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HI, I”m having surgery to convert band to bypass as well on May 21st. I am very nervous about complications and such because of the conversion. I’m also having my gallbladder removed. I’ve had the band since 2010. I had terrible reflux and ended up anemic from an ulcer. I’ve regained almost all of my weight.

Check out Alabama Weight Loss Surgery Center in Birmingham. Dr. Miles did my sleeve and he was fabulous. They offer complication insurance with every patient.

I’m planning to pay for a revision. I’m looking for a doc in the Huntsville or Birmingham area that offers this protection. My insurance will not cover for any complications during my stay only after discharge.

Has anyone here had RNY and had incisional hernias? I am thinking about getting RNY wls but am concerned about the hernia repair that I’ll need. The hernias resulted from a previous surgery that I had. I really want to have surgery, but my insurance doesn’t cover it, but it will cover the hernias and I was thinking that I could get both done at the same time to save on the costs, just don’t know how complicated it will be. I have my first appointments with the surgeon next week.

I am not in the same boat, well, I sort of am. I am getting my band taken out and have been on the fence about a RNY revision. I should clarify, I'm falling off the fence onto the RNY side. I've had my band since 2010. 293 > 220 > 300. I went from 220 to about 260 and stayed there for a few years, dealing with the fun stuff we bandsters have to deal with, and eventually got tired of not losing weight and getting any/everything stuck. I had it completely dilated and I have slowly gained even more weight. I am kind of a loaner, so this might seem harsh, but personally, the only opinion that matters to me are God's, mine, and family. I have some friends that have opinions, but although I am willing to listen, they don't know the whole story because they don't get to experience the bad parts of being overweight. Nevertheless, if you feel like you need something to show your PT, then pull out any recent peer-reviewed studies showing the stats of lapband surgery. (* I'm sure there are people that it did (permanently) work good for). My surgeon said he only does bands about 2% of the time. The complication rate is through the roof (as I sit here and look at my port that requires inserting the needle almost parallel to my skin because of the 90* flip), and the long term success is quite poor. As I write this, I wonder when I was doing this why "It is reversible" is used as an incentive. If it works properly, why would I want to remove it? If I'm not sure it's going to work, then why have it placed? You might laugh at this. When I went to have it dilated, I asked if the doctor used lidocaine (He was a new-to-me doctor). He kind of gave me that "Are you a wimp?" look and I told him I'd give him $100 if he could find it in 5 jabs. He gave me the lidocaine, and finally found it after *20* tries. It was so difficult, he drew a map of how to find it on my medical chart. I was black and blue for the next week from being a human pincushion. Best of luck for you and remember it is your life, not anybody else's!

@HopefullXOXOXO Honestly, I think you're worrying too much and blowing this way out of proportion. Statistically, it is more dangerous to cross the street in the heart of the city than undergo this operation. You will be under good care and the most critical parts will be done by the surgeon or under his or her direct supervision. At some point, new doctors and surgeons need training as well and it should be a point of pride that you're giving them that opportunity. The supervising surgeon will be present in the operating room and involved in your care at all times. You know that the risks of not undergoing this surgery at all are much higher than post-surgical complications. I know that you don't want a heart attack, stroke, or early death. My advice to you is to put your faith in the training and competence of the surgeon and to focus on what you need to do to prepared. This is simply what I did. Before surgery, I was at the penultimate low point in my life. I actually wished for death at several points during my journey to the day of surgery. So for me, there were only positive outcomes post-surgery. My clinical depression is beginning to ease and I am off 6 out of the 7 meds I was taking just to live. I don't mind taking the antidepressant but it took 5 medicines to control my blood sugar and 1 medicine for hypertension. I was a walking profit model for Big Pharma.

SillyKitty, I've never had surgery or general anesthesia so this is the first I've heard of any life threatening risks. Until I read the consent form today, I thought the risks were only bleeding, leaks, vomiting. That's all I was told by every doctor and WLS expert I've spoken to. I had read about stenosis and vitamin/mineral deficiencies online. So, yes, every other possible complication is a surprise to me. I know MGH is a teaching hospital but in a million years I didn't think a student could be participating in the surgery. I guess I'm very lucky to be 65 and not have had any surgeries yet.

