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The band isn't right for everyone. Personally, for information's sake, if you don't mind sharing, I'd like to know why you don't think it's right for you? I do not think that insurance will pay for a revision without you having issues with the band. Unfortunately, there aren't alot of people who got revisions who hang around here, but you might try to repost this in the "Life After Lap Band Removal" section. There was a poster who used to hang around called Geezer Sue who was revised to DS, but I haven't seen her in a while.

6 yrs ago, I lost my 46 yr old husband and was left a 40 yr old, 200 lb widow. I grew up the fat kid, grew into the fat teen, and was even a fat bride. While my husband supported every weightloss effort I made, he loved me regardless. After 2 yrs of a deep depression, a gain of 50 lbs (yes, 250), I woke up one day and decided to "start over" again. While I didn't see love happening anytime in my future (I was scared if I did love again, I'd always compare him to my 20 yr marriage), I had hope that I would find love again. So 4 yrs ago I moved 3,000 miles away where I didn't know a soul, 2 mths later had lapband surgery. Started dating again (online cuz I didn't know anyone) when I was down to about 180 and a little more confident. Met my share of "chubby chasers". One lunch date actually asked me if I was still ovulating! Can u beleive that? Also asked if I could have my lapband removed. Met my current husband of 2 yrs at about 175. Had revision surgery 9 mths ago cuz of a slip. I'm now at about 149-151, on any given day. SO I guess the reason I had wls was to gain the confidence to find love again. I was blessed twice in my life. ACtually, 3x, if u count a 100 lbs loss in the blessing!

3 1/2 yrs post lapband and I still vomit about 3-4x a week from eating too fast. Not sure why I can't control my eating rate. I learned to eat fast in Army basic training. If you didn't eat in 5 mins, u didn't eat. Plus my husband is a fast eater and I notice him eyeing my food after he's done. So I feel like I need to "protect" my food, so I eat fast also. Not good with a band. Now that I'm revising to sleeve soon, I'm hoping to follow the rules better. I'm so afraid of leaks...

I am a band to sleeve reviser. I will be a month out on august 8. I am still pretty miserable with recovery. Not taking in much and not really sure where i should be at this point. I am never hungry and its extremely hard for me to eat. I had no real big issues with the band but decided to do the revision because i was so scared of the complications that are rising from the band. My doctor also highly reccommended it. I lost a total of 100 lbs with the band in the 4 years i had it. It kept me in check a lot. I learned the band very well when i had it and if i didnt feel like being good....i also knew how to eat around it. With that said, im tired, scared, and simply exhausted the past month trying to learn the sleeve. I dont know up from down and im trying so hard to just keep trucking and things will get better. Just know everybody is different and each struggle gives us wisdom to succeed in our own personal journey! Good luck to you!!!

Hello All, I'm looking for a little advice. I was sleeved in August of 2014. I lost about 50 lbs after surgery but then went completely stagnant. I couldn't lose another plan no matter what I did, so in effect, this felt just like another one of those diets where you feel like you are doing everything right and the weight just stops coming off. After several months of losing and gaining back the same 5 lbs, I got lazy and started gaining back. I'm currently back to my starting weight before surgery. Up until recently, I just felt like I failed the WLS fight and that the gain was all my own fault. A few months ago, I started looking into revision in Mexico. Once I spoke to the surgeon, he asked me a lot of questions that led me to believe the maybe the surgeon that performed my surgery did not do it properly. The first example is that I know a couple other people who had the same surgery with this surgeon and they had the same results (lost about 40-60 lbs, then stagnant, then gain). I also have this strange thing that happens rarely where I eat a moderate dinner (not overeating) and then go to bed 3-4 hours later and then I wake up around midnight and much of what I ate for dinner is vomited up. I've heard of overeating and then vomiting, but never 5-6 hours after you ate!! With these things, the surgeons that I have spoken to both think I'm a good candidate for revision surgery, but I'm concerned that maybe they are just trying to sell me on it. Others have told me to go back to my original surgeon, but since multiple people think that he did things incorrectly, is he maybe not the best person to go back to?? I guess I'm just looking for feedback. I know I'm a little all over the place, but I'm curious if anyone has dealt with anything like this before? I know the surgeons aren't perfect, but are there times where they cut the stomach too large or small?? or cut out the wrong section of the stomach? And don't get me wrong, I do take much of the responsibility for my sleeve failure. I definitely think that I went into the original procedure thinking that there was no way to fail and I forgot that there is a lot of work that I need to put in. Which is why I want to make sure I do things right this time and go in fully prepared. Thank you in advance for any advice.

