onikenbai

I'm still on CIBO's mailing list (despite asking them again and again to take me the hell off of it) and this is what I got today. I personally am not affected as my band came out two years ago but I thought I'd pass along the information. I'm not really surprised they've gone under as I wasn't all that thrilled with their service. Their surgeon and Jen Walsh were great, but the owner and the rest of the support staff didn't seem to have the training and professionalism at a standard they needed to run that kind of clinic. Also, when I started having trouble with my band was precisely when they started dodging my phone calls. The band not working out for me was more a physiology issue than anything, but CIBO really didn't help. Dear CIBO Patients, Over the past few days we have tried to contact CIBO Patients. We are very saddened to announce that CIBO Clinic has been forced into receivership. Due to financial difficulties, we are no longer able to operate. Due to the unfortunate closure of the clinic a number of former staff members have voluntarily banded together to help provide care for the patients they serviced while employed by the clinic. Staff members are acting on their own accord, apart from previous management, to provide these additional services because they care. Patients should know that despite CIBO’s closure you are not “Orphaned” as some of the other clinics have led some of you to believe. Your surgeons are still available and responsible for your medical care. As you will read below, there is support being planned for you. We appreciate your support and patience while we “set things up” but wanted to provide an outline for your information. Medical Care Dr. Dennis Hong and Dr. Nalin Amin are still in charge of your medical care in the event that you experience complications or are in need of band related medical care. The emergency line is still active to support you at 647-297-8044. Dr. Hong and Dr. Amin operate out of St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton, ON. Patient Information - Google Docs We will be setting up a calendar and other materials and resources for your care on Google Docs. You will need a Google Gmail Account and we ask that you set one up and email it to us at ¬¬¬cibopatients@gmail.com. You will then be added to the group. Fills In-Town Patients Under the direction of Dr. Hong and Dr. Amin, fills will be provided in the short to medium term free of charge. The cost of these fills will initially be covered personally by your doctors. The location(s) will be determined shortly. We will be posting on the central calendar the location(s) and dates as they are determined. We will also be available onsite to provide guidance for patients requiring advice on fill volume and other band related issues. Out-of-Town Patients There will be minimal changes to the protocol for obtaining a fill. We are available to provide guidance for patients requiring advice on fill volume. Please email for direction. Patients will be assuming the cost for these fills. Post-Operative Care Patient support will be available and group support meetings are being organized in conjunction with fills. Nisrine will continue to provide patient care support. You can reach her at cibopatients@gmail.com Dr. Jennifer Walsh remains available by email if you need support. You can reach her at drjenniferwalsh@gmail.com Emergency Line – 647-297-8044 At the moment our biggest obstacle is finding appropriate locations. If you have access to a location free of charge please let us know.

Best option right now is to marry a Canadian. I agree they should have never done the surgery on you... not because of your financial situation, but because autoimmune diseases are clearly contra-indicated with the band. I find it rather unethical to strand somebody who is clearly in medical distress, and maybe your local government official or news establishment may be in agreement. There's nothing like negative publicity for your clinic to make them take notice of you.

Yup. Got to the point where I ate only Soup, salad and oatmeal because that's all that would go down. I was banded in October 2009 and I got mine out at the end of August when I revised to RNY. I don't miss it one bit. I didn't have any specific problem with it such as slippage or port flipping; my body just hated my band all around. If you can't eat properly and you're pregnant, that can be a serious health issue. If you are done with your band and are getting it out anyway, it may be in your best interests to get the doctor to stick your tubing to get the Fluid out. Not an easy task, but your baby's health is important.

My band was making me sick as a dog for reasons unknown. I spent two solid years eating nothing but soup, salad and oatmeal, throwing up multiple times a day, and NOT losing any weight. Contrary to what I was told pre-op, the band does not curb your hunger. If anything, I found it made it worse by the fact that only slider foods would go down and they don't sit in your stomach to give you the full feeling. Four or five envelopes of watery oatmeal add up over the course of a day to give you calories and silence the stomach grumbles temporarily, but don't provide you proper nutrition. Finally I was becoming so malnourished that it had to come out and something done in its place. I would have preferred the sleeve to the RNY, but OHIP currently doesn't fund the sleeve, and I cannot afford another self-pay.

