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Topic: RE: Utahn Introductions
Hi Maria,
What a great idea to do introductions!
Kerry Johnson here, I'm 56 have 4 married children and 4 grand daughters and another gandbaby due in July. My daughter Tracy works for TOSH in Murray isn't that a coincidence.
I've lived in St. George and Santa Clara my whole life so I'm one of the very few natives down here. I'm an electrical contractor and we do work in Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California.
I had VGB back in 1980, which the staple line broke down on and last September I got a revision to DS and I'm lovin my DS. I've lost 65 pounds so far and I feel GREAT!
Well now you know a little of the dirt on me,
Kerry
What a great idea to do introductions!
Kerry Johnson here, I'm 56 have 4 married children and 4 grand daughters and another gandbaby due in July. My daughter Tracy works for TOSH in Murray isn't that a coincidence.
I've lived in St. George and Santa Clara my whole life so I'm one of the very few natives down here. I'm an electrical contractor and we do work in Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California.
I had VGB back in 1980, which the staple line broke down on and last September I got a revision to DS and I'm lovin my DS. I've lost 65 pounds so far and I feel GREAT!
Well now you know a little of the dirt on me,
Kerry
Topic: RE: closed topic
Have you ever been able to lose a substantial amount of weight and keep it off? For how long?
Topic: RE: closed topic
If you want a "reversible" surgery, the DS is a far better choice. That band is not as easy to remove as you think it might be. In the DS, you could, if necessary, have the intestinal changes reversed, and you would be left with a small-to-normal sized stomach with all intact anatomy.
Topic: Utahn Introductions
Just wanted to say that it's great to see more Utahns posting on the Utah board! I knew there were more of us out there, but thought we must be a shy bunch 
Maybe we can do an introduction of ourselves.
I am Maria, I was born and raised here in Salt Lake. I work for Intermountain Healthcare, and have done so for nearly 25 years. I am a "Voice Analyst", which means that I adminster our telephone system for a hospital. I am single, and have a dog (Ty) and 2 cats (Midget and Molly). I love movies and doing digital scrapbooking. I enjoy watching 24 and Lost, on tv.
I have been overweight since the age of 8 and clinically obese since around 12/13. I have yo-yo's a great deal through diet attempts, etc. The lowest weight as an adult, though, was 218, which I weighed for half a minute doing Phen/Fen. I not so gracefully gained all the weight lost from the episode in record time, with a few more pounds to boot.
I am hoping and praying to have WLS this year (spring or summer if at all possible). I have chosen to pursue the Duodenal Switch, after hours and hours and hours of research (over the past 3 months) I feel it is the best surgical choice for me, for many reasons, mostly because it is something I know that I can live with and excel with. I just wish the red-tape stuff moved faster.
Anyhoo, that is a bit about me, please join me in introducing yourselves!
Maybe we can do an introduction of ourselves.I am Maria, I was born and raised here in Salt Lake. I work for Intermountain Healthcare, and have done so for nearly 25 years. I am a "Voice Analyst", which means that I adminster our telephone system for a hospital. I am single, and have a dog (Ty) and 2 cats (Midget and Molly). I love movies and doing digital scrapbooking. I enjoy watching 24 and Lost, on tv.
I have been overweight since the age of 8 and clinically obese since around 12/13. I have yo-yo's a great deal through diet attempts, etc. The lowest weight as an adult, though, was 218, which I weighed for half a minute doing Phen/Fen. I not so gracefully gained all the weight lost from the episode in record time, with a few more pounds to boot.
I am hoping and praying to have WLS this year (spring or summer if at all possible). I have chosen to pursue the Duodenal Switch, after hours and hours and hours of research (over the past 3 months) I feel it is the best surgical choice for me, for many reasons, mostly because it is something I know that I can live with and excel with. I just wish the red-tape stuff moved faster.
Anyhoo, that is a bit about me, please join me in introducing yourselves!
