I had a lap band placed 3 years ago. At the time of surgery I weighed 407 pounds I am currently 295 pounds. Yes the band did work it wasn’t magic. I did have a lot of complications. After the first year all my complications started to happen. I threw up every day for the past 3 years. I was constantly sick and some days couldn’t even hold down water. I am currently 5 days post op from my revision. I had the band removed and had the bypass. During the operation my surgeon said my stomach had begun to grown around the band and was very difficult to remove. Yes the band does work to a certain point but in my opinion if you are going to go threw all the pain of having wls go for something more effective!