After 4 months of crossing off requirements for my surgery center and my insurance company I was denied. The reason was one weight loss surgery per lifetime. That sounds pretty final to me. Has anyone else had this happen and then was approved after an appeal? My lapband kept tightening on me and then I would have to get an unfill then refill and repeat. The last time when i was getting refilled I developed GERD and could not get filled to proper restriction because the GERD was too awful. Thank you in advance with any info. Jen

Just an update - Cigna approved and 1 week post-op from revision surgery!!

Jen I suggest having your surgeon do a peer to peer review with your insurance company. Many that were denied were able to get approved after the peer to peer. Sometimes coding is an issue too. Although bypass is a weight loss surgery revision most times isn't for weight loss but more so to fix a complication of surgery itself. Best of luck to you. Severe GERD is no joke!! I'm being revised from sleeve to RNY due to GERD. I have BCBS as well.

Thank you for your concern :thumbup: I think I am feeling better today. By last night I think I was just panicking which was making it worse. I called the office around 4:30 to speak with a nurse and they were closed so I paged the on-call doctor... I ended up speaking with one of the nurses who works in the office and he said it sounds like it was just probably too soon for me to move to mushies...not my fault, but maybe because of the scar tissue they had to go through with the revision surgery, that I just needed some extra time to heal. He said it sounded like I irritated it and it was just swollen. The fact that water was going down was good he said. He told me to go on liquids for the weekend and to go into the office if I wasn't feeling better on Monday. I said I think I feel better because now I am not sure! it's definitely not as uncomfortable going down, which is good, but then again I still feel like it's taking quite a long time for the water to pass through...and I hear it when it goes through. I think that might still be the swelling he was talking about...so I am on tea, broth, and vitamin water until further notice but that's totally fine with me as long as I feel better soon. Thanks for all of your replies guys :w00t:

Your port flipped (a relatively easy complication to correct) and he wants you to revise to a sleeve?? WTF??? If he won't give you his options to repair the flip, I agree, get a second opinion.

I’m currently on my second round of pre-op diet as I had a VSG in December 2019 and am having a revision to RNY in a few days but over the last year I’ve amassed quite a collection of protein powder and drinks. I’ve gone through 2 other 2lb tubs of the syntrax nectars and I’ve lost count of the protein shakes. But yeah, I may be hoarding protein powder and shakes. Anyone else do this? I need to know I’m not alone. 😂

Round 3, first steps I spent part of this morning talking to the new surgeon, Dr. S. As I mentioned earlier, Dr. M. is a good guy and good surgeon, but he only performs banding. I no longer have confidence in the band -for me-, and so I am looking into alternative choices. We discussed the VSG procedure, and between the two of us decided that would be the best choice. The other option was the bypass, but honestly I think it would be overkill given my current physical condition. I'm overweight, but only by maybe 30 lbs. I'd look like a cancer victim if I did the bypass now! Things are a bit more complicated because of the insurance company and the role they are playing in all this. They have approved a removal of the band, and so that is going to reduce the costs somewhat from the cash price of the VSG. The procedure is normally around 11K, which I cannot pay for at this time. I can swing the 8K or so that this should turn out costing. It will -hurt-, but I can cover it. If I consider Dr. M. was quoting 4K for the new band, it's not all that bad. Of course, that's the same kind of false logic that people use to justify expensive purses "on sale" :ohmy: The next step is for their office to start talking to the insurance company and resubmit for the revision. I have no idea on timelines yet for the surgery, recovery, etc. I do know that I will be out for a week, and given that I'm a contractor on a day rate, that's going to bite. Ah well. This all beats being FAT again, and it's readily apparent that without the assistance of some sort of restriction I will again top 300 lbs.

