Poll-Who still has their original band and port??

Original band and port!  18 months.  84 pounds gone.  NO PROBLEMS!  Love my band and would do it again.

Yes to both, I am 2 years post op today!

Thanks for posting this thread... I'm scheduled for surgery on the 29th and was starting to get nervous reading in the other forums about people who weren't happy with the band.  I have 3 friends who have it though and have grilled them incessantly over the past few months while I've been considering it.  None of them are the type to pull punches, so I had been feeling pretty good about the decision and feel as though I have realistic expectations about what it will and won't do.  You know how it goes though, you poke around long enough, you'll find people complaining about a poor experience and that's all it takes to make you 2nd guess it.

I know I have to do something about my weight, and there's no way in hell I'm letting anyone revise my innards.  I'm fine with adding a device that can be removed if I have a problem, but I can't bring myself to do anything irreversible like the RNY, VSG, DS, etc.

You and those like you are exactly why I posted this.  No matter what, the "nay-sayers" will still try to deter you. 

Yes, 5 years 2 months

Yes to both!

2 years today 

I had lapband surgery about 9 years ago. I had a horrible time immediately after surgery, went into shock, don't remember the first week very well.

Six months of chronic pain led me to my doc's office, begging for help. He told me to "get a hobby," so I sought out a different doctor who did a fluoroscopy X ray and told me that my stomach was twisted into a Figure 8, intestines kinked and I was septic.

REPOSITIONING SURGERY was done immediately, but didn't resolve the chronic pain.
Numerous (15-20+) fills and unfills in an attempt to move the position of my stomach and band away from my diaphragm at least a minute amount. Didn't work at all.

Had chronic pain "treatments".. corticosteroid injections directly into shoulder joint (did NOT work... pain wasn't orthopedic in nature. It was referred from diaphragmatic damage.) The injections were VERY painful.

Doctors looked into a nerve block but decided that it might cause me to stop breathing, so I was put on Fentanyl patches. These patches were too strong and caused me to be unable to even walk down the hall to my bathroom. I had to crawl. I was given Morphine, which also had no effect on the chronic pain.

After 2 years of daily, nonstop pain, I could not even lift my head off my bed and I opted for band removal, in spite of my belief that the pain was here to stay and I would "just get fat again."

BAND REMOVAL

Fat again.
Happy to be alive.

Wow, that's quite the horror story!  Why on earth would the doctor who did the surgery tell you to "get a hobby" instead of actually investigating what the problem is?  Is he still practicing?

He was a bad surgeon and a dick of a person. Right after my surgery, I was in more pain than I'd ever been in my life. He was peeved and admonished me, saying, "You just had surgery, what do you expect?!" And then he shoved an NG tube in my nose without any lubrication, tearing my nostril in the process. Oh, and I got my period during this whole thing so I was bleeding all over, but was in so much pain that I didn't really register this fact. He parked me in the hallway of the hospital and I was left to sit there, bawling my head off, by myself. A nurse found me and helped me.

He IS still practicing.  Hopefully with some practice, he'll actually know his ass from a hole in the ground some day.

The doctor who helped me was in Chicago and even he was disgusted by the first doctor's behavior. I'm so grateful for my second doctor. I wouldn't be here today if I had relied on the first 'doctor.'

4 years 9 months

All original parts!

Kootenay