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I've heard a lot of people say on here that they can't tell the difference. I think that with all the dieting I've done over the years I've always noticed it in my clothes but never through my image. Why don't you do the side by side comparison from before surgery to your current post op I'm sure you'll see it and it's true that we get use to how we envision ourselves so I think it's natural that others will take notice before we do. I'm proud of both of you! Another you can try is to put on a pair of pants, a dress or a shirt that didn't fit before surgery and compare how it fits now. I'm sure I'll probably go through the same thing when I have my revision since that's how it was for me when I first got the lap band in 2007.

Hello Everyone,I had the sleeve in January 2013 and did great until March 2014 when I got sick with a bug. Since then it's been hell. In and out of hospitals, total of 25 days,gallbladder removed.I throw up everything I eat and drink and now have developed severe pain and blacking out. The other day I was rushed to the hospital,told it was constipation and sent home. So I just recently met with my GI doc who has schedule a emergency endoscope so determine what's wrong.she has told me its either a few things but she is leading toward my sleeve being bad and may need a revision and or g tube. I really wish would have known all complications because right now I'm barely surviving.

Hi- I had a gastric sleeve in 2014 and lost 80 lbs. I have since gained back 90lbs. I’m scheduled for a revision to MGB on April 20th. I’m seeing from posts here that weight loss is minimal or at least slower with that. Just wondering how much you’ve lost, the timing of it and if you had any complications. Any feedback at all I would appreciate it. I’m getting a little nervous about it as it gets closer and just want to make sure it’s worth. Thanks

So I had my surger on September 24th and then had to have it revised on november 12th because my port flipped. Well ive been fine and losing weight but im starting to feel some pain right below my left breast. Its not major pain but it hurts if I lay on that side or bend over. I see my doctor in the morning but im paranoid and wont sleep thinking about it. Has anyone experienced this? I read that it could be a sign on slippage but I have no other symptoms at all. Anyways any insight would help! Thanks!

My story is a complicated one, but I thought for those of you deciding about this surgery or who were nervous, I would share it here. Please forgive the long post. I was banded in 2008. My band gave me complications about 2 years in. I lost 40 pounds with my band (wanted to lose about 80) but over the years it became a struggle sometimes to eat at all. Other times, I could eat as much as I wanted with no issues and I gained 20 of that back. Even with a couple of Upper GIs and being told I was okay - I still had issues. A couple of friends had sleeves and seemed to be doing well. So, I decided to have a revision. I went to my original surgeon and we planned it for May 13 2015. Same day band removal and sleeve. I was totally up for this and went in feeling great. However, when my band was removed, I was told my band had eroded into my stomach and caused some major damage. Thankfully, my doctor did not do the sleeve at the same time. He wanted to give me a chance to heal. At the time I was frustrated, but in hindsight I'm glad. So we reset the date to 3 months out. But I began to have misgivings and sought a second opinion. I found another surgeon who I absolutely love and trust, and reset the date again. This time we set it to September 23. I did a 2 week pre-diet like I did before. However, my Mother, who had been sick a long time, was declining and I was worried she might pass so I rescheduled to October 28. My Mom died on 9/23 (so glad I moved the date). That was hard and because of that I think I began to be so anxious about everything and was feeling really worried about the surgery. My doctor was so helpful and kind and his staff were patient and very helpful, and I decided to go through with it anyway. I just made myself do it. I went through another 2 week pre op diet, yes, that means I did three of those in 6 months.... My surgery was on 10/28. When I got out of surgery, I was told that due to scar tissue, my surgeon had to change normal procedure a bit and use a different template for my sleeve. He said my sleeve was a little bit bigger than he would normally use, but still small enough to get good restriction. That first day home, I felt so bad - I was nauseated a little bit and had some trouble drinking. I wondered if I had made a mistake. But every day I improved. I was on full liquids and drank 1-2 ounces every 30 minutes. Each day I was able to get a little more in. I'm now on the 3rd week and just stared the liquid pureed kind of foods, like beans/oatmeal, etc. I can probably get 4 oz. down without restriction, but as soon as I get a little bit more, I feel full. I'm having to watch out for head hunger, and reflux - which mimics real hunger. But overall, I'm learning what it feels like to be full. That didn't happen with my band, I was always hungry. I'm so glad my 2nd surgeon made sure he put the sleeve staples in healthy tissue so that the risk of leaks was minimized. Even if I lose weight more slowly, I did not want a leak. He even knew that if there wasn't a safe place to put the staples, he would stop and just close me up. I have lost 25 pounds since the start of my preop diets in September, and I feel amazing. So far I have had no real complications <knock wood> and I'm following the post diet pretty easily. I go back to work next week and will have to manage working and taking food, getting my Vitamins in. But I'm looking forward to that. My advice is, find a surgeon who listens to you and who has a staff that listens. Don't spend hours on the internet reading about complications. Understand that band complications may complicate your sleeve, but it's still possible to get a sleeve and have good results. I'm sure I'll hit stalls and plateaus and even though the sleeve helps enormously, it's really only a tool. If I fill that 4-6 ozs with ice cream and Cookies I will not lose weight. SO be honest with yourselves about stuff like that. I'm very glad I did this. Your mileage may vary. But so far so good.

