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My Doctor has told me unless I have a known deficiency I don’t need vitamins. The procedure doesn’t inhibit vitamin absorption like a gastric bypass so vitamins are not needed.

Crying as I type this! Finally got my date. Start my pre-op diet October 30 and scheduled for surgery November 13. Cannot wait to rock my sleeve! Now I know this is all real.

I had thought about which surgery to have also. My doctor suggested bypass due to better results and since I have heard. He said my heartburn may get worse with the sleeve. I have a father in law that had bypass several years ago and he still has problems with vomiting, diarrhea. I chose the sleeve and haven't had single problem. I am so glad I did this. 53 lbs down since July. Nancy C

You do have another option, a sleeve. Better weight loss and far fewer complications long term than the band and MUCH safer than bypass with no malabsorption.

Great! Good luck! HW 242, SW 236- (Bypass 12/20/17) GW#1- 199 [emoji736] (2/11/18) GW#2- 175 CW 188 5’6”

Who was your coordinator.i was going to be using christi but she just emailed me and said that she no longer works with Dr. Kelly which is who i want to schedule with she said this: I would be more than happy to assist you in your weight loss journey. Unfortunately, I no longer represent Dr. Kelly as a surgeon. I have had numerous complaints from patients of being charged for things they were not supposed to be charged for. In November, I personally coordinated 11 patients for Dr.Kelly, of those 10 of them were charged extra for hotels, additional surgical costs and hotels the night before their surgeries that were supposed to be provided in their surgical packages. I am not saying anything against his surgical ability, but I could not in good conscience send patients to him and have him pull out whatever additional charges he feels like for that day. It was not what I want to represent and he had no intention of changing this practice, there have been other issues as well on the business side Anyone else hear of this? This had been through a lighter me. I need to find a new coordinator i guess because i would only feel comfortable with Dr. Kelly doing my surgery.

WLS is hard. I knew this going into my band back in 2011. I knew this going to my revision to bypass this past March. I expected it to be hard. I'm getting very frustrated with the struggle. Granted this is coming from a place where I'm working 10+ hour days, we just had to put a dog down, and I'm stalling hard every few days. My body fat has been slowly reducing but not the weight. And again, I get that it's a process. Just venting I guess. I'm in the gym almost every day, only missed 2 days total in over a month. One was because a friend needed help with his car, so I spent several hours in the junk yard getting a door off for him, so I might have missed the gym, but I certainly didn't miss the workout that day! And the other day was this past Tuesday, because my pup got put down while I was at work. She was old, and I knew it was coming, but that doesn't change the waves of depression and emotional break downs the loss is causing. Just need a win this week and everything is coming up crap. Our dryer stopped working and 4 parts later, too much money and too much effort and it's still not working. Just feels like this whole week has it out for me.

Hi! I am new to this forum. I got my lapband in 2013. My starting weight was 280lbs and I am about 5'3". In the first year I lost 95 pounds and was down to 185lbs. I never had a fill as my doctor never recommended one. In the last 4 years I have shot back up to 225lb as menopause had set in and I started to lag going to the doctor which was no help. I am now 56 years old and can't seem to budge even a couple of pounds off. I have moved out of the state where I had the procedure years ago and had a consult with the local general/bariatric surgeon about 10 months ago. He agreed to remove the lapband and do a revision to bypass. I met remotely with the bariatric nurse and participated in the orientation zoom meeting. I went for my first weigh in as I was told I would have to start from scratch and in the program and work with a doctor or dietitian for 6 months before they would get approval for the surgery which Iwas more than willing to do. I was turned off by the nurses attitude as she never answered my calls to guide me in the right direction to get started so I gave up on the idea. I feel stuck, depressed and frustrated and I don't know where to turn. My insurance has changed and I can't seem to find a doctor to help me. Thanks for listening. Sent from my SM-A505U using BariatricPal mobile app