I get along fine with my husband's children - they are in their mid 20s, he has grandkids, I love them and they love me. Their Mom though, not so much. There is no open hostility there, just a lot of pride I guess. In any case, they don't know I had the Band and they do not know I am in the midst of getting revised to a sleeve. I have recently found out they are coming to visit for a few days in my postop period. I will be on three weeks of thin liquids, then another three weeks of thick liquids and ultimate pureed foods before graduating back to a regular diet. I do not want to disclose my bariatric surgeries. That is just plain out of the question (so please dont' try to tell me there is nothing to be ashamed of. This is about privacy, not shame for me). What can I say to explain my strange eating habits while they are here?

WLS, take 3 Well, the word came down today, and I am now scheduled for VSG surgery Oct 21. The insurance company is picking up about half the tab because of the lap-band removal; the rest of the procedure comes out of my pocket. This looks to be an interesting and different path than the one I've been on, and hopefully ends up in a much better place. I still think the lap-band is a great procedure for those who can cope with it, but my body simply insisted on being in that 2%. (Lap-band 05/2007, high 292, low 178, slip, revision, slip, current 220 and headed up)

Tonight for dinner, we had venison steak with peppers and onions. I ate 6 strips (about 3-4 inches long), 3 or 4 of the peppers and onions, and about 1/8 of a cup of Zatarain's dirty rice. I am able eat 1/2 cup of ground meat, 1/2 of a taco with light lettuce and cheese, 1/3 of a chicken breast or a chicken leg, I can eat 1 slice of thin crust pizza, I can 1/2 cup of mac-n-cheese with ground meat mixed in it. I eat steak, typically t-bones grilled to med-well on our grill here at home. I can 2-3 slices of thin sliced deli meat with cottage cheese rolled up inside. I can eat 3/4 to 1 cup of venison chili made with ground meat. Venison is my favorite meat to eat because it's so lean, and so high in Protein. Plus, I found tons of recipes that make the meat so tender that I can eat more of it than other meats. I have absolutely zero digestion issues with meat. Cheese is the one thing that I do not consume all the time because I have found now that it is more binding than pre-op. I love cheese, but I eat it in moderation. I'm 6 months post revision from band to sleeve. I've been eating meat for 4 months. I started off with soft meats tuna, chicken salad, seasoned ground meat and boiled chicken breasts. I love beef Jerky (teriyaki flavor is my favorite and eat it once a week) as well, but I try to watch the sodium content.

I was actually originally a sleeve patient and before surgery my insurance told me they wouldn't cover the sleeve so my only option was bypass. I was originally upset but now SO THANKFUL I got the bypass. Way better results and I NEED the restriction and dumping to keep me on track. I had heartburn prior to surgery and my surgeon warned that the sleeve may make it worse and if that were the case he'd have to revise me to bypass anyways. So glad I'm an RNY patient now - Kaylee Ann ~ Surgerversary 6/11/2012

Welcome! You will find that this forum is so supportive. I am glad you are considering the sleeve. I just had a revision from the lapband and the sleeve is amazing! I feel so great. My family was NOT all supportive of the sleeve at first. You just need to do your research so when they question you, you have all the answers. Congratulations on making the choice to improve your life. It has already made a big difference with my entire family. We are all eating healthier and my girls are wanting to walk on the treadmill! We plan on taking some of the family workout classes at the YMCA as soon as the doctor says I can go. I really am so happy I made the decision to have the sleeve. Feel free to ask me any questions.

