Sleeve to Bypass revision weight loss success?

[Tmusselman 9]

I can't get my old username to work so I had to create a new account but I used to post on here a lot. A little background on me. I had the gastric sleeve in July 2014. I never felt I had the restriction I was supposed to from this surgery. When everyone else was posting they couldn't eat a whole egg or yogurt, I was thinking are they nuts. I could eat that and not feel any fullness at all. My starting weight was 290 and through tracking and monitoring everything I ate, my lowest I got down to was 210 and it took over a year to get there. And then I stopped and got stuck there for months and months. Nothing worked, decreasing calories, increasing calories, changing exercise, nothing. Every time I visited my doctor's office I mentioned my lack of restriction and their advise was "just keep eating your Protein and tracking your food". Honestly, I felt like I was doing a weight watchers program again because the lack of restriction I had.

Fast forward to now and I have regained 40 of the pounds I lost. For the most part, I'm still watching what I eat, but when you have the ability to consume almost a full entree when you go out to eat, it makes it hard to stay on the program. In the fall of 2016, I finally got my surgeon to check the size of my pouch and he stated it's enlarged and I now have a hernia too. After going through everything in 2016 for a revision, i found out my insurance had a one bariatric surgery per lifetime benefit and would't budge on approving it. At this point it was too late for me to switch to my husbands insurance for 2017. I now have finally switched to his insurance and hoping the revision can finally happen.

My surgeon is stating he can either do a resleeve or switch me to a gastric bypass. I choose the sleeve because I didn't like the idea of all the Vitamins that are required with the bypass surgery and some of the negative long-term effects I heard about. I'm now considering the bypass because I don't want to get resleeved and be back in the same situation a couple years from now.

Has anyone had the sleeve to bypass revision for weight loss? I realize weight loss will be slower with a revision. Can you advise what kind of success you had after the revision or any issues you are having afterward?

Thanks for all that reply.

On another note, I'm not looking for "this is just a tool and just because you can eat a full entree doesn't mean you should" replies. If I had a sleeve that worked like it was supposed to, I probably wouldn't be posting this.

[Tmusselman 9]

Wanted to add one more question. How long were you off work for a revision from sleeve to bypass?

[jackersducky 17]

I was in the same situation and i'm finally getting revised to RNY on 1/30. I had to jump through all the hoops again. Had my Sleeve done in Delaware and when i moved to Washington State my new Bariatric Dr said i should never had the sleeve in the first place on account of my Diabetes. I also had no restriction and gained all of my weight back. I had a few tests done and it showed that my pouch was also made too large. Not that i stretched it but just cut wrong it was essentially the same size as most normal stomachs so either i had a huge stomach before or it was not cut right. I didn't have a choice on wether to resleeve or do RNY i had to go to RNY. My Sleeve also gave me a bad case of GERD and Bypass is supposed to help with it. I'm sorry i don't have any stats to provide you but i wanted to let you know that you are not alone

[terrif 4]

I had the sleeve to bypass revision in June; but not for weight loss. I had a major hiatal hernia repair with the sleeve and 2 1/2 years later started having trouble eating without getting nauseous. Endoscopy revealed severe gerd and hiatal hernia return. Surgeon gave me the option to do another hernia repair and tidy up the stomach from the hernia pulling on it, or convert to bypass which is more successful at relieving gerd. I never wanted bypass in the first place, so chose the repair. One year later, my gerd was so severe that I couldn’t eat and no medications helped. So, I ended up with a bypass. I have lost about 40 more pounds and gerd is gone, but I have difficulty getting food down. With three surgeries, the scar tissue has caused a stricture. Had the EGD last week with the balloon to open it up a bit. No big deal to the do procedure.