Hello everyone l am 69yrs old and l was wondering if there is anyone else out there at my age have bypass surgery Sent from my SM-T510 using BariatricPal mobile app

and is the bypass more serious and intense

Lots of people have had really good success with ESG, particularly in USA and other countries where it has been carried out for a while (as its a fairly new procedure). In Australia there seems to be a higher failure rate due to many reasons: some doctor technique is lacking, overeating, etc...some others lost restriction for no apparent reason. I think in time Australia success rate will improve as the doctors gain more experience in the technique and ongoing the technique is being improved. I am member of a few ESG fb groups where the posting is a little bit more frequent than this subforum. Message me if you would like the links. There is one good site with a lot of people from USA...it a fairly positive site. I had my ESG in Australia over a year ago. No real pain other than stomach cramps for the first few days and I did recover well. At first restriction felt good, and I had good weight loss (lost about half of what I wanted), over time the restriction lessened and I have none now. I have gained some weight back though I haven't reached my pre-procedure weight. An endoscopy showed I have about one suture intact. There is no one reason why my ESG failed and it is possible I contributed with a couple of bouts of overeating. I will be converting to a sleeve fairly soon. The surgeon has done a few conversions and he feels I should be able to convert to a sleeve, if not, he will do a mini bypass. The anchors can prevent conversion to a sleeve. I have been working hard (which help) on what causes me to overeat, it is an ongoing battle but I have made some great progress and feel quite confident going forward. I do regret my decision but only for the fact I wish I had waited until the Australian doctors had more experience with the procedure and ongoing the procedure is being refined to ensure better outcomes. My tips to get the best of your procedure would be to follow all post op guidelines particularly around volumes of food, exercise once you are able to, don't be tempted to test your restriction just because you can eat more than the guideline volumes...once you get past soft food stage, try and get as much protein from food as opposed to shakes (satisfaction and restriction will kick in quicker than with fluids), avoid slider foods and if your doctor/clinic as a post op management program make sure you commit to it and make all your appointments. Don't abandon the program with embarrassment if you have stalls or weight gains along the way...this will the time when you most need to reach out to the experts. One important thing is to work on what causes you to overeat, this won't change with the ESG, those battles will still be there, if you work on them now you will have better outcomes for your ESG. My outcome is but one of many of successes and failures, on the main ESG group on fb there have been some great successes particularly in USA.

I too am 10 years out. I was getting hungry, gained about 35-40 lbs. then, I started watching some documentaries about our food supply like "food, Inc.", "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" ....all on Netflix. Anyway, it changed everything . I bought a Vitamix, and now I 'drink' 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies 5-7 days per week in green smoothies. I lost 40 lbs and have kept it off for over a year...I don't crave a lot of the stuff I used to, and don't count calories or anything like that. My weight before gastric bypass was 344, and I hover around 176-182 now, which is just where I want to be. Best wishes!!

Howdy! I'm visiting from the pre-op RNY side of the forum. The more I read about the DS surgery, the more appealing it sounds vs. RNY. It was never offered as an option at my surgeon's office when I had my first consult, but it's mentioned on their website so I know one of the 2 surgeons there must perform it. I like the idea of preserving the Pylorus valve and removing the majority of the stomach area that creates Ghrelin (hunger hormone) PLUS bypassing part of the intestines. I'll be reading heavily in this forum from now on to learn more, but if anyone has some words of advice, encouragement or warning that you feel should be known, please send it my way! Thanks!

I’m 60 & had gastric bypass 10/2019.

Hello i am post-op since November 20th 2014. Today is March 12th 2015. It seems i feel hungry 2 hours after i eat ,and wonder why. Maybe it not enough Protein? or?.My weight loss as also slowed down. If anyone can give me answers it would be helpful...Thank You.

Lehigh Valley Hospital was great! Had my surgery on 5/23/12. I started the program at 430lbd and today I am 290!!!!!!!! I am no longer Pre diabetic, no high blood pressure, and no more sleep apnea! This surgery saved my life! I had the roux en y gastrix bypass done by the way. Three months post op I was able to go to the gym without restrictions of weight training/lifting and cardio. Depending on your insurance Lehigh Valley is either a 3 or 6 month program. It starts with the information session night it's about a one hour seminar. Then you are called a few days later to make an appointment to meet the surgeon and discuss surgery options. You'll then meet with the scheduling advisor (her name was Pat) to set a surgery date and follow up appointments throughout the process. You will have several sessions at the Weight management center located across the lehigh valley hospital, cedar Crest. There is a program fee but consider it a down payment for your new life. There you meet with nutritionist, nurse practitioner, behavior specialist, exercise expert, etc... Each meeting is required as the program progresses. All sessions are informative and fun. Hope this helps. Any more questions message me I'd love to answer anything for you! Good luck.