Duodenal Switch 4/29/09
Loving my DS!!
Loving my DS!!
Topic: RE: closed topic
You sound just like me...I had the lapband for all the same reasons, but didn't account for having a foreign object in my body. I had the band placed in '05 and I had a revision to DS in Oct of '08.
I hated (HATED) getting fills. My port was right above my belly button and it seemed to take them forever, jabbing around with a needle, to find the port. I had fills by 5 different doctors and all of them had trouble finding the port. My last experience was in June of '08 when the doctors simply couldn't hit it. I wound up having a meltdown on the table feeling like such a total failure. I guess with the band I lost a total of about 70lbs....when in actuality I needed to lose a lot more.
When Dr. K went in to remove the band during my DS surgery, he discovered that my port had flipped around almost backwards. I assume it was from the doctors trying to do the fill repeatedly hitting the sides and twisting it but I'll never know.
I'm finally feeling good again at about 3 months out and I like my DS but by FAR the best thing to come out of surgery was getting that damned lapband out of my body.
I hated (HATED) getting fills. My port was right above my belly button and it seemed to take them forever, jabbing around with a needle, to find the port. I had fills by 5 different doctors and all of them had trouble finding the port. My last experience was in June of '08 when the doctors simply couldn't hit it. I wound up having a meltdown on the table feeling like such a total failure. I guess with the band I lost a total of about 70lbs....when in actuality I needed to lose a lot more.
When Dr. K went in to remove the band during my DS surgery, he discovered that my port had flipped around almost backwards. I assume it was from the doctors trying to do the fill repeatedly hitting the sides and twisting it but I'll never know.
I'm finally feeling good again at about 3 months out and I like my DS but by FAR the best thing to come out of surgery was getting that damned lapband out of my body.
Topic: RE: closed topic
You sound just like I did, four years ago. I took out a loan as a self-pay, to get my Lapband. It almost broke us to pay for it. I lost 70 lbs. or so, then one day I woke up and couldn't eat or drink (literally, it happened overnight). I spent over $300, PER VISIT, to get filled/unfilled, trying to find that "sweet spot" again. I finally had so many problems with throwing up (called PB'ing by bandsters, because the food has not been digested), that I had a complete unfill two years ago. I gained back most of the weight I lost during that time - I was able to eat processed foods, but could not eat fruits & veggies, or meat (would always get stuck, no matter how much I chewed them). I'm telling you this so that you don't go into your surgery thinking it's going to be the perfect fix. No surgery is.
I also chose the band for one of the same reasons you are: I wanted something reversable, in case something went wrong. I was scared to death of anything "permanent." What I failed to take into account was the whole "foreign object in my body" thing. I had the band removed in November of last year (at the tune of $5.750), because I just couldn't stand it anymore. I am hoping to get the DS surgery (which IS approved by my insurance - so I don't have to worry about finding aftercare, and excess associated costs), sometime this year.
I'm certainly not trying to bash you in anyway concerning your decision. I just wanted to give you a "former bandster's" story, in hopes that you understand what your getting into with the Band. Some people do great with it, lot's of other's do not. Best of luck with your surgery.
Dani
I also chose the band for one of the same reasons you are: I wanted something reversable, in case something went wrong. I was scared to death of anything "permanent." What I failed to take into account was the whole "foreign object in my body" thing. I had the band removed in November of last year (at the tune of $5.750), because I just couldn't stand it anymore. I am hoping to get the DS surgery (which IS approved by my insurance - so I don't have to worry about finding aftercare, and excess associated costs), sometime this year.
I'm certainly not trying to bash you in anyway concerning your decision. I just wanted to give you a "former bandster's" story, in hopes that you understand what your getting into with the Band. Some people do great with it, lot's of other's do not. Best of luck with your surgery.
Dani
Topic: RE: closed topic
Just a couple of things Jen;
What I meant earlier was that if you add up all the issues you might have with the band and weigh them against issues you can have with the DS it seems to be the same number of "things to worry about" but overall lapband IS the least invasive procedure and is 10X safer.