DON'T BE SCARED! but I will say, if you cannot change your lifestyle after then this will not be for you. Its a full time Job. Takes a lot of self discipline and dedication to commit. You will not be able to enjoy foods like before. If you try its painful and you will feel like ****. On the other hand its the best thing i ever did for myself! I had zero complications and just followed exactly what my doc/ surgeon told me to do. I am 9 pounds away from my goal as of today! Congratulations <3 also I highly suggest you join a support group on FB! Find one that was sleeved/rny that same month as you so you have a group of people on the same page as you!

I too will be having a revision from sleeve to bypass on 3/29 due to complications. I am sorry you have had a rough go. If it helps, your post is reminding me that it is going to be another major surgery with more recovery. You are helping me to be better mentally prepared. How are you feeling now?

RNY 3/29. It will actually be a revision from a sleeve due to complications Looking forward to not throwing up anymore!!! For those who have already been bypassed this month, how are you doing?

my eating schedule has more to do with my diabetes than anything else. not everyone has the same complications from being overweight but blood sugar control is one of the main goals with my schedule and with the types of foods (low carb, no sugar) others my have no issues with more carbs or more frequent eating but for me i have to stop all food after 8 to ensure i have low blood sugar the next day. You have to look at what your goal is - weight loss only or are you working on other health issues also. those other issues can push in a slightly different direction than a weight loss only person

If they're too rushed to adequately answer questions for you I would question your choice of surgeon. MGH is a great hospital, but in MA we are blessed with dozens of good hospitals and some great bariatric practices. I went to Emerson Hospital and they're practice is super attentive, they take plenty of time to go over everything and answer questions (even the surgeon does). They're a center of excellence for bariatric surgery, so do things like track their own complication statistics and a bunch of other best practices. I don't have first hand knowledge, but Lowell General also has a well known center of excellence. For the consent form - at least mine listed things that were talked about (you mention many, though there was nothing about a liver biopsy). The stats they used in the consent were the national stats for complication (VS the practice ones, which were far better). Unfortunately this is major surgery and while complication rates are very low - the normal risks of any surgery apply (including everything up to death). The important thing is to understand what the rates are for your specific practice and what the surgeon thinks your personal risk is. In my case I was less risky than the average case and the risk of complications for the practice averages was so low that the drive to the hospital was more risky than the vast majority of the complications.

I went to my first Orientation meeting 11/16 and have worked tirelessly to get approved by insurance for this surgery. I'm finally ready and saw the surgeon yesterday who had me sign a consent form for surgery. Of course, no time to look at it before I signed it! I just looked at it and the list of horrific possible outcomes is VERY SCARY! Including loss of life, paralysis, brain damage, loss of limb function, etc. etc. etc. I wish I had seen this on orientation day as I probably would have stopped then. Of course, the form says that the doctor discussed all of these with me, but he didn't. He did mention the usual leakage, nausea and vomiting, bleeding and stenosis and downplayed them all. He said he's done 1000 of these surgeries and only had two bleeding complications. At first I thought that sounds good, then I realized he's probably due (percentage wise) for something really bad to happen. LOL! The form also says that residents, fellows and students may participate in the procedure. I didn't sign up for that! I thought he'd do the whole thing. It also says that in addition to the surgery I'm consenting to an "Intraoperative Liver Biopsy", did anyone else have that? Listed as one of the possible, most common, severe complications is fatty liver disease. ??? Can VSG actually CAUSE fatty liver disease? I've never heard of that. I'm wondering if he wants to do the liver biopsy during surgery to cover his a** to prove what my liver was like at time of surgery. I swear, I haven't been afraid once in the almost 2 1/2 years since I began this journey and have worked SO hard to get here. This really scares me though. The only reason I'm willing to go through with surgery is to SAVE my life. I sure as h*ll don't want the surgery to TAKE my life. Or give me brain damage, etc. I know to the doctor this is all routine stuff, but knowing I signed this and gave permission saying I'm accepting these risks just isn't true. Is there anything I can now do? Does anyone know? Can anyone answer my questions about the fatty liver above? I really appreciate whatever help you can give me. I have no one to talk to about this other than the doctor who was very rushed and didn't have time to answer the questions I had, never mind this! I'm going to a good hospital (Mass. General Hospital in Boston, Ma.) and he was probably rushing yesterday with threat of snowstorm coming in. Still, I'm very seriously considering backing out and just living the best I can with how I am and accepting that instead.