Common question and concern so you're not alone. My weight didn't budge for 10 days after my revision to sleeve. Water weight for sure, body adjusting to major surgery. Everybody is different, some drop a lot the first 2 weeks, then stall on wk 3. I was kind of glad my stall (lack of a better term) was right away.

I had revision from band to sleeve this past November. I Love the sleeve so much better.... I lost about 100 pounds when I was banded in 2005 and slowly I gained it back. I take responsibility for that. However, I was vomiting at almost every meal and turned to foods that were sliders. in 2011 I went to a different clinic as I felt my current dr. was not listening to me about how much I was vomiting and the reflux. I would literally wake up choking at night because Water or whatever I drank prior to going to bed was coming up on me. My poor partner thought I was dying. Anyway, when the new dr. ordered an upper GI it showed the band was waaayyy tooooo tight and he opted to empty it and then refilled it a few months later. Even with the tiniest fill, I was vomiting and having nighttime reflux. I ended up getting sleeved this past November. My surgery was rough and I had some complications from having such bad scar tissue. An overnight hospital stay ended up being 4 days. Dr. said I had an infection on the lining of my stomach where the band was. After a couple of weeks I felt so much better. Also during the past year I was diagnosed with Fibro as I had such wide spread chronic pain..... After about a month after being sleeved, I noticed I wasn't in pain anymore. Dr. felt that having the infection could have caused some of the inflammation in my body. Super glad to be rid of that damned band.

Hello Stars in your eyes, I recently went through the revision on 1/30/2014 so i am 21 days into this and unlike you I didn't lose all my weight with the band. I only lost about 40 lbs and was so tired of food getting stuck and feeling every meal was a challenge. So I had the revision and had a lot of scar tissue around my band which needed to be removed before he could remove the band and do the revision. I have lost a total of 23 lbs so far and feeling great! I wish this procedure was done 1st and foremost! The feeling of full is very quick and different than the band. I am still on mush foods but love being able to have the foods i can had until I start regular foods next week. You won't be disappointed. Of course I don't know what it feels like having regular meats, chicken, breads, etc till next phase but so far doing really great. Oh and by the way the dumping syndrome does happen with Sleeve patients. (I tried orange juice, and wish I hadn't)!!!

Welcome to the site...there are a lot of people on here who has had the revision surgery...sorry for your complications but you are almost their...Good luck on your journey

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I was just trolling the boards to find people who'd had success, suffered a setback, and were getting back on track. I could really use stories and ongoing communication with people who've been able to turn lap band issues around. My story is somewhat similar to yours. I was banded in August 2006 and lost 75 pounds, got within about 20 pounds of my goal. Then my insurance coverage changed and I decided to save myself the 2 hour drive to my doctor's office and get filled by a local nurse without fleuroscopy. Fast forward a year and I was up 25 pounds and finally made an appointment with my surgeon to find out what was happening. Turns out I had a dilated pouch and lots of inflamation and had to be unfilled and put on liquids for two weeks. And I found out that much of the fill I thought I had was gone. I suspect that the "save money" fill I had was the culprit and that I was operating with an underfill that whole time. I spent time researching whether I should have the band replaced or revise to a different kind of surgery. And am still working that through as I fight the insurance company that doesn't want to cover me since I'm no longer morbidly obese (well, duh, but if I don't get the band working correctly I'm sure that won't be the case for long). Plus they don't think my band problems are enough of an emergency to warrant fixing. I decided to do my best to get my band working again. After all, if I'd seen my doctor a year ago and had the right kind of care all of this might never have happened and I'd be on of those happy bandsters still loving my band. I'm being refilled slowly and had my second fill last week. I'm also trying to get my eating under control and have added some new nutrition products to help get me there. And tonight I'll head to a local band support group to see what else I can learn that will get me back down, and under, my lap band low. It's discouraging to have to relose those 25 pounds. And to have to take on fighting the insurance company if I need to have corrective surgery. It's also very discouraging to worry that I might not be successful with the band when I had been doing so well. Finding other people who have struggled and gone on to success will be a big help. Keep us posted on what happens with your "leak" and how you're doing getting back on track. It will be great to follow your success. Britt

