Hi, Everyone....I think I'll be the contrarian voice here...

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David--

I am so sorry for your health issues. I hope that you have a full recovery and get all the compensation you deserve.

On that note, I don't mean to be a bitch. By any means. I am scheduled for surgery May the 9th. It took me two years to decide to get this surgery, and I weighed all the risks I could find. Your story makes it sound like the risks are being underestimated. David, I'm a hypochondriac. Plain and simple. I believe at times that I have every disease in the world and it took this long for me to work up the courage for this surgery. I worked out at a gym, got a personal trainer, dieted, change styles, I have hunger issues. Just that. My hunger never stops. I viewed the Lap band as far less invasive than the alternatives. My BMI is around 50.

David, I am tearing up right now. I will encourage you to perhaps move this thread to the Complications forum. I read it to welcome you, now, I can't breathe. I'm having a panic attack. Luckily, I have Lorazepam. Seriously, I don't mean to be a bitch, but a lot of us are just plain F--KING scared of this surgery and it seems to be the only thing to save our lives. I am doing this for my future and your discouragement has made it just that much harder for me.

I am sorry for my cruelty.

Hi Nicole I say take a deep breathe and take his story with a grain of salt. We don't know if he really is telling the truth, this is the internet after all. Also sometimes you get what you paid for - a cheaper doctor or one you didn't research for malpractice issues. Or he just has the worst luck. They've been doing the lapband in Australia for 15 years and have research from that far back. The revisions that his 2nd surgeon does are not necessarily from mistakes, some people choose the lapband and then either cheat - ie milkshakes and such or they just decide its not what they imagined it. It can be disappointing to people to loose "just" 1-2 lbs a week as opposed to the larger quicker gastric bypass weight loss. I actually thought about it 5 years ago when I watched a documentary on someone who had the lapband done and one on a woman with the gastric bypass. I always thought I'd do that by the time i'm 35 if I don't loose the weight. A co-worker got it done last year and it took me 6 months and a lot of questions to decide I was interested in it now. My husband decided that he was too. It still took us 6 more months to do all our tests and work through our feelings before I got it done Feb 28th and my husband on March 6th. I felt better within a week, no more wheezing. My husband did have referred shoulder pain from the gas for a week but as soon as he started taking Tums that went away. Neither one of us regret it and we're doing fine. Where I work a lot of people are either doing the lapband or the gastric bypass. Both are tools to help you relearn your eating habits. You also need to look at why you got to that point so you can learn not to fall into old habits or start new bad ones. Good luck next month!