Band slippage, acid reflux complication

[bullit143 0]

I have been gone for awhile from lapband talk. It's good to be back. You cant beat the support on this forum! This is for Kashia, and all of you others who are suffering form complications from the lap. I have had 2 great years since being banded, with 90 lbs off. I have had some complications over the last year, which have really gotten worse lately. I am in the process of trying to get a lap band revision surgery approved by the insurance, for after having an upper GI, the surgeon thinks the band may have slipped. I too, have tried to understand what has happened, and have at times blamed myself. After much research, here is my conclusion:

I received the adjustable lap band 2 years ago, when it was fairly new to the states, and therefore the stitching techniques were new to the surgeons. I went to a reputable surgeon, who was also the only one in my area approved by my insurance at the time. He did every surgery known to man, including the lap. I found out after the fact, that he had only done 20 lap bands. I am not blaming him, but we all know... practice makes perfect! Anyway, I have found out that MANY lap banders have had a problem with slippage if you were banded in 2004-2005. My new surgeon tells me the stitching technique has now been updated to assist with Band slippage. I have read some guilt stories on this forum where some of you are feeling responsible. I too have had guilt feelings. One thing I KNOW I DID WRONG, ( which I believe is a dirty little secret that many lap banders are too ashamed to talk about is forced vomiting.) Please hear me... I was never bulimic at all before my weight loss. An overeater...YES, but never bulimic. The shear fact is I many times feel I ate the wrong things, or the wrong amounts, and food got stuck and made me miserable, and instead of waiting for food to go down slowly and painfully, I stuck my finger down my throat. Do I think this made by band slip? Well lets just say it didnt help matters! But nobody ever told me to be careful of this... I want to help others of you out there know that this is not good for your band! Lets face it... WE ARE ALL NEW AT THIS! We are all trying to break years of unhealthy habits! The doctors are obviously new at this too. I think band slippage is an individual thing, and it can happen for a number of reasons. I have heard success stories of people getting the band revised and doing just fine. I am praying and staying hopeful and my insurance will approve the revision, and that I will be successful in managing my band better this time. I DO NOT want to lose my band and I AM NOT giving up... for I believe it is a great tool, and has changed my life. One thing I have also learned, is that you have to be careful during stressful times of your life. Your stomach restricts when you are stressed, which can cause your band to be tighter, and I feel while I was nursing my husband back from a near fatal accident, and while I lost a pregnancy and then went through a late in life adoption of my baby, my stress factors contributed to my lap problems.. ANYWAY...I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE ANY FEEDBACK OUT THERE FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE SUFFERED WITH SLIPPAGE, ACID REFLUX, TROUBLE KEEPING SOLIDS DOWN< LOSS OF sleep DUE TO ASPIRATING FOOD AT NIGHT, SEVERE BURPING AND GURGGLING NOICES... all of which I have had. Thanks for your response and support. If you are expereincing any of these, please dont feel alone....

Lets stick together, and we can get through this! We all deserve the healthy life we are pursuing! Take care~ Bullit143

[oneflew 0]

Hey Bullit,

I don't know if I've slipped and am not experiencing those problems, but I really feel for you, and thought maybe bumping this might help get some answers for you. It sure sounds like you were going through a lot of stress. Hang in there.

Samantha

[health1st 1]

Thanks so much for your honesty! It helps us all!

[leatha_g 4]

I truly appreciate your very honest and candid post. Truth is, there are no absolutes about being banded. Perfect bandsters have slippage, erosion, nighttime reflux, esophageal problems and so do 'not so perfect' bandsters. One person may have some influence on their complications while another may have done every single thing by the book. The results can still be the same when it all comes out in the wash and because this is new technology and it is most likely being perfected, we are definitely the group who are living through those learning curves.

It's all well and good while things are going well and my thinking is that a person should really 'get what they came for' in the beginning, because yes, things can change quickly and there doesn't have to be any 'fault'.

When I discuss my band with people these days, I absolutely recommend it, but I no longer repeat those mantras that I did early on about how it will last forever or how it's so much MORE efficient than the bypass, etc. Looking backwards from 3 years out, it has become more of a means to an end, possibly even a temporary one, with some very real possibilities of complications, maybe even requiring removal at some point and very possibly causing long lasting effects on associated organs, etc., ie esophageal dysmotility. Do I love my band?? You betcha! Would I recommend a friend or family member getting it?? Only if they understood and agreed that they would take the responsibility of the maintenance required, ie fills, possible unfills, possible rebanding, possible removal due to more severe complications or changes in anatomy such as esophageal problems.