PCP is going to write a letter of medical necessity. Apparently, UHC did not even look at my heart issues on the last appeal so I might have a chance for approval. The problem is simply converting to a sleeve rather than revising the band.

Hi. What do you mean revision from your bypass? What did they do ?

I'm so sorry you're having such a rough time. I hate to say it, but I think this is something that only you can answer. Maybe you should sit down and write a list of pros and cons regarding both being re-banded and just having it removed. I would think that a larger band would relieve some of your discomfort, but there is still the possibility that it may not. If you have it removed, will you revise to a different WLS? If you have it replaced, do you have a backup plan if your issues don't go away? If you don't revise or re-band, are you going to do it on your own? Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck.

I am at day 15, aching soreness and deep pain in the abs on left side. The MD yesterday said this is normal and should subside by 6 weeks. I am free to return to work between 3 and 4 weeks and he suggested I wait until closer to the 4 week time frame. Since mine was a revision from lapband, I have a bit more to heal inside

Hi everyone. I'm new to this journey, although this is my 3rd attempt at getting the surgery. I have so many questions that I don't even know where to start. This biggest one is deciding between the sleeve and the band. I'm so afraid that I won't be able to control my eating without the band but I've also read a lot of the revision forums and I don't want to be regretting the decision to get the band. Also, I'm reluctant to even get excited about getting WLS because the last time I went through this, a family member was going to pay out of pocket for it. However, the day before my first doctor's appointment, she decided the withdraw her offer (and her money). I don't know if I could handle going through that type of emotional pain again. Has anyone used Dr. Webb in Jacksonville, FL?

Vicki, glad you are here for support, I'm sorry you aren't getting it from those closest to you. I hope you will find some here. And I do agree that this is major surgery, not sure what constitues 'radical', but I know for me WLS is not something that I just woke up one day and wanted to do. It has been years that I have thought of it, but was always too scared to act on. Having been banded twice, I'm sure you don't want to keep having band surgery. I think you will find a lot of people here who have revised from band to sleeve and much prefer the sleeve over the things they experienced with the band. If you are truly experiencing agony over the decision to have or cancel surgery, is there a therapist that you can reach out to and go for a visit just to talk and clear things out of your head? I'm sure you probably had to have a physch eval just to have the band, or maybe you know of someone who would be willing to listen and give you an objective opinion. Or as Eureka said, to sit and write things down. Good luck with whatever you end up doing, just remember that you are doing this for YOU and no one else.

My name is Michaela I am 29 I am considering getting a revision to the gastric bypass. I had the sleeve exactly 3 years ago. I am 5’4 at my heaviest I was 272 and got down to 174 now I’m back up to 222. I am super depressed because I don’t know how I let this get this bad. I’m looking for stories of people who have had this revision and what made them decided to do it and how much the have lost so far. Also people who are looking into getting the surgery and what made you decide to look into it.

Congratulations on everything! I hope everything works out with your revision! My name is bilijean and I'm 27 and well. My surgery for the sleeve is schedule in two days (December 30th)!! Hope everything continues to go well

I did not have a revision. I had Bypass and I love it. My blood work is fine and I don't have any malabsorption issues at this point. I don't have GERD either. I made this choice in part because I had pre-diabetes and the bypass has the best prognosis for remission. If I was already on my way to diabetes of course I wanted to avoid insulin shots if at all possible. Good luck. Your acid sound wicked, so sorry. Its hard right now but you will get there.

Recently I had asked my surgeon to allow me to use my band prior to surgery. He agreed and scheduled me for a fill. The clinic I am using called me to say that if I filed with my insurance for my fill then they would not cover my Gastric Bypass. Apparently my insurance will only cover one WLS a lifetime. Obviously I already had a WLS. I used my father's insurance to have surgery and did not use my personal insurance at all. The clinic called to say there is a chance that now my personal insurance might not cover the procedure, because it is a revision. This set me into a panic thinking that I might not actually have this surgery. I took it upon myself to call the insurance and confirm this. I was told that the revision would not effect them paying of my GB, because I hadn't use them for the Lapband. The Patient Advocate at the clinic said there is no way to know if that is true until I complete the steps to get authorized. I don't really trust what the Patient Advocate is saying, because she has given me a lot of false information already. Basically, I am wanting to know if anyone had issues with their insurance turning them down because they have previously had Lapband surgery before having a Gastric Bypass?

