Decided on DS over RNY

Last May I started sincerely researching wls. I'd been thinking about it for a long time, and familiar with it since a friend had it 25 years ago. I started reading the online research, and joined many forums that cover wls so I could find out how the experience went for many people. I am looking for permanent weight loss. I've lost lots of weight over the years, but the best I ever did was taking fen-phen and lost 90 lbs. Unfortunately, I found it again, and friends to go with it. Some things I could control - I don't have any problem eating healthy, and I know I eat too much when often I could have stopped before I ate so much. A simple change of habit ( eating slowly and chewing more) would help. But there are issues that are bigger than my ability to control them. They are drives - I am driven to eat by inappropriate hunger, and sometimes driven to binge. I saw wls as a mechanism that would give me the control I need to stick to a healthy way of living forever. What I discovered, after several weeks, is that it seemed like an awful lot of the people had that mechanism, tool if you will, but it only seemed to work for a couple of years at most. After that, they were right back to the whole deprivation diet thing, and over and over I read where people were trying this or that new diet, going back to WW or diet pills. Well gee, if those things would work at all, why did they have the surgery in the first place? I have never before been successful at sticking with a diet that left me feeling deprived, and we are very much 'foodies' - we like to cook and try all kinds of wild things. Choosing between being a healthy weight and giving up all that stuff was not an option for me - only because I've had to make that choice in every diet I've ever been on and it didn't go well at all. And if the surgery wasn't going to do the trick after all, then there was truly no hope. I do not feel like we should have to pay a price of a life of deprivation because we have been fat. There are plenty of people who eat well - but they focus on healthy diets, keep treats in their proper place, and don't eat too much period. I'm good with that. I'm not good with the idea that if I don't give up all sweets and fats forever that I don't deserve to be a healthy weight. So I was desperately disappointed- someone else who feels the same as me used the word 'crestfallen' and it's perfect. If WLS meant RNY, it would mean, to me, a toss of the dice. Would I be one of the ones for whom everything fell into place and I could keep it off? Or would I, as with the temporary tool of diet pills, regain the weight when my tool no longer worked as a help? Such a chancy thing for so much risk and sacrifice - especially when long term outcomes would be strictly dependent on my ability to do the same things I'd utterly failed at for the rest of my life. I needed a tool that would help me well beyond the honeymoon period - like forever. I sent a post to the Main Board and told them I had changed my mind about WLS and why. Then someone answered me back and told me about duodenal switch, and how it was so different from RNY and the things that I struggled with are the things that are better about DS. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I need something that no program and no exercise pill can give me - permanant help with control. I won't be having Roux-en-Y because it is a temporary tool, designed to help lose the weight but then it's up to you to go back to depending on (what is to me) a deprivation diet. I have instead chosen duodenal switch for many reasons: 1) The post-surgical stomach is left fully functional. The pylorus is left intact, and digestion takes place in the smaller stomach and duodenum in exactly the same way that it takes place in any other stomach. This allows for better digestion and better nutrient absorption. Because there is no stoma and digestion is exactly the same as it was before, there are no marginal ulcers, no blind pouches (where bad stuff could happen but couldn't be seen without laparoscopy), and no stretched, clogged, or closed up stoma issues. There is also no dumping. (See my comment above about not deserving punishment for enjoying a treat.) 2) What is removed from the stomach during the gastric sleeve portion of the surgery is tissue that produces a hormone called ghrelin, which is a hunger hormone responsible in some part for hunger when you just shouldn't be hungry. Less grhelin helps reduce the appetite. When that tissue is gone, there is that much less ghrelin being produced in your stomach henceforth. 3) The smaller stomach is still bigger than the RNY pouch, and this, in combination with the ability to digest almost anything without troubles, allows for a much wider variety of foods and a little more in volume, reducing malnutrition problems. This is what allows some DSers to get their 100g+ of protein without supplement shakes, which is a plus if you can't bear the taste. 5) The switch and bypass portion of the BPD/DS is designed to cause malabsorption of up to 80% of fat calories, which helps mantain weight over the long term. You are not restricted to a low-fat diet; in fact, you are in no way encouraged on a a low fat diet, because whatever fats you take in are your only dietary ( non-supplemented ways) to get the fat soluble vitamins. 6) Other than making sure you get 100g+ of protein and your 64z of water per day, the only biggest nutritional concerns for DS are calcium and vitamins A and D. While most surgeons prescribe ADEK's some are beginning to just prescribe A and D because few patients are showing up with deficiencies in E or K. 7) Read the Main Forum here, and you'll see LOTS of complaints about weight regain from RNYers, or people who talk about it being a struggle to keep it off. Read the DS forum, and you won't find anyone talking about special diets or fighting to keep the weight from coming back. DS has a better long-term success rate than any other bypass procedure. Denise in Ark