[cathmo 0]

Hi Bullit143,

I am having these problems.......can't eat solids, acid reflux at night, coughing and loss of sleep at night because of the reflux, LOTS of burping, but I'm having way too much restriction (swelling of the esophagus?). I'm not sure if it's a slip or not... it may be a hiatal hernia. I'm going to see my surgeon in Mexico next week. I'm tired of this..... have been on liquids for about 5 1/2 weeks now (just got banded on May 17) and sometimes can't get liquids down. I may end up losing my band, I sure hope not, but I can't live like this. I'll let you know what happens.

Cathy

ANYWAY...I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE ANY FEEDBACK OUT THERE FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE SUFFERED WITH SLIPPAGE, ACID REFLUX, TROUBLE KEEPING SOLIDS DOWN< LOSS OF sleep DUE TO ASPIRATING food AT NIGHT, SEVERE BURPING AND GURGGLING NOICES... all of which I have had. Thanks for your response and support. If you are expereincing any of these, please dont feel alone....

Lets stick together, and we can get through this! We all deserve the healthy life we are pursuing! Take care~ Bullit143

[Curley 0]

Hi, Im from Aust. where the band is not new, and I had surgery with one of the top surgeons in the world....and I have a slip 3 years out!!! So it is not just related to surgeon skill imoh. No one knows why it happens but it just does. Hopefully my surgeon will go back in & fix it soon. My appointment is in 2 weeks. I am sad because the band no longer works like it did at the beginning. Im either empty or too full with a tiny fill. So the band cant be adjusted as it is now. Im told that revisions are not 100% effective. Something about 2nd time round. But if there is a chance I will take it.

Did you know that many bandsters live very well with a slip & continue to loose weight & it doesnt bother them? Thats why they dont fix a slip just like that. First they have to assess whether its worth the risk to fix it.

My surgeon is proffessor Obrien, and I am hoping he can give me back my old band which I loved.

If we contribute to slippage ourselves (Im told by my surgeon we dont) then I did some pretty stupid things. For a long time I was too tight & pded many times a day. But, maybe that was due to the slip which may have occured years ago. I too was a finger down the throaght pber, as it was quicker and less painful. I remember things going down hill after my last holiday & after a plane trip. I was skin & bones because I couldnt eat anything the whole time. But since then I have had fill removed & am a hunky chunky gal again. Im so sad, but have hope.

I too am not so gung ho to recomend the band like I used to. I am more balanced about the risks involved. I used to think it was perfect. I still think it is the best thing available, but it is not perfect!

I liked things better when I was in my perfect band world!!! I still am grateful for what it can do, even if its not the whole answer. ie I would rather a band that is imperfect than no band at all.

[leatha_g 4]

So sorry to hear of your slip, Curley. I recall you did so very well with your band. :rofl: I truly hope you can save your existing band, because as you said, the second time around/new band has never been the same for me. Good luck to you and please keep us posted!

[Curley 0]

Leatha, this is new for me! I dont think they will need to replace the band, more just reposition it. Apparantly due to possible scaring, the new or repositioned band does not send signals like it once did. I understand that the stomache is not as receptive to signals due to the scaring. So I have to come to terms with the possibility that an operation might be effective & might not. I hold on to the chance that it will work out.

The truth for me is that a band with little restriction is still better than no band, and I will have to adjust accordingly. I begged them to give me the by pass if it gets to that but my surgeon refuses to do this op. anymore. I doubt that I could live with it as I am not a complient type of patient & I couldnt take all the vitamins! :rofl:

Please tell me why your 2nd band is not as good. Do you also think we get band lazy over the years & learn how to eat around it??? So it might appear to not be working, but really we are just getting band savy??

[leatha_g 4]

I think it's some of both. Yes. In my case, I sincerely no longer get the 'stop' signs I used to. My band no longer just shuts down and there are no signs of any sort of 'pain' 'golfball' 'hard stop' 'soft stop', none of that. I never get in the situation of sliming or PBing, ever. But yes, in addition, I have learned that I can once again eat things that I avoided early on and in effect 'eat around the band'.

