Sleeve to Bypass

[barbannn 4]

Hi,

I had a sleeve 12/2009 and was the poster child for success. I lost all my weight, made it to goal, ran two 1/2 marathons...., life was good. Regrettably, much of the weight has crept back. I have gained 40ish lbs and am now at a BMI of 31.5. I am considering converting to bypass. I was wondering if any of you could share this experience? I will be private pay, my insurance does not cover bariatric procedures....

Regrets? How much did you lose with the revisional surgery? Basically I am healthy - no GERD...., having an endoscopy in a few weeks to monitor stretch.... I am thinking resleeving will put me back in the same position in a few years, but bypass has malabsorptive issues.

Thanks for sharing!

[Landensmom 2]

Did do you ever do the revision? I’m thinking about it...

[makemyownluck 785]

I had a sleeve done in 2012. I just revised to bypass in September. I had a high start weight and never made it to goal with my sleeve. About 14 months post op sleeve, I got pregnant, gained weight, had the baby, continued to gain... I got the sleeve due to some other medical issues/complications I was having, not for weight loss. I have lost weight, but it's not as easy as it was with the sleeve. I had a pretty great sleeve recovery and bypass recovery has been rough. food intolerance, hard to digest lots of things, very fickle and sensitive stomach. I am losing weight but the recovery has been completely and unexpectedly different. I'm 2 1/2 months post op now and I still have days where I can't keep anything down.

I didn't revise for weight loss and since it has helped other issues I was having, I have no regrets. If anything, I regret my sleeve. I wish I was still "in tact" and have started to worry more about my future health and risk factors since I did/do have a complication now. It's much more real, that possibility of problems, since I've had them.

It's a tough choice to have elective surgery. I wish you luck in finding the right solution for you!

[Shells_Almost_There 357]

Good luck to you -- and I am also wondering what you ended up doing.

I am preparing for a sleeve to bypass conversion. I had decent success with the sleeve, but had a high starting weight so I got what I could (I believe) and still needed more weight loss. I was a gym rat for about 2 years post op, which actually was pretty fun. Then life intervened and I started to struggle with small gains that I couldn't recover from. So, I'm going back a 2nd time, to get a bypass and then get to goal --- and be smarter about how to manage my stress and the fact that getting older is never going to "help" with a diet plan!

I have heard a number of times that the weight loss is smaller and slower after a conversion, and I'm ok with that. TBH, if I could just redo my sleeve, I would. It was a decent surgery that didn't have a ton of bad effects for me. I expect a lot of trouble with the bypass, because my recovery from the sleeve surgery was just so free and easy, other than almost losing my mind from the boredom of a 2-week liquid diet post-op. This time it will be a 4-week liquid diet, and I expect to be full on Cuckoo's Nest by week 4, LOL.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Shells_Almost_There