The bill to my insurance was over $75k. That was just a normal RNY surgery, no complications or anything funky. The bulk of the costs were for the 3 days stay. I paid in the $2k range. sent from a samsung s7 edge...

Will your insurance pay for the reversal to sleeve, due to all the complications you have had I would think they would. I had many issues with my band slippages which ended up with quite a few hospital stays, had to go thru hell to get them to approve it but they finally did, may be something to think about.

Hi everyone! Okay so here's the deal, I saw my surgeon this week and it was my very first appointment with him. He told me that he wanted me to start my pre-op diet asap (which I have) even though I don't have a surgery date yet and earliest I'll be able to have it is 6 weeks and latest around 8. The diet isn't as bad as many I've read, definitely not a liquid diet. He has me on a slimfast shake for breakfast, a slimfast shake for lunch, and 1 serving (of unspecified weight) of lean meat and either 2 servings of vegetables or 1 serving of vegetables and 1 serving of fruit for dinner with the only rule being no potatoes allowed and only water between. I'm just curious to see what everybody else's experiences were like, I've seen people have their pre-op diet be anywhere from 8 weeks to 12 hours and varying in contents. I'm also aware that all surgeons are different and you should follow what they say is best for you, just wondering! Also was it successful with no complications during the operation? *edit* I forgot to mention that I've been on my pre-op diet 3 days now and have lost 3 pounds so far, so I'm averaging a pound a day on my specific diet at the moment.

Hi everyone! Okay so here's the deal, I saw my surgeon this week and it was my very first appointment with him. He told me that he wanted me to start my pre-op diet asap (which I have) even though I don't have a surgery date yet and earliest I'll be able to have it is 6 weeks and latest around 8. The diet isn't as bad as many I've read, definitely not a liquid diet. He has me on a slimfast shake for breakfast, a slimfast shake for lunch, and 1 serving (of unspecified weight) of lean meat and either 2 servings of vegetables or 1 serving of vegetables and 1 serving of fruit for dinner with the only rule being no potatoes allowed and only water between. I'm just curious to see what everybody else's experiences were like, I've seen people have their pre-op diet be anywhere from 8 weeks to 12 hours and varying in contents. I'm also aware that all surgeons are different and you should follow what they say is best for you, just wondering! Also was it successful with no complications during the operation?

The reason why bariatric surgery is the most successful procedure for severely overweight people is because it resets your metabolic floor, to an extent. Normal dieting doesn't do that. Basically, if you're an identical twin and you gain to 350 while your sister stays at 150, if you diet your metabolism generally doesn't recover to match your sister's - you CAN diet down to 150, but to stay at that weight you'll have to ingest far, far fewer calories than your sister does to maintain and that means you feel like you're starving the whole time. It's a weird spooky piece of science that hasn't quite been cracked yet, but bariatric surgery seems to avoid that trap. That's why many of us get it; not just because we can lose weight and feel restriction, but because it means when we get to 150 we can ingest a reasonable amount of daily calories without gaining again. Your metabolism isn't at that stage yet, in fact your metabolism sounds like it's pretty manageable. And the issues you're describing sound psychological, like food addiction, or might be metabolic like PCOS. Both of those are manageable without surgery, especially if you're tackling it now when you're still young and close to a healthy weight. When people say they're having weight loss surgery to prevent getting ill or grinding down their knees, they're talking about something that is the logical trajectory of inaction from their current weight. You're not there yet, you're talking about the surgery to prevent getting obese and in turn prevent other complications. But you're not obese, so tackle that part first. It's called "weight loss surgery" for a reason, and is not "prevention of weight gain surgery" for that same reason. Don't get sliced up without exhausting all available options for managing your weight while you're still in a healthy range. This is not a quick fix and it definitely won't prevent you from eating enough calories to gain if you're still working through a food fixation. That's why YouTube is full of regain videos.