I really hope they can reposition your band. They wanted to do that with mine, but when they got in there, it broke, so they had to replace it completely.

[Curley 0]

Hmmm, thats what I was afraid of! I too dont get the stop signs now with the slip. They told me that even with fixing the slip, I might not get back to the point of getting stop signals. I guess if you are careful you can live without them!!! But I was one of those letting the band do all the work!

These days when I eat too much I just pd....no warning signs. And the amount I can eat varies all day every day. I feel very out of control.

Are you going to perservere with the band or are you looking at alternatives?

Thanks for your honesty!

[leatha_g 4]

You said - Are you going to perservere with the band or are you looking at alternatives?

My situation is a bit more complicated. Because I have issues with a blood clotting problem, I have to take Coumadin/Warfarin which is a blood thinner. My original band doctor told me he WOULD NOT do GB on me due to the possibility of hemorrhage, were there to be a bleeding event during surgery or post op. :rofl: So, in my mind, I don't have the option of a more invasive surgery.

I don't know if this is definitive answer, it's just my own fear based on what one doctor has said. On the other hand, I have now lost 75lbs, I am in much better health, physically and able to move much more than when I was at 250lbs and really physically ill, SO, I still think I probably COULD manage a bypass (I know I can't be the only person on blood thinners who would have ever asked for it.) Finding the doctor with the experience in handling that sort of situation would be the hard part, I presume.

So, to answer. I guess I'm in lapband limbo purgatory at this moment. I have gone to get fills, immediately the nighttime reflux begins and I'm totally closed up even with the smallest amounts, so I wind up going back the next day and unfilling. This has been the case with my last 3-4 attempts. :faint: I have had the EGD, which showed no erosion and no severe esophagitis, that was in January. I know that because of the way my esophagus 'feels', it is bound to have gone lax/mushy on me and is not doing what it is meant to do in an optimal fashion. I have systemic lupus, this could be a contributing factor, but there was never any indication of this before banding and even then, not until my second banding. I am pretty sure my next step is esophageal manometry and I guess, honestly, I'm holding off on doing that out of fear that they will tell me I need to have yet another surgery to remove my band. :rofl: I have been through 3 surgeries since the day I was banded 3 years ago. Including gallbladder and rebanding/hernia repairs. Each time, I have to discontinue my blood thinning medications for several days, then take injections, then bring my blood thinners back to a therapeutic level post op. This is a pain in the butt, not to mention very hard on the body to go through so many surgeries in such a short amount of time. So, I wait and I watch the scales and I TRY to keep my head where it belongs, food-wise, but it's definitely not as easy as when you have that 'governor' working for you.

Dr C, if you read this... what would you suggest my next step be?

[health1st 1]

leatha & curley, I feel for both of you. Pre-banding, we are all between a rock and a very hard place. You are even in a tigher spot.

By back against the rock, being obese, I was doomed for poor health at some point. I was pretty sure I'd be in wheel chair by the time I was 65. (55 now) And the hard spot of possible complications of gastric weight loss surgery. So far I'd still choose the hard spot however there have been days...........the BP was never an option. At least if you have band complications you can get it out.

You probably know this but there are new bands available since you had your band that seem to be kinder to the stomch. I have the Vangard band and I've never PB'd and so far no problem with any food, even bread and eggs.

Keep us posted and all my best wishes to you.

(**A thought: You may already tried this but for the past few weeks most mornings I just drink the GNC protien drink and sometimes even for lunch. It seems to give my pouch a break and I'm not usually very hungry in the AM. Then later in the day when I eat food it seems to settle better. I have the VG band with no fill. (it seems I have a "stealth" port and they couldn't do a fill. Another challenge for me, so I am avoiding a fill. I don't even want to know that it is flipped or ??)

[health1st 1]

upps, the GB (gastric bypass) was never an option. At least if you have band complications you can get it out.

[NimbleBean 2]

I'm new to all of this - just starting the insurance process for Lap Band surgery early next year. So, I read all this with great interest. I do have a question, what is sliming or PBing?

[leatha_g 4]

You will find this and many other informative answers to this type of question in the following forum. Click on the link to get you there.

http://www.lapbandtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=73

I'm new to all of this - just starting the insurance process for Lap Band surgery early next year. So, I read all this with great interest. I do have a question, what is sliming or PBing?