Food for thought

After coming home from a SADS (San Antonio DS) luncheon (and yes, we had dessert AND I took pictures) and logging on here and seeing the thread started today by bjd44522 http://tinyurl.com/37g5mp my thoughts and that thread seem to be running in the same direction.

I was driving and thinking about the lovely ladies I met with today and how our little group has grown to 5 of us who meet regularly (just 2 of us in Feb.), with 2 more trying to make it sooner or later. It's my hope that someday we will become better organized and hold "real" support meetings. You know, surgeons, speakers, and all that stuff. Right now we're all in different stages of our journey's and share openly our experiences and questions. It's really nice.

Then all of a sudden it struck me. 3 of the 5 of us are REVISIONS FROM THE RNY, edited to add: one is a second time revision.  She had the RNY, then a revision to RNY (had it fixed??? question? or did it just fail again?  and now is just back from Brazil with revison to the DS) 1 is a revision from the old stomach stapling and only 1 first time WLP who choose right the first time out. (Scubagirl)

In addition to the 5 here in SA, there are 2 more women in our local area with whom we hope to meet with sooner rather than later. BettyBoop and Kayla......1 out of the 2 of them are a REVISION AS WELL.....

Coincidence? I think not. I know there are those who will say this isn't a study and it's true. It's not a study. 7 people do not make a study. But, to the best of my knowledge it is a fair sampling of the DS'rs in the area, as I've reached out on the TX board and to the yahoo groups looking for others in the San Antonio area and while I've heard of another woman who had the DS who is from here, she is retired and travels extensively in her RV all over the country, and I have never heard from her. I do not know her particulars, whether or not she is a revision to the DS or a first time WLP.

Thoughts, comments?

I'm delighted that you are so pleased with your DS revision.   From all I've read, it does look like a very good procedure.  I don't want to burst your logic bubble on DS being superior.  But you do need to consider is that the RNY surgery was done many many many times more than the DS surgery.  (And for a longer time)   So it's only reasonable to assume that the vast majority of people ready for revisions now had the RNY originally.   It's just math.   Doesn't really relate to the relative outcome of either surgery.  You would need to contact a fixed number of people who had RNY and an equal number of DS patients who had surgery at the approximate same time...and find out from THAT GROUP about their revision status. None-the-less, the important part is that even though WLS will fail for a certain percentage of people....medical science has many good options to continue the success!  Personally I'm excited about Stomaphyx even though there are NO statistics on the long term outcome (since it's so new).  And what I'm especially thrilled with is  boards like this to share ideas and information.    Lorri

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.  It wasn't meant as a study or as a slam to any one particular procedure, just my observation on the sad way 5 women had to undergo risky revision surgery.

I considered StomafX but at my age, I just didn't want anything else to hinder me from living a full, active life.  I figured if the stoma enlarged once, what assurance would I have that it wouldn't enlarge again?  I do appreciate the fact that it is less invasive and to be sure, I knew I would be undergoing a much riskier surgery than the first time.....but in my opinion, it was the only way I knew I wouldn't have to worry about regain and have that debilitating back pain (read my profile to see how horrible it was.......3 years of narcotics that wouldn't touch the pain) 

The DS wasn't a new surgery when I decided on it.  It's been around over 20 years.  It just doesn't have as many surgeon who do it, hence, the public at large knows next to nothing about it.