I'm having my revision on March 11th. I was scheduled originally for December, and got cold feet. I've had some time now to better mentally prepare. This board has helped so much with putting things in perspective. My fears are bleeding and leaking. But I trust in God, my surgeon, and positive thinking. KajunGumbo- did your surgeon mention anything about using bigger staples for the scar tissue the band may have created?

I know alot of people post this concern, I have seen it too....Please dont tell me to stay off the scale, I have been through this nightmare already.....I was a sleeve to bypass revision on august 1st, but when i got my sleeve I was on the other site titled "sleeve talk"...and soon after my sleeve, I saw that my weight loss was lagging behind everyone who was sleeved at the same time I was..then, I just stopped losing..actually as soon as the post op diet ended...I have lived on salad and grilled chicken for 3 yrs, and the wt would not come off..I knew I could eat alot, it wasnt my choices in food, it was the volume...Now I feel like I am living that nightmare all over again...I lost 11 lbs the first 11 days, then i stopped and now i've gained 2 lbs...I am so scared...the doctor told me i had a stretched fundus, upper part of the stomach, that he could not shave off due to scar tissue after the band and it had stretched to allow alot of food...he said he had learned how to get behind the scar tissue now and was going to fix my sleeve.....I agreed, but 1 week later i called and told him I wanted bypass, i didnt want to take a chance that it wouldn't work and i would fail again....So, I had the GBS, then one week post op he told me he left the excess out pouch and just lopped off the bottom of my stomach....NOOOOOO.......what????....I dont know why I didnt say anything that day...last Friday as a matter of fact...but i didn't and now he is on vacation and I wont see him till sept 10th...Im sure if I do say something he will only blow it off anyway...but now I feel like I am living my last nightmare of surgery without the benefit of wt loss....I am walking, eating right, but no wt loss and a 2 lbs gain to boot!! sorry for ranting but I am so depressed right now, I dont even know what to do with myself....I look around and everyone is losing faster and more than me just like the last surgery....I dont even know how to close this rant so I will just say thanks for listening.....

Hi LeighlonLove, I am less than 2 weeks away from getting a sleeve to bypass revision due to severe GERD. However, I had a paraesophageal hernia repair done in 2018 and my new surgeon just saw the surgical notes. Apparently, my first surgeon who did the hernia repair used lots of mesh and also did a Nissan fundoplication which is not usually done with a sleeve. I now have a hiatal hernia very close to that same location and she is concerned that she won't be able to fix it because it's in a tight location (GI junction) and there is very little tissue to work with. She said a mesh repair is like using super glue so she doesn't want to to try and remove it. Her fear is leaks which would be a big problem. She has agreed to do the revision to bypass with the hope that it will take care of some of this awful GERD but not all, unfortunately. Did you and your surgeon come up with a plan B? If so, I'd love to know what was decided. Best of luck with your next step! Penny

Here is a link of information for those who are researching the band, their surgeons, what causes complications, how to avoid them. Fluid -- you should never get a lap band that is too tight with little or no saline, there are two sizes AP small and AP large. How to know you are in the Green Zone and when you are too tight Also here is a link for those who are researching BAND-FRIENDLY surgeons that offer great aftercare, Allergan highly recommends a Band friendly surgeon. Or you should make sure your surgeon has done MANY lap bands and has a very low revision rate. Also most importantly -- WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO GO TO A LAP-BAND® SPECIALIST Not all weight loss centers are the same. It's important that your patients go to a LAP-BAND® System Specialist for your LAP-BAND® surgery. Use the LAP-BAND® specialist locator to find a qualified specialist for your patient. http://www.lapband.com/HCP/product-description/

Some people revise from the sleeve to the DS. Some revise from the sleeve to the gastric bypass. Some are perfectly happy with the sleeve alone as it does the job for them. It's hard to say whether or not you should have a DS. You need to know yourself. Can you keep a good count on your calories, etc. and watch what you eat? Because while your stomach is definitely smaller after the sleeve it does stretch somewhat as time goes by (never to its original size, though). If so, the sleeve should work well. If you're like me (a binge eater) & want to eat every 1-2 hours (Protein pretty much in the main) and worry about keeping the most weight off possible, then a DS might be right for you. However, the DS has cons along with the pros. It takes a lot of work: many, many vits/minerals per day for life, yearly or twice yearly blood work, there can be malodorous gas and/or stool (most of us watch our eating in public carefully and/or take a probiotic to keep this under control), etc. After a lot of research and decision making I felt it was the WLS for me. But it's a very personal decision and all WLS have positives and negatives.