[Tmusselman 9]

On 1/23/2018 at 12:44 PM, jackersducky said:

I was in the same situation and i'm finally getting revised to RNY on 1/30. I had to jump through all the hoops again. Had my Sleeve done in Delaware and when i moved to Washington State my new Bariatric Dr said i should never had the sleeve in the first place on account of my Diabetes. I also had no restriction and gained all of my weight back. I had a few tests done and it showed that my pouch was also made too large. Not that i stretched it but just cut wrong it was essentially the same size as most normal stomachs so either i had a huge stomach before or it was not cut right. I didn't have a choice on wether to resleeve or do RNY i had to go to RNY. My Sleeve also gave me a bad case of GERD and Bypass is supposed to help with it. I'm sorry i don't have any stats to provide you but i wanted to let you know that you are not alone

Thanks for the reply and good luck with your revision!

[HIGHLY_FAVORED 4]

Same I'm having the same surgery done and the same date

[Shells_Almost_There 357]

I converted from sleeve to bypass this past Tuesday. I also considered a resleeve, but the surgeon felt that I wouldn't get to my goal weight without switching to bypass. I am now recovering and it has gone quite well. I think having been through the entire recovery process once helps the second time (even though there were a lot of differences during post-op with this surgeon). When I woke up from surgery, it was really rough - so much tummy pain and major gas pains in my left shoulder. My new pouch kept having what I would describe as spasms and it really didn't like ice chips. I had a 2-night hospital stay this time, and I feel like that made a lot of difference in how I'm feeling today.

Best of luck to you! I'm hoping to share some excellent weight loss experiences in the coming months!

[Tmusselman 9]

2 hours ago, Shells_Almost_There said:

I converted from sleeve to bypass this past Tuesday. I also considered a resleeve, but the surgeon felt that I wouldn't get to my goal weight without switching to bypass. I am now recovering and it has gone quite well. I think having been through the entire recovery process once helps the second time (even though there were a lot of differences during post-op with this surgeon). When I woke up from surgery, it was really rough - so much tummy pain and major gas pains in my left shoulder. My new pouch kept having what I would describe as spasms and it really didn't like ice chips. I had a 2-night hospital stay this time, and I feel like that made a lot of difference in how I'm feeling today.

Best of luck to you! I'm hoping to share some excellent weight loss experiences in the coming months!

Thanks for the reply, it's nice to know I'm not the only one going through this. Please keep updating everyone on the board with your progress, I bet you'll do great

[HIGHLY_FAVORED 4]

Thanks I'm glad your doing good! I'm a little excited so I just decided to work all the way up to the day of surgery.

[Mattymatt 491]

On 1/12/2018 at 9:54 AM, Tmusselman said:

I can't get my old username to work so I had to create a new account but I used to post on here a lot. A little background on me. I had the gastric sleeve in July 2014. I never felt I had the restriction I was supposed to from this surgery. When everyone else was posting they couldn't eat a whole egg or yogurt, I was thinking are they nuts. I could eat that and not feel any fullness at all. My starting weight was 290 and through tracking and monitoring everything I ate, my lowest I got down to was 210 and it took over a year to get there. And then I stopped and got stuck there for months and months. Nothing worked, decreasing calories, increasing calories, changing exercise, nothing. Every time I visited my doctor's office I mentioned my lack of restriction and their advise was "just keep eating your Protein and tracking your food". Honestly, I felt like I was doing a weight watchers program again because the lack of restriction I had.

Fast forward to now and I have regained 40 of the pounds I lost. For the most part, I'm still watching what I eat, but when you have the ability to consume almost a full entree when you go out to eat, it makes it hard to stay on the program. In the fall of 2016, I finally got my surgeon to check the size of my pouch and he stated it's enlarged and I now have a hernia too. After going through everything in 2016 for a revision, i found out my insurance had a one bariatric surgery per lifetime benefit and would't budge on approving it. At this point it was too late for me to switch to my husbands insurance for 2017. I now have finally switched to his insurance and hoping the revision can finally happen.

My surgeon is stating he can either do a resleeve or switch me to a gastric bypass. I choose the sleeve because I didn't like the idea of all the Vitamins that are required with the bypass surgery and some of the negative long-term effects I heard about. I'm now considering the bypass because I don't want to get resleeved and be back in the same situation a couple years from now.