Well my band is gone. As soon as I got it completely unfilled, the swelling in my ankles that I had been fighting for two years went away almost overnight. I also lost a few pounds right away too; partly from water retention, and partly because I could eat actual protein that didn't slide right through.

Some people never find the sweet spot where they can eat properly but sensibly. I had the problem of either being able to eat anything or nothing... there was no in between. I couldn't eat chicken or tuna, or any dense Protein even if I did turn it into a slider food, and I was spitting up 7 or 8 times a day. It got to the point where I ate soup, salad and oatmeal for almost 2 solid years and found myself (ironically) malnourished. I finally had enough and had my band completely unfilled, and I promptly lost 8lbs in 2 weeks just because I could eat normal foods again and feel full like a normal human being. I must have gone through 20-30 fills and unfills to find the point where I could eat normal but small meals. I never found it.

Well, assuming you were born in 1970 (from your handle) you are at the prime age for autoimmune diseases to present themselves. A whole host of them such as lupus, scleroderma and fibromyalgia are well known for showing up in the late 20s and early 30s, and they tend to do so quite rapidly too. It sucks but welcome to the club. While I won't declare it's impossible the two are connected, I'd tend to side with the doctors. In the months after I got my band, my pre-existing autoimmune disease went into a tailspin. It's possible that you already had the disease, but the stress of the band just brought the symptoms more to your attention.

I disagree. There are a lot of surgeons who are losing faith in lapbands. They can be great but the rate of complications by the 5 year mark is high and some surgeons don't like the numbers.

Yes I'm doing a two in one surgery and it should all be done lap, but you never really know until you wake up. Two and a bit more weeks to go and my band problems will be a thing of the past.

Good luck on your surgery. I'm getting my band out the end of August. My RNY surgeon told me that initially he was all excited about band technology because it seemed like a fairly non-invasive WLS. Now, he's not such a big fan due to the 50% failure rate. He spends his days taking out bands now. Some complications are the result of non-compliance, some of undiagnosed illnesses, but some are just for no one knows why.

Me three! My band was a nightmare from the beginning. For two solid years I ate nothing but soup, salad and oatmeal because all I did was puke, and they never did figure out why. When I finally got my band emptied of all fill, I promptly lost 8lbs merely because I could eat things like chicken again and didn't end up drinking my calories. My band is coming out end of August and I will not shed a single tear over its loss. I will cry over the fact I was a self pay and will continue to pay even though it's gone from my body.

I would postpone. Any general surgery is going to take it out of you for more than a week. My band is also coming out for the same reason. My RNY surgeon says that 50% of bands have to come out due to various complications. I keep getting flamed as being anti-band every tine I put this in a post.

Mine are barely visible. Scarring is dependent largely on the individual. Look at your past scars for an indication of how the future ones will be. It also depends on post-op care and the skill of your surgeon, but mostly it's you.

Vega makes a vegan shake that also has no soy.

My grandmother had scleroderma, my cousin has lupus, and I have fibromyalgia so I know my immune diseases. You're 28, which is in the late 20s to early 30s window when a lot of these diseases choose to present themselves. I doubt banding had anything to do with it and it's just one of those sucky dumb luck things. I feel your pain. I've been sick since I was 11 and don't actually remember what it feels like not to be in pain. Getting through university when you feel like crap isn't the easiest and the biggest adjustment will be finding the balance of getting stuff done while having to put a lot more hours into taking care of yourself. Don't assume the worst, but if you do have an immune disease it's not the end of the world as the treatments for it are getting better all the time. Plus it's an excuse to go forth and do all sorts of really cool things now while you have the ability. Everybody is always saying 'someday I'l..." but they never seem to get around to it. I know someday soonish I'll need canes to walk. If my body is going to be trashed in 10 years anyway, I want to have damn good stories to tell by the time it rolls around.

