on the late night hunger and will really rev up the liver metabolism overnight.

Just an FYI for you ladies with cysts or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. This is a disease related to insulin resistance. As you lose weight there is a strong probability that it will improve and go away. Rather than having surgery to correct it, you may want to ask your doctor to put you on Metformin (Glucophage) which is a diabetes drug that cuts insulin resistance. Metformin combined with the ongoing weightloss post banding should help quickly resolve the problem.

I'll definately be keeping the forum updated. The omentum is often removed in cancer patients since its a route for cancers to spread in the abdomen. I've searched medline (pubmed) and other locations and haven't been able to find any problems with the proceedure. The surgeon I talked to here in town said it was a fairly easy procedure and not particularly "bloody". Basically I see it as a kind of metabolic correction in addition to the band. Insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia are big, if not "the", players in obesity. I suspect that people who have either the band or bypass and gain the weight back fail because their level of insulin resistance hasn't self corrected after the surgery and thats why they crave the sweet stuff and gain it all back. The fact that Vanderbilt University is calling their study a treatment for Type II is pretty potent evidence that something is going on with this specific type of fat. I bet their patients lose weight too. We'll see.

They've done it overseas. The group who had the band and omentectomy had dramatically improved insulin sensitivity vs just band. At the 2 year point the omentectomy group had a BMI that averaged 4 points lower. No side effects or trouble with the folks they were able to get a hold of even 4 years post op. The thing is, you always see articles about belly fat causing all the metabolic problems associated with heart disease and diabetes and half a dozen other diseases. Its the omentum that's doing this even though its only about 2 lbs in weight. It acts like an endocrine organ and pumps out alot of the substances that make us regain weight. Go to Pub Med and type this number in the search for an abstract of the study: 11850750 I have the actual study. The results are impressive. See, I think that if you do an omentectomy on younger lower BMI patients who havent been able to keep the weight off (and lets face it we've all been able to lose weight) it will flip the metabolic switch back to normal and then diet and exercise will work and you wont plateau at 20 or 40 lbs weight lost then slowly watch it creep back up. You wont have cravings for sweets, the hunger feed back loop will be re-established because of the improvement in insulin sensitivity etc.... I'm having it removed and the band put in. If I'm right, I ought to lose and keep losing beyond the normal plateaus. If I'm wrong after a couple months, my fill port is just a few inches below the skin. Vanderbilt is doing a study. Go to Clinicaltrials.gov and type omentectomy. Dr. George Fielding over at NYU has also done it on some of his band patients. He's a bander too.

The omentum is the metabolically active portion of visceral (belly) fat in the abdomen. It drains to the liver and helps keep us fat. The medical establishment is just catching on to this fact and has two studies pending to remove the omentum as a treatment for Type II diabetes.