Has anyone had the sleeve to bypass revision for weight loss? I realize weight loss will be slower with a revision. Can you advise what kind of success you had after the revision or any issues you are having afterward?

Thanks for all that reply.

On another note, I'm not looking for "this is just a tool and just because you can eat a full entree doesn't mean you should" replies. If I had a sleeve that worked like it was supposed to, I probably wouldn't be posting this.

Don't rule out gastric bypass as it is still considered the gold standard for weight loss surgery. You know that you could do the gastric bypass and only take one Vitamin 4x per day. The Vitamin is called optisource and it comes in an orange flavor that's pretty good. If you're going to undergo surgery again, this might be the best route for you. There aren't really any negative long term effects. The stories you read about need to be taken with a grain of sand. Less than 1% of people that undergo gastric bypass have long term problems. You read about those more than the successes so you don't get an adequate perspective. I am going the gastric bypass route because it is the *gold* standard and I am willing to make the changes necessary so that I am never obese again.

[Tmusselman 9]

On 1/26/2018 at 4:29 PM, Mattymatt said:

Don't rule out gastric bypass as it is still considered the gold standard for weight loss surgery. You know that you could do the gastric bypass and only take one Vitamin 4x per day. The Vitamin is called optisource and it comes in an orange flavor that's pretty good. If you're going to undergo surgery again, this might be the best route for you. There aren't really any negative long term effects. The stories you read about need to be taken with a grain of sand. Less than 1% of people that undergo gastric bypass have long term problems. You read about those more than the successes so you don't get an adequate perspective. I am going the gastric bypass route because it is the *gold* standard and I am willing to make the changes necessary so that I am never obese again.

I did not know there was an all in one vitamin, that's great to know. Thanks for your input and good luck with your surgery.

[terrif 4]

With my sleeve surgery in 10/2012 and my gastric bypass revision in 6/2017, all my Vitamin intake is the same. I also use the chewable optisource 4/day and add Vitamin D and B12. That is exactly the same Vitamins that I was prescribed and took for 4+ years after the sleeve. MY blood work ups have always been fine. I too was scared about the malabsorption risks. I am very careful to get nutrients daily through good food choices. I usually can’t get enough food to meet my needs, so still do one Meal Replacement Protein Drink a day just to make sure I’m getting everything I need. I lost 75 lbs with the sleeve and had a hard time keeping it off. My revision to bypass was for acid reflux problems, not for additional weight loss, but have lost another 45 lbs. since the revision in June.

I mentioned in an earlier reply that I did have to have a balloon procedure a couple weeks ago to open up the area between my stomach and small intestine where scar tissue had built up from multiple surgeries. This was so that food would go down easier. That procedure was really easy and worst case scenario is I’ll need to do it one more time as they only open it a little at a time to ensure they don’t tear the stomach where it was stapled. I’d still do the revision in a heartbeat and I’m not young (62).

[GmaDiana 81]

I had Gastric sleeve in 2011.Went from 290 to 220.Then gained 20 lbs back.Due to severe acid reflux and failed hiatal hernia I had revision to bypass in fall of 2016.I have done well with no complications.I was 240 when had the revision now I weigh 182.So happy I had it done.This was with our exercise.Now trying to add exercise to lose more.

[ellie123 374]

About to do a Sleeve to RNY on Aug 22nd as well. This is for weight regain due to a bad Sleeve surgery 3 years ago. Tests revealed that the Sleeve was made too big and mishapen like an hour glass, which did not set me up for success at all. So I'm being revised to RNY which will also take care of the GERD and they will fix the stricture I have and Haital hernia. Nervous and very cautious about getting excited...I really would like to know the true differences between the two procedures. Will this never ending hunger ever go away? Is it true you loose weight so much slower etc. Would love to hear more about how you all are doing...

[MissPoodle 58]

I had a sleeve done in 2015. My revision to bypass is on 19th sept.
I have developed something similar to a stricture and worsening nausea when i eat.
I'm glad you posted this because I'm really interested in hearing about other people's experiences too.


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