Deede

Hi All... About band erosion.... This is my first post and I can only say what my experience has been, or rather my daughter's. We were both banded in 2002, I was banded in November and she was banded in December. I still have my band, but she lost hers on February 28, 2005. My daughter was too young to have the band at 17 even though she begged me for it. She had been obese all of her life, and had been teased unmercifully throughout school. I'm sure you all know how teenagers are now. She promised to do exactly what I did, etc. It didn't work out that way. She was never complaint with the band. In other words, she just got so tired of not eating that she would eat, throw up, eat some more, and throw up some more. She never got to the "sweet spot" with a fill, whatever that is. I didn't know she was throwing up so much, because I was having my own problems and never heard her. It was like she was bulimic, and she hid it well. She was involved in so many High School activities that she was gone almost every day doing something. Finally, my husband found out she was throwing up when he heard her in the middle of the night. He went into her room and found candy wrappers and chip sacks everywhere. She promised not to do it anymore, etc. etc. if he wouldn't tell ME. It was horrible, and she nearly paid for it with her life. In February of 2005, she began to have a lot of stomach pain, and she was unable to eat much at all. She supplemented her diet with Protein drinks, and Soup. Now remember, I didn't know she was barfing her brains out. She was at the end of her Senior year in High School and had lost nearly 100 pounds. She looked great, but she was white as a sheet. I begged and begged her to see her band surgeon, but she wouldn't. Teens! But then she couldn't swallow....anything. We forced her to go to her band surgeon because she was too weak to resist. Her band had slipped completely and there was no way they could save it. She had emergency surgery to remove it, and I thought everything would be okay. They dumped her out of the hospital the next morning even though she looked horrible, so we took her home. After she couldn't get out of bed the following morning we rushed her back to our hospital in our small town. The ER ran tests and her blood count was so low they had to give her transfusions. It seems she lost 5 pints of blood but NO ONE told us. She was in the hospital for 3 more days. She scared us all so much, and she has suffered so much for eating when she shouldn't and eating too much. She has regained every pound that she lost plus more. Now she wants another band, and I don't know what to do. She will be 20 in 2 weeks, and she promises, yet again, that she will do whatever it takes BUT she will not go back to the surgeon who removed her band. He really scared us all by not being truthful with us about her blood loss, and booting her out of the hospital the next morning. Would you pay for another band? Thanks for listening.....