It’s massively changed for me now, I would take or leave food really since the surgery. I don’t crave sweet things (only when it’s the time of the month). My taste buds have completely changed, I don’t really like bland food..being able to eat so little all I want is burst of flavour type food...ie really spicy (although this makes my reflux worse!!) No I’m not tired at all, in fact I have more energy than I’ve had in years! Yea 600-800 cals is really low, my nutritionist wants me to try get up to 1000, although I’m finding it really hard. Today I managed my biggest meal so far of 230cals (I’ve really only been managing about 150-180 cals a meal, doesn’t seem to make a difference if it’s high carb, low carb, high fat, i can never manage more than 180cal) I was delighted to manage that today but then I was full for hours, and still was under 800 for the day. I find it difficult to get my protein in also, if I eat protein first I only manage about 2oz before I feel sick, so will have to go onto shakes again I think. So many people were against me getting the surgery, except my surgeon. He couldn’t believe how quickly I recovered (I was out power hosing the Garden 5 days after surgery!) and have had no complications, he said the reason is most likely because I got the surgery when I did and didn’t wait until I had put on more weight or had co-morbidities. The only thing I will find hard to do it to try stop losing and maintain, it’s still coming off pretty quick but working with nutritionist to help that. It’s a decision only you can make yourself, I knew no diet was going to work for me as I was on a run away train and couldn’t get off. Now I know it was the best decision for me.

Background: I am 12 weeks post op from RNY gastric bypass that was uneventful. No complications. No hernia repair or gallbladder removal at time of surgery. My recovery has been uneventful, progressed on schedule from liquids to solids right on schedule Problem: I've had this weird thing happen to me twice that scared me and I can't figure out the cause. It happened 5 weeks apart. Both times in the morning. I get rather strong, want to double over "bad gas" type of pain in my lower intestines, I go to the bathroom to release what I think will be trapped gas, but just as I sit down on the toilet, I start dry heaving uncontrollably with nothing but saliva coming up and simultaneously having a regular bowel movement...but a lot of it. I never did pass any gas. Sorry to be gross. After my bowels were finally empty, the uncontrollable dry heaves and gagging stopped. The stabbing pains in my intestines ceased. But I felt pretty crumby the rest of the day and wiped out. Both times It has been in the morning. The first time, was about 2.5 hours after having my normal Premier Protein shake and morning vitamins. The second time was this week on a completely empty stomach...the pain woke me up at 5 am...I ran to the bathroom and it went on for an hour. After both incidents my stomach/esophagus just ached all day and I was unable to eat anything...just didn't have an appetite. But the gagging and dry heaving stopped after about 45 minutes both times and I was fine the following days. Have any of you experienced anything like this before?? Any clue what causes it?

I'm not aware of many people who were primarily motivated to have a WLS based on how we would look in the mirror, we all approach this from the perspective of how this will help us lead healthy and long lives. I would echo some of the other posters opinions that the Lap-Band is becoming more and more uncommon due to complications and while effective for folks that are 40 lbs over weight I don't believe that the gastric balloon procedure typically has the best long term outcomes for treating morbid obesity. I am curious why are you limiting your self to considering just those solutions (as opposed to the far more common gastric sleeve)? Are you concerned about their reversibility or are you worried about something else? I would also add that perhaps its hard to sense these things, but this forum is full of people who have gone through or are considering going through these surgeries so when we say "Mobidly Obese" this isn't meant in any way to judge you. As for activity I can't speak to the balloon, but for most other WLS not only are you able to get back to regular activity pretty quickly but you are expected to get back. Most surgeries expect you back to 100% (playing sports, lifting weights ect) within a month and you will be resuming most things almost immediately.

I totally get where you're coming from! And I also get your need for anecdotal evidence based long-term results from us--the target population. I was and am totally the same way! The reason I asked my initial question was because when I first started my journey I began asking questions from the perspective that I was trying to support my argument with myself: that I could do this on my own and that these surgeries were far too risky. Then it changed and became me asking questions to try to support me having a balloon or lapband procedure (minimally invasive and reversible). Then it finally changed to getting down to the nitty gritty of the rewards/risk assessment for the surgery I actually needed (at least an RNY if not a full DS). So lol, what I'm inelegantly trying to explain was with each sequence my questions and even word arrangements were slightly different and actually were posed in a way to lead into getting the responses I wanted that would justify my current position. LOL. See what I mean? And sooo now, for the dental stuff...if it gets bad enough, there's a dental school here that I would go to--but hopefully it won't. But having said that, I'd still have gone through with my RNY just to have that 38% reduction in cancer recurrence even at the risk of losing all my toofies. (Also a reduction in cardiac complications from chemo and a familial pattern of CHD and CHD deaths.) I hope you will stick around and post a lot and ask a lot of questions too! I do personally heart science geekery!!!