I haven't lost any weight with the band either and I've had mine almost two years. I either have zero restriction or I can't get anything down and I spend my whole day puking. The "sweet spot" has always eluded me despite 20-30 fills and unfills. After a year of eating nothing more than Soup, oatmeal and salad (no idea why salad stays down but it does) I looked horrible: my skin was awful, dark bags under my eyes and I always looked like I was about to drop. I finally had to get all the fill out so that I could get some real food into me to bring my nutrition level back up. My doctors (I've been to a few now) say I fall into the category of people who have unexplained band complications and it's not going to get better. I'm jumping ship and revising. You haven't even had your band a full year yet. You should tough it out a bit longer to see if you can get that balance. The whole point of the band is not to make it so you can't eat solid foods so it sounds like you are just a bit too tight. It's a fine line between restriction and starvation.

Actually it's the third surgeon I've consulted who reported this, so I've seen my fair share of surgeons by now, and all three can't figure out the problem. I don't want to come across as anti-band because I think it does work really well for many people, I just want to stress the concept of getting opinions from people who aren't selling you a product. It's a fact that people are desperate to lose weight, and desperate people don't always make the best decisions. I'm not sorry I got my band because now I know that I've tried the less invasive route before I remove most of a major organ of the body. I didn't want to live with the giant 'what if' hanging over my head. I just wish it had worked out better for me, but it's hard to predict side effects ahead of time. The same can be said of all the surgeries.

My band has caused me nothing but grief for the last two years so it's coming out. In preparation for this, my revision surgeon wanted me to get all the fill out of my band so that I can get back into the habit of eating more than soup and oatmeal, because that's all I've been eating for two years without throwing up. Now that I have my fill out, I'm experiencing heartburn like crazy, and it's something I never had before I got my band, nor while banded until now. While banded with fill, I had been throwing up between once and ten times a day, almost every day, and now I'm wondering if the heartburn is a sign that all that puking has caused some damage. Has anybody else suddenly had heartburn appear after getting a complete defill?

Mostly I stopped posting because I work 45hrs a week and go to school, so I just haven't had the time! I also stopped because I was getting a lot of negative feedback for being anti-band and scaremongering when I pointed out that not everybody has a happy ever after ending. We all want to lose weight so much that we can sometimes be willfully blind to the potential side effects. It's the truth, but people don't want to hear it. I'm on my way to getting my band out. It cost me $18K to put in, but it will be free to revise to an RNY as long as I'm willing to be patient and jump through the hoops for the government. If all goes on schedule, I should have surgery August or September. Now I'm just concerned about the damage my band may have done. I've had the x-ray done and it doesn't look like it has slipped but there may be something else going on which is causing the heartburn.

If you use the almond milk, make sure to buy the unsweetened or it defeats the whole purpose of the shake. Ditto for soy or rice milk.

That was a huge cheat... fat, carbs and sugar. Don't do it again or you may wake up from surgery bandless. It's been known to happen. Breaking ketosis like that will also make your appetite come back like crazy, making the next week more miserable. The time it takes to shrink you liver depends on how fatty it was to begin with, and that depends on your weight and your genetics. There are some perfectly skinny people out there who naturally have fatty livers. If the liver is still too fatty by the time the surgeon gets in there, it will be too dangerous to use the retractor on it without risk of damage. Starving it of carbs and sugars makes it tighten up and the retractor is less likely to damage it. Livers bleed like crazy if you nick em, and so it is a potentially serious complication the surgeon won't risk.

Adding SF jello or other no calorie flavourings to the shakes should be fine. They do tend to get a little bland... You can also try the Da Vinci sugar free syrups and there's lots of flavours of those.

It's not really about the fact I haven't lost any weight, it's more about the fact that I have spent the last two years throwing up every single time I eat, unable to reach restriction and starving all the time because all I have been able to eat is Soup, salad and oatmeal. I have not been able to eat proper solid food for years. I do t want to discourage people from having surgery but clinics tend to gloss over the failure rate in attempt to sell you a product, and people who need surgery are so desperate that they don't question harder.

Erosions, infections, slippage and massive nausea due to unknown causes.