Update and Gastric Band Removal

It has been a long time since I posted. I haven't lost anything lately with the band, in August I started have extreme intermittent pain in my left side/shoulder, after about 2 weeks it became a constant, finally in Oct I had an UGI done, my band had slipped slightly, so had a complete unfill, pain relieved, had already been talking about band removal and a revision, they removed my band on Dec 30, while the removal was easy, there were complications at the band and tubing had embedded themselves in my liver, so the tubing and band had to be dissected out of my liver. I am at home and recovering and trying to decide if I am going to have a revision in about 6 months or not.

I had the band Jan 2009 did will had some random tightening that stopped me from getting fills. I revised to sleeve Jan 2016. Have hit a normal BMI. 20 pounds lower than I got with the band (144) I wish the sleeve would have been an option when I first started my journey. It is easier than the band. Good luck to you. Hope you have a good recovery

Thank you, my recovery has been uneventful, I finally get to go back to lifting more than 10 lbs and my workouts. I am still undecided on if or which surgery I am going to choose.

I had my lap band in June 2014. My insurance would not cover any other kind of WLS, so I took what I could get and tried to make the best of it. I really believed in it and was really good about my follow up until I got laid off. My insurance with my new job did not cover after care so after a while I couldn't afford to go as often. This was all with True Results, who went out of business. I was never able to eat the high protein like they told me to. All meats make me stuck even now. It is so much easier to get junk to go down and I get extremely hungry which was not supposed to happen. I did my shakes, ate cheese and nuts until I was just sick of it.

I also suffered an extreme loss during the early stages and my depression and anxiety skyrocketed. I have since had no fills or anything for almost 2 years and have no idea what is going on inside of me. I did have a pouching and got the fluid mostly removed and then replaced just before stopping my visits. I have never stopped the mucus and coughing, which is worse now and I am suddenly diagnosed with asthma and am on a daily steroid inhaler due to mucus build up. I am certain that it is a result of the band and my body hating it. I am on daily Zantac and still have GERD.

I just changed to a job with awesome insurance and I pray that I can get this evil thing removed on insurance. I don't want anything to do with revision, I just want my life back. Another good thing about my new benefits is that they have nutrition counselors and incentives for being healthy. I can also get counseling covered to help get me back on track. My son is getting married in June and I wanted so badly to lose before his wedding, but if I can't successfully eat a healthy diet of meat and veggies, how can I do that? I feel like a huge failure, but my stress levels are so high that I need this out so that I don't have a panic attack every time that I have to eat something just in case I get stuck. I travel a lot for my job and I can't count the times that I have had to wait in line on the plane praying that I get in there before I barf all over myself. Or trying to vomit quietly in a public restroom of a busy airport. An added problem is that vomiting like that has led to urinary incontinence from the daily physical stress. I also only ever lost a total of less than 30 ponds and am now only down 15 from my surgery date. It has done me no good and I am constantly sick.

Am I the last person to finally admit that this thing doesn't work, at least for me? I never looked for lap band failures when I was researching this. Guess I just expected that everyone loved it! Now I am seeing so many that had them removed before I was even considering this whole WLS journey. I am desperate, depressed and constantly anxious. Someone tell me that removing this doesn't have to mean that I will be miserable and hate myself for failing!