I'm new to this site. Here's my story. It's rather long so I'll try to keep it short. In June of '07 I was banded - self-pay. I lost about 50 pounds, putting me about 60 pounds shy of my goal weight. Then, at the end of '08 I got pregnant, got unfilled and had a baby in '09. Later, when I finished nursing him after about six months, I went back in to get a fill. The doc couldn't find my port. He said it had flipped and scheduled me for a port revision. Well, the port hadn't flipped at all, it had shifted. IF he had he done a xray to find it , I could have avoided surgery and not had to pay two thousand dollars. So, then after that, I went back, had it filled and then had the worst reflux/heartburn ever - doc said it was too tight - took out a little - no luck - then got nausea and vomiting. The doc looked at it on fluoroscope -said it's a small slip and unfilled me and told me to come back in a month to look at it again. Went back later and no change- so Doc says it has to come out and that it can't be filled. The funny thing is he just recently hired a doctor who specializes in revisions so he would be glad to take out my band and give me some other kind of surgery. Of course, it would cost several thousand dollars more. Since I was having no problems at all with my unfilled band, I decided to wait until the summer (I'm a teacher.), when I would have more time to deal with this. After the mistake with the "port revision" I was skeptical and went for a second opinion to see if I could keep my band. So, I scheduled an appt with a different doc and about a week before my appt with him, I started having tight restricition and reflux, even though my band is unfilled and I haven't had any problems for about a year. He told me that I have a "massive" hiatal hernia and that it needs to be fixed. So, tomorrow the doctor will be removing the band, fixing the hernia, giving me a plication and putting the band back on. He said the plication would greatly reduce the chance of any slips and he'd be able to do it laproscopically. And, it's all covered by insurance because it's a hernia repair. I'm excited by the chance to start losing weight again. I've been unfilled for so long it will be nice to have restriction again. I'm also interested to see if I can eat and then just get full without the burping and food getting stuck or having to cough it up. But - I am worried about the lack of long-term studies on this surgery. I'm worried that if I have gastro problems later I will have a hard time finding a doctor that will want to deal with my folded up stomach and the scar tissue? I'm worried about the pain from this procedure. Is there any pain during or after eating after healing - say - after about 4 weeks? I'm also worried about constricting my stomach too much, possible blocking blood flow - first with the stitches and then with the band. The doc seems very excited about this, though - the plication with the band. He was the one who suggested the plication - not me - I was just happy that I was going to get to keep my band. He assured me that it is safe - and reversible, if necessary. I don't care if it's reversible or not - I just want permanent weight loss - with no complications. How is it possible that this is reversible?!? I can see being able to reverse it soon after the surgery - but once the scar tissue forms, it has to be very difficult - if not impossible to reverse. -Anne

You did great, take care and you will stay the course. I went through having my lapband unfilled and then revision. I know what you are going through. Good luck, Karen

I just read a distubing email from Nina with Dr. Aceves. She stated that the leak rate after a revision to VSG is 3x greater in those of us who are banded then switch. I can understand that if I was eroded or something but I'm not. Has anyone else ran across this information?

I have been approved with Dr. Lousiana Valenzula in Mexico for a band to sleeve revision. Anyone have experience with this and can give me insight as to what to expect from travel to accommodations to procedure, etc. I have had my band 7+ years with limited success and difficulty the last couple of years with reflux to the point of having band filled and unfilled. As much information as anyone can provide I will be grateful.

this is a major decision. Cutting a body part out...cost is factoring in somewhat, don't want to cheap out and get an infection. gonna call a few local MD and see what the price is I'm thinking twice Mex price for a revision. Since I had the band placed in Mex I'm over the concern of "going to Mex yikes!" HATE this band it is coming out no matter what my final decision. Having a total unfill done soon (tommorow if I can talk the surgeon I am seeing into doing it...-I could do it myself for that matter!!!) Don't freak out :scared0:if you are reading this I am an RN and would make sure it was a sterile procedure!-still I wouldn't do it ethics..)