Not Losing weight: please help!

veraml · April 23, 2009

i was banded on dec 11 2007. the first week i lost 16lbs. and lost an additional 20lbs. i had my first fill in november 2008 and lost another 10lbs. now in the course of this, i got married in july 008 and 2 weeks later my mom passed away. i know i could have made better food choices, but since being banded i can't eat the quantity i used too. i saw my dr yesterday and i had gained 10lbs back! he will not fill me anymore since i am having som pbing problems. he gave me options: remove the band, remove the band and have bypass or try the sleeve(which he informed insu.in nj will not pay for it). he then told the success rate for weight passed the 2 year mark of being banded in not successful. i don't know what to do. i was afraid to have bypass, afraid of the actual procedure. i don't know what to do. my question is can i beat the statistic he gave me? is there still hope for me to lose this weight? :thumbup:

Nanook · April 23, 2009

Getting advice from someone who never had any luck with the band may sound funny but here goes.

You did lose weight with it in the beginning so you did something right. Then it sounds like you had a lot of stress in your life and to compensate for larger amounts of food you found a way to eat around the band and did and gained it back. If you feel you can get back on track and are able to avoid doing that then you should be able to lose weight again with the band. If you're too tight and chewing your food well, Protein and other healthy foods don't go through then you may need some removed. Otherwise see if you can psyche yourself into eating healthy again and eat as you did in the beginning. If you don't find this to be possible you may want to discuss revising but I wouldn't rush into it without a good try first. Take care Nancy. And I did have mine removed and am trying to revise to RNY in June!

veraml · April 23, 2009

thank you so much for your advice. it's nice to talk to talk to people who understand this. may i ask why you had yours removed? and how long after the removal did you have to waite before getting RNY? did insu. give you any problems? sorry for all the questions.

Nanook · April 24, 2009

A lot of people understand just may not still be hanging around here when it gets to that point of removal etc... Those that do well don't always want to hear negatives and don't want to "jinx" their band situation.

For those of us that don't do well or have complications it can be very frustrating because we want that same result. It doesn't mean we don't work as hard our bodies are just different.

I just never was able to lose the weight and ended up gaining back what I lost before the surgery. It's hard to pin point exactly why but possibly with all my issues I just needed the malabsorption that other procedures have.

I ended up being too tight and vomited too much and ended up with acid reflux which a lot of people get and even without any saline in the band was still having issues. So it was removed. I waited about six months before deciding to revise to another surgery, the RNY. My daughter had RNY a few months after I received my lap band and I've been with her through all the ups and downs but in the long run she's been successful.

I got the lap band in 8/07, was put in the hospital for chest pains in 9/08 (acid reflux) and had it removed 10/08. The removal was covered by insurance and I'm in the waiting stages of approval for the revision to RNY 6/09. As far as I know it should be covered and am crossing my fingers and toes! Good luck to you Nancy.