I know you asked Jean, but the VSG is the first stage of the DS. The DS component can be done as part of a two stage process. My understanding is that a slightly larger bougie is used for DS. There doesn't seem to be a problem revising a sleeve to DS. I have heard of VSG with a band a few times. Not sure how that works, though. Hope this answers your questions.

Jean, thank you for your informative post! You, more than anyone, can really speak about both surgeries since you've experienced both. Just wondering, is it possible to get a LapBand put in AFTER someone has gastric sleeve surgery? To alleviate the food cravings and stuff? I know your situation may not permit it, but for someone else, maybe they can revise to the lapband? I wonder if that's ever been done

Getting cold feet before surgery day arrives is quite common, and so is "buyer's remorse" after surgery. You're contemplating a huge change in your life, and making the "right" WLS choice can be overwhelming. Sometimes I think that's aggravated by doing so much research online - you're overloaded with information and it all seems confusing. I've had both the band and the sleeve, so I'm uniquely qualified to respond to this thread. I'm going to quote from a post I made on a band-to-sleeve revision forum recently, but first I want to address a few specific things you said: For as many 'happy' band stories that I read about, I see as many or more disasters: slime, dumping (whatever that is), a lot of pain - Whether eating problems like sliming, stuck episodes, or PB's (food regurgitation) are a disaster is up to the individual. None of those events are life-threatening, so I don't consider them disasters. Unpleasant? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes. Painful? Sometimes. As painful as having your foot cut off? Probably not. We all have differing tolerance for pain. Edited to add: also, most of those side effects can be prevented with careful eating. Dumping syndrome results from rapid gastric emptying in sleeve and bypass patients because the stomach is too small to store and begin digesting food before the food hits the intestines. It causes a rapid rise in blood sugar levels that can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, lightheadedness, and a general feeling of being ill for about 30 minutes (in my case). Dumping is more likely to happen when you eat something high in sugar or refined starches, but can also result from eating too fast or overeating. I've never heard of it happening to a bandster, but I guess that's not impossible, especially if the bandster is diabetic and therefore more sensitive to blood sugar fluctuations because their pancreas can't keep up with the food being consumed and digested. slipping, having to get the band removed, etc. Almost all of these disaster people have said they needed WLS, and revised to the sleeve. Every one of them wished they had gone with the sleeve in the first place. I have a strong suspicion that they feel that way because their experience with the band was unhappy, not because the sleeve is intrinsically better than the band. When they had their band removed and revised to the sleeve, the euphoria they felt was a bit like the relief you feel when you stop banging your head against a wall. Now, as I said before, I've had both the band (which I loved) and the sleeve (which I don't love), so here's a summary of my experience so far: I was banded in September 2007. I lost 100% of my excess weight (90 lbs) in one year. I had a minor band slip (cured with a complete unfill and 6-week rest period) and a port flip (fixed with outpatient surgery) and loved my band. When it was properly adjusted, it drastically reduced both my physical hunger and my appetite (desire) for food. Food just did not taste as wonderful to me as it had in the bad old days. I also experienced the early and prolonged satiety that is the band's #1 claim to fame. Unfortunately, I lost my band in April 2012 because of damage from 20+ years of silent reflux, which my band may have been aggravating. My surgeon and gastro doc agreed that my band had to come out, so I opted to revise to the sleeve in the same procedure. That didn't happen because my surgeon couldn't pass the bougie (the sleeve "calibration" tool) through my esophagus because of an undiagnosed stricture, so I was bandless until my 2nd attempt on August 16, 2012. I had thought that the sleeve would be a good 2nd choice for me because I wasn't crazy about the malabsorption aspect of RNY or DS, because one of the best features of the sleeve is that the reduced stomach size drastically reduces production of the hunger hormone, grehlin, and because the idea of a surgery that wouldn't require fills to achieve optimal restriction was appealing. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way for me. I am now ferociously hungry on an hourly basis no matter what, how much, or when I eat. I have to eat 8-10 times a day in order to keep my blood sugar steady. I've had to start taking metformin for my type 2 diabetes after easily managing it with diet and exercise for 7 years. I've discovered that sleeve patients can dump just like gastric bypass patients. It gives me miserable symptoms of nausea, dizziness, drenching sweats, and fatigue. That happens not just when I eat something with sugar in it but also when I eat so-called healthy foods (Protein bars, milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, Protein shakes, most fruits). I've become anemic and have to take an Iron supplement twice a day in order to give me enough energy to function. Turns out that micronutrient malabsorption isn't unique to RNY & DS patients. Also, since my sleeve surgery I've developed a gastric bleed. When doing an EGD to locate the source of the bleed, my gastro doc discovered a gastric polyp (probably the cause of the bleeding) and duodenitis (inflammation of the duodenum), neither of which were present when I had an EGD 3 months before my sleeve surgery. Finally, I've discovered that sleeve patients can have "stuck" episodes just like bandsters do, and for the same reasons (in my case, careless eating). I'm not able to be objective about my sleeve at this point, and at 5 months post-op, it's probably too early for me to decide it was a mistake. But even if I decide it was a mistake, I'm never going to get that missing chunk of stomach back. It's gone forever. I do know that I absolutely refuse to go back to the land of obesity, and I'm grateful that my sleeve has helped me avoid that. I've lost the 30 lbs I had regained after losing my sleeve, and that is wonderful thing. One difference between my band surgery and my sleeve surgery is that my sleeve surgery was much harder to recover from. My surgeon says that any revision surgery is difficult because she's not operating on a "virgin" belly. I thought that the slow recovery was due to my age (59) because an older friend (age 61) who revised to the sleeve at the same time also found it difficult, but I met a younger woman (mid 30's) in my surgeon's waiting room whose sleeve was her 1st (and we hope last) WLS was also finding it difficult. I think the length and ease of recovery is also related to the patient's age (I'm 59), pain tolerance, general health, and amount of time spent under general anesthesia. My surgeon keeps band patients overnight in the hospital for one night, and sleeve and RNY patients for 2 or more nights. I hate being in the hospital but I was a mess even after 2 nights there. After my band surgery, I felt fine after one night in the hospital and was bored and restless and ready to go back to work (I worked at home then) within 3-4 days. After my sleeve surgery, just lifting a glass of Water to my lips was a struggle. I needed the whole 3 weeks my surgeon insisted on off work, and even then I was dragging. The other thing I want to say is that while my food capacity now is small (depending on the consistency of the food), my desire for and enjoyment of food is like it was before my band surgery. I feel like I get way, way too much pleasure out of eating. I believe that food tastes good for a reason (to keep us eating enough to survive and perpetuate the species), but that extreme enjoyment is a very mixed blessing. I constantly have to fight with myself to not take another bite so as to prolong the pleasure of eating. With my (adjusted) band, I did have some intrusive food thoughts, but nothing like it was in the bad old days. Well, the bad old days are back now. I think about food far too often for the good of my weight management. I wish I had a happier story to report. I've been told that I'm not trying hard enough to like my sleeve because I loved my band. That may be true, but I sincerely wanted the sleeve and sincerely wanted it to work. I know plenty of ex-bandsters who love their sleeves. Ask me again in a year or so, and I may be waving the sleeve banner. And as the advertising hacks would say, "Your mileage may vary." Jean