I have no clue what you're talking about here. The only thing I can think of with DS is the possibility of having a leak right after surgery, but that is not a long term worry; once you're healed up it's not anything to worry about.
Unlike the restrictive part of the surgery, the intestinal bypass part of the duodenal switch is partially reversible if you are one of the people who experience complications. It is just extremely complicated. I have talked with someone who had one and I'm pretty sure his doctor did not sell him a bill of goods.
This is completely false, the intestinal bypass is completely reveresable and it is not complicated, it would require sewing back together three joints and closing one small opening in the small intestine. If a doctor actually said this he was making things seem much more difficult and complicated than it really was. My guess is that your friend misunderstood, but who knows; there are so many myths about the DS, that nothing would surprise me. All you have to do is look at a DS diagram and you can see that this would not be overly complicated or difficult for an experienced surgeon. I don't know of or even heard of anyone that has needed or wanted this done.
The other thing is that my surgery is done as outpatient so there is no hosptial stay, which is nice.
I didn't know that and I agree that would be nice.
Approximately 2% of DS patients die as a result of the surgery and .05% of patients die from the lap band. That is still a good enough gap to sway my decision.
The 2% figure is skewed because for many years the only DS patients were the SMO with a BMI over 50, which of course would have a higher mortality rate than people with a BMI of 40 or less, which is what I believe the Lap Band figures are based on.
I don't think you're making an uninformed decision, but it's obvious to me that you are misinformed. It matters not to me what you do or decide, I just hate to see people go through a surgery without having all the information available about their options. That's what happened to me and I suffered the consequences for 28 years and ended up having a second major surgery that was very difficult and expensive. I had to self pay and the cost was over $40,000.00.
What ever you decide to do is going to be your life for years to come, not my life. My only purpose is to give you all the information I know about so you can make an informed decision.
Good luck and best wishes for your journey, what ever you choose, I hope you have great success.
Kerry
What I meant earlier was that if you add up all the issues you might have with the band and weigh them against issues you can have with the DS it seems to be the same number of "things to worry about" but overall lapband IS the least invasive procedure and is 10X safer.
I have no clue what you're talking about here. The only thing I can think of with DS is the possibility of having a leak right after surgery, but that is not a long term worry; once you're healed up it's not anything to worry about.
Unlike the restrictive part of the surgery, the intestinal bypass part of the duodenal switch is partially reversible if you are one of the people who experience complications. It is just extremely complicated. I have talked with someone who had one and I'm pretty sure his doctor did not sell him a bill of goods.
This is completely false, the intestinal bypass is completely reveresable and it is not complicated, it would require sewing back together three joints and closing one small opening in the small intestine. If a doctor actually said this he was making things seem much more difficult and complicated than it really was. My guess is that your friend misunderstood, but who knows; there are so many myths about the DS, that nothing would surprise me. All you have to do is look at a DS diagram and you can see that this would not be overly complicated or difficult for an experienced surgeon. I don't know of or even heard of anyone that has needed or wanted this done.
The other thing is that my surgery is done as outpatient so there is no hosptial stay, which is nice.
I didn't know that and I agree that would be nice.
Approximately 2% of DS patients die as a result of the surgery and .05% of patients die from the lap band. That is still a good enough gap to sway my decision.
The 2% figure is skewed because for many years the only DS patients were the SMO with a BMI over 50, which of course would have a higher mortality rate than people with a BMI of 40 or less, which is what I believe the Lap Band figures are based on.
I don't think you're making an uninformed decision, but it's obvious to me that you are misinformed. It matters not to me what you do or decide, I just hate to see people go through a surgery without having all the information available about their options. That's what happened to me and I suffered the consequences for 28 years and ended up having a second major surgery that was very difficult and expensive. I had to self pay and the cost was over $40,000.00.