The bad outcomes from bariatric surgery were mostly from one doctor in the area, who has now moved to another state, and a few from the local doctors who are through the hospital I work at. A few were lap bands that had problems that turned into other problems, but most were from gastric bypass or DS surgeries. The bypass/DS patients were ones that were usually over 400pounds, got put on a vent after surgery and then took a while to come off. Once they did get discharged from ICU they have to come to rehab because now they are weak from post op diet intake, being bedridden, and as a result stay where I am at for weeks. They usually go home with family and home health care, some even go to a nursing home. Being fat and the road to being skinny is a scary thing, but I can't not walk it because I see what happens when you don't. I had an obese 35 year old co-worker who had one large and two smaller strokes last week that were a direct result of bad lifestyle and being obese.

April was my 1st month of 7 required by my insurance company. I have completed all tests except the pysch evaluation which they have scheduled for October 3rd. I am hoping it doesn't take too long after that. I guess end of October or beginning of November. I am going to try and find out more tomorrow at my monthly appt

Dont waste ur time going to True Results-Houston if you were not banded thru them. They dnt see outside patients. Im one of their patients and I havent had...No let me rephrase that... they WILL NOT give me a fill since November! Saying that im tight enough but yet im alwayz hungry and im not losing any weight!!

I had the Loop Duodenal Switch (also called SIPS). I originally was also looking into gastric sleeve, but as you can see when I started my journey I was nearly 400 pounds and my surgeon told me that the statistical average of gastric sleeve would not be enough to lose the amount of weight I wanted to lose and same for the gastric bypass. I was very much on the fence but eventually I chose the surgery anyway due to the surgeons experience and I figured he knew what he was talking about. Vitamin wise you do take more than the average WLS, but not that much more. I process iron REALLY well so I do a switch on my vitamins where 1 day I take 1 multivitamin with iron and 2 multivitamins without iron and then the next day it switches and I take 2 multi's with iron and 1 without. I also take 2 Calcium Citrate a day (because I process Calcium really well as well). In my 6 month labs I showed to have a minor Vitamin A deficiency so I take 1 dropper of liquid Vitamin A a day as well. I'll find out how that worked out in two weeks since I just did my 9 month labs today and my 9 month check up is on the 13th. I was 321 pounds on my surgery day and this morning I weighed in at 221 so I've lost 100 pounds in 8 months (and 1 week). Which, honestly, I'm very proud of. I don't have bad body odor, if that's your concern. It's more your bowel movements... stink. REALLY bad! And avoid anything with excess sugar alcohol because it may give you gas (like it does to me) and it's smells terrible. There are not as many people who've had the DS or Loop DS, but I've noticed it's been gaining slightly more popularity lately so there are quite a few people on this site that you can ask for advice from who've had the surgery. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer them.

I have it. I didn't use insurance but I know that Arizona Humana PPO did a trial coverage of the lapband for 1 year and it ended last April 2005. They haven't covered it since. In Gastric Bypass, it only covers it if there is "extreme need and circumstances". I think it depends on what state you live in too. All you can do is submit and try!!!

Has anyone with a sleeve experienced malabsorption? I know it's common with gastric bypass, but not with the sleeve. I had a sleeve in Feb 2010 and have been having some problems (pain in right side, pain in back on right side) and my gastroenterologist did a fecal fat test which came back positive for fat malabsorption. My hair is falling out and I am exhausted all the time. I take my vitamins, but I don't think my body id absorbing them. Just wondering if anyone has experienced this. I sure hoe so. Thanks for listening.

@@Recycled According to the studies I linked, it drops to almost nothing day 1 post op, increases slightly at 6 months, and at 12 months is close to pre-op but not quite there. I am sure that by year 2 it is almost back to normal. In one study there was one unlucky person that has higher levels post op than pre-op at 1 year. Another thing that one study noted was the Sleeve and the Bypass have the same reduction levels. The band offers absolutely no ghrelin decrease at all. I'm a year out and I still barely ever feel hungry and to feel hungry I have to go over 12 hours without eating, and at that point anyone would be hungry.

Hello, I haven't been on the site in so long. I had the sleeve in 2010 and I lost 85 pounds and slowly gained back 30. I'm wondering if you decided to do gastric bypass because that's what I have been talking with my doctors about.

Hello. I'm new here. My surgery date is May 10th for the sleeve. I am now leaning towards bypass because I already suffer from bad reflux. I need real advice from the ppl who've "been there" to be able to make up my mind on which direction to go. Height 5'0, Current weight 208. TIA!