Hey everyone, this is my 1st post and im jus curious if anybody has had any experience with a long distance move shortly after surgery. I am moving to Dallas about 2 and a half months post surgery and im wondering if anyone else has done it and can bring up some hassles or unexpected complications

FluffyChix and Sosewsue61 - I'm not looking to attempt to (Again) lose the weight without some sort of assistance. When I was in my 20's, I went from 263 to 163 entirely on my own. I was the poster child for the Subway diet. I went there 7 days a week, ate the exact same thing. Ate under 1000 cals a day, and burned almost 1000 a day (According to the calorie counts on the gym equipment). But as with all of my "successes" I gained it back quite quickly. Mistake? Maybe it was because I didn't incorporate heavy lifting. More likely, I did not have the support with discussion boards and blogs and so forth like this. I have always seemed to have a problem with the maintaining weight phase. I work in a highly scientific field, so being impartial and rigorously examining all paths and possibilities has essentially been ingrained in me for the last 15 years. It is because of this that I go to the nth degree down the pro's and con's path. Although bias is verboten within my field, I admit to myself that I am biased towards getting the surgery. Because of that, I think I spend more time trying to counter my bias examining potential. My intent for this post is that the two issues I mentioned are often not mentioned in "standard" (less academia) literature or discussed as a side effect during information seminars. It was a completely new angle for me to study, but I wanted to get some empirical evidence from my own population, since I am not satisfied with the conclusions made by the researchers thus far. As Creekimp13 mentioned, while informative, these studies (for the most part) concentrate only on WLS patients, and not the double blind "gold standard" of research. Granted, I am positive it is difficult to track WLS candidates that did not get WLS, but I would think such data would exist in simply brilliant record keeping such as the Framingham Nurses study. I agree, my path, without significant intervention, is ultimately diabetes and then cardiovascular death. Grandfather died of 2 strokes and a heart attack at 57. Father had a quintuple bypass in his 50's. Other grandfather died of a heart attack. (Granted grandfathers smoked like a chimney and were both alcoholics). Diabetes runs in my family, and thus far with an a1c of 4.9, I'm doing quite well, but I know that it is inevitable, and frankly it is the #1 motivator for me to get the surgery. Fix the root cause (obesity) and dozens (if not hundreds) of other related complications disappear or are mitigated by a great deal Sadly, I agree that dental work is in my future for sure, and if one wants something enough, they will make it happen by working extra jobs or lifestyle modifications (conserve money). I suppose my biggest concern is that the extraordinary cost that is inevitable, will be a recurrent expense (Due to the WLS-induced decreased longevity). That being said, I wholeheartedly admit this involves a lot of speculation and future prediction, something that I believe no one is skilled at other than the Lord. Thank you both for your honest and candid opinions, I am all ears, believe me. FluffyChix, thank you very much for sharing your resources, later today I intend to go through it.

I LOVE new whey liquid protien. Honestly being able to drink so much protien from day 1 of post op helped my recovery soo much! This stuff tastes great! I have had no pain or complications. I’m 5ft and surgery weight was 194lbs and in the first week post op drinking only water w/ new liquid whey (on the clear liquid phase) I lost 15lbs and had NO nausea! My scale also tracks fat and muscle and the overwhelming majority of that weight loss came from fat. I don’t expect new liquid whey to be my only source of protien forever but it’s soo much easier to keep down than regular Protien shakes when you’re early in the post op stage. It doesn’t have that nasty Protien shake aftertaste that makes you want to gag even before you have surgery. This stuff is so good I made protien popsicles with it and I’ve had to start hiding it from my kids b/c they started eating all my protien pops!