What ever you decide to do is going to be your life for years to come, not my life. My only purpose is to give you all the information I know about so you can make an informed decision.
Good luck and best wishes for your journey, what ever you choose, I hope you have great success.
Kerry
Topic: RE: closed topic
I think if you read about all the problems or risks of each surgery they are all about equal in the long run.
Not from the research I've done. The surgical risks are all about the same, whether it's Lap Band, RNY, DS or anything else. But the long term risks are not the same, the DS has none of the long term problems RNY patients have to be concerned with other than vitamin deficiencies. There's no blind stomach to get ulcers, there's no problem taking Ibuprofen, Advil or Aleve, no dumping etc. It also has none of the long term risks associated with Lap Band; like slipping, acid reflux and esophageal erosion. And, the long term weight loss is much better with the DS than it is with any other WLS. What problems are you thinking of?
The only difference is that one is reversible and the other one is extremely difficult to reverse. I think it would be great to get a DS to be honest but I just can't bring myself to go that drastic.
I don't know what you're talking about here; which one is extremely difficult to reverse? The only part of the DS that isn't easy to reverse would be trying to add back the outer curvature of the stomach, but in reality there would be no reason to do that. The small intestine plumbing can be reversed very easily, there is no small intestine removed. The RNY would be and is difficult to revise or reverse because the stomach is separated into a pouch and a blind stomach and they would have to be taken apart and then put back together; there's also the problem of the pyloric valve atrophying and sometimes being un-usable. But in general, I think the RNY can be reversed, even though it presents some difficult problems that have to be overcome.
It really sounds like someone has sold you a "bill of goods" here. The DS can be done LAP and most LAP patients have a 2 or three day hospital stay. So it's no more invasive or traumatic than Lap Band surgery. Make no mistake about it, any WLS is major surgery and nothing to trifle with. But thinking that the Lap Band is less invasive is just not true.
I really know how you feel about being done with being overweight, I've struggled with it for as long as I have memory; my earliest memories are of having a "spare tire". I know where you're coming from. I hope that what ever you do works well for you and you're able to reach the goals you want to achieve.
Best regards,
Kerry
Not from the research I've done. The surgical risks are all about the same, whether it's Lap Band, RNY, DS or anything else. But the long term risks are not the same, the DS has none of the long term problems RNY patients have to be concerned with other than vitamin deficiencies. There's no blind stomach to get ulcers, there's no problem taking Ibuprofen, Advil or Aleve, no dumping etc. It also has none of the long term risks associated with Lap Band; like slipping, acid reflux and esophageal erosion. And, the long term weight loss is much better with the DS than it is with any other WLS. What problems are you thinking of?
The only difference is that one is reversible and the other one is extremely difficult to reverse. I think it would be great to get a DS to be honest but I just can't bring myself to go that drastic.
I don't know what you're talking about here; which one is extremely difficult to reverse? The only part of the DS that isn't easy to reverse would be trying to add back the outer curvature of the stomach, but in reality there would be no reason to do that. The small intestine plumbing can be reversed very easily, there is no small intestine removed. The RNY would be and is difficult to revise or reverse because the stomach is separated into a pouch and a blind stomach and they would have to be taken apart and then put back together; there's also the problem of the pyloric valve atrophying and sometimes being un-usable. But in general, I think the RNY can be reversed, even though it presents some difficult problems that have to be overcome.
It really sounds like someone has sold you a "bill of goods" here. The DS can be done LAP and most LAP patients have a 2 or three day hospital stay. So it's no more invasive or traumatic than Lap Band surgery. Make no mistake about it, any WLS is major surgery and nothing to trifle with. But thinking that the Lap Band is less invasive is just not true.
I really know how you feel about being done with being overweight, I've struggled with it for as long as I have memory; my earliest memories are of having a "spare tire". I know where you're coming from. I hope that what ever you do works well for you and you're able to reach the goals you want to achieve.
Best regards,
Kerry
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