revision from band to bypass

[wish to be slim 15]

hi all i had a gastric band fitted in nov 2012 and have had numerous problems , fills and defills and even a period of 18months with nothing in my band , i decided to start again in april this year and have fills but having got to 5mls have had to have two defills putting me now at 4mls . i never know from one day to the next how my eating will be , one day i can be pretty ok and the next i may struggle with a yoghurt . i have after some time enquired about revision surgery from my band to the gastric bypass and have plucked up the courage to book a consultation to discuss it properly , i am also seeing my gp this coming tuesday with a view of mentioning it to her amongst other things . i have struggled with my weight pretty much all my life and not a day goes by when it is not in the forefront of my mind , i also suffer with depression , weight being a large part of that since being subjected to bullying re my weight at senior school . So sad am i my favourites tv programmes are about weight loss , especially dr now !

can anyone tell me of their experience with revision in this way , what type of things do you manage to eat ? do you struggle with salads and fruit like me ? is it a case of you plate is a side plate size or smaller but no food groups are a major issue like with me , sorry if this all sounds silly things to ask but i struggle with the heathiest of things which is just miserable and mad , any tips , experiences and advice would be most grateful . thankyou x

[elcee 3,341]

Since my revision my diet is far healthier. I can eat chops and steak and chicken and they don’t get stuck. Salads and fruit are easy.

I eat off a small side plate and that is enough to satisfy me. When I’ve had enough I feel it as full ness in my stomach not a disgusting pressure in the throat and chest.

To me the way the bypass works and the sensations when eating are what we all believed it would be like with a band but we all know the truth about that.

It gives me the ability to be able to eat small amounts of healthy foods and be satisfied.

[mybuddha2be 12]

i get my revision from sleeve to bypass on tues if you want to keep in touch i'll tell u all about it.

[wish to be slim 15]

hi elcee , thankyou so much for your response , now im on my laptop i can see all your info , your doing well , i wish you luck in completing your journey , if you will i would love to hear again with an update at sometime , will update too .

hi mybudda2be . thankyou for your response also , yes i would love you to keep in touch , i guess you did not get the results you had hoped for either ? I have been to my daughters today for a bbq , salad and lean meat but could barely eat before feeling discomfort , best discribed as a feeling of pressure/pain in the centre of my chest ,i am so sick of it when i try so hard to be healthy :]

[elcee 3,341]

Off to my surgeon today for my 6month postop checkup

[wish to be slim 15]

Hope your checkup has gone well today . Did it take long for your recovery ? if you work did you need much time off ? I am at the drs tomorrow and intend to discuss with her my thoughts , i am unlikely to get it done on nhs if it happens so probably looking at self funding as with band , im prepared for that just think a chat with my dr before consultation in sept is a good thing . I guess you have a few weeks of liquid /soft etc to do before going onto normal food to give you insides time to heal , hope todays check went well for you x

[elcee 3,341]

17 hours ago, wish to be slim said:

Hope your checkup has gone well today . Did it take long for your recovery ? if you work did you need much time off ? I am at the drs tomorrow and intend to discuss with her my thoughts , i am unlikely to get it done on nhs if it happens so probably looking at self funding as with band , im prepared for that just think a chat with my dr before consultation in sept is a good thing . I guess you have a few weeks of liquid /soft etc to do before going onto normal food to give you insides time to heal , hope todays check went well for you x

Yes the checkup went well, surgeon is happy with me and doesn’t want to see me for 12 months. I do have another checkup with the physician before that though.

My recovery took a while. I had the op, woke up in recovery and was fine, minimal pain which was well controlled. A couple of hours later I was sitting up in bed enjoying the ice that I was now allowed to suck when I felt myself fading. Shouted to the nursing staff that they should bring the crash cart although as I was hooked up to BP monitors etc I think they would have come running anyway. BP was at approx 75/45. I then had the ECG machine attached , I remember being horribly cold and of course that made it worse. ED docs were called who were ultrasounding me as they were looking for a bleed.Nurse was poking me like a pincushion desperately trying to get a cannula into my collapsed veins. They cross matched and ordered me blood and decided I needed to go back to the OR. All I could think the whole time was this is it, I’m going to die!

Got taken to the OR, scrawled a sig for the anaesthetist but my surgeon said it was ok if I wasn’t up to it he didn’t need me to sign again.

Next thing I remember is waking up in ICU thinking I’m alive, yay.Had those sock things on that inflate and deflate and had a lovely nurse.

I had been given 2 units of blood in theatre and got given another 2 late that day. That in itself is a bit scary especially when your temp starts spiking.

The whole experience left me feeling like I had been hit by a truck! Luckily in the second op they had catheterised me so I didn’t have to get up. The next thing that happened was approx 5 nights later I started wheezing and feeling like I couldn’t breath,it was horrible I hardly slept all night and was by now convinced that I was going to die! Luckily when my physician did his rounds in the morning he ordered the staff to nebulise me. NB. I am not normally asthmatic.Went home that day.

Hubby works , I don’t so from then on I was home alone. Still felt pretty yucky but no real pain or issues drinking. I started feeling like I was unbalanced with no idea why. I had to get a friend to take me for my 2 week dietician app as I didn’t feel capable of driving.

The weird unbalanced feeling lasted approx a month. I saw my GP about it a couple of times. I was given 2 lots of antibiotics, decongestants etc and none of them worked. The thing that finally seemed to kick it was a nasal spray! So I’m not sure if it was a side effect of the anaesthesia, an infection or an imbalance in the ears due to fat loss there ( look it up, it is a thing)

Since is then I have been fine.

What appears to have happened is that when the trocars were inserted one must have hit a minor blood vessel which was bleeding in between the layers of the stomach. There was nothing of any consequence found when I was taken for the second surgery, I didn’t have a leak or anything. When I got home my stomach looked like I needed to be taken to Charlie’s dejuicing room, I even joked about that with my surgeon.

Do I regret the surgery, no. Would I have regretted it if I had died , well probably not as I would have been dead but my family might have!

[wish to be slim 15]

wow you have had a bit of a journey so far then , glad all ok now though and your doing ok x