Lap Banders: Write a Letter to Washington!!

You need to do much more research about all your options.. the percentage that dump after the sleeve is likely about the percentage that dump without being surgically altered at all. It is no where near "just like the GB." Please do some serious research of the medical studies you can find online vs. basing your conclusions on anecdotal evidence (a few people's accounts..)

I can tell you as a pre-op, I have "dumped" a couple times in my life. It was always grease and sugar in large amounts, and lead to a racing heart, sweats, and shakes while sitting at my desk at work. I never knew what it was till I started my research.. always thought it was a hypo or hyper reaction to the crap I was eating.. and it may have been. It also didn't help that pre-op, I could eat a LOT of the offending food that caused this, and did.. Dumping happens to normies too. It is a rare sleever that dumps, just like a rare non-op that can/will.

Hi

Since you're still researching your options. I wanted to send you some links to the real life experiences of people who have been banded.

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4428353/What-does-Less-Invas ive-REALLY-mean/

If you are a heavy NSAID user.....do NOT get the band.

Here are some links unrelated to NSAIDS, but related to the band that you should read.


www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4304076/PLEASE-RESPOND-Explain-your-Lap-Band-AGB-Experience/

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4376706/If-your-band-FAILED-you-please-check-in-here/

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4386446/Allergan-amp-Realize-bands-recall-information/

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4387717/benefit-of-lap-band-surgery-on-16year-old/

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/LapBand/4398937/New-here-Researching-and-Learning/

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/lapband/4399622/Newbie-from-Chicago/#36376935

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/lapband/4421031/I-hate-my-band/



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2698858/?tool=pu bmed
"The placement of a gastric band appears to be a disservice to many morbidly obese patients and therefore, in the current culture of evidence based medicine, the prevalent use of laparoscopic gastric banding can no longer be justified."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21422330
"However, because nearly 1 out of 3 patients experienced band erosion, and nearly 50% of the patients required removal of their bands (contributing to a reoperation rate of 60%), LAGB appears to result in relatively poor long-term outcomes."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21188545
"LAGB can achieve an acceptable weight loss in some patients, but the failure in one out of four patients does not allow proposing it as a first-line option for the treatment of obesity."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20496124
"Of the study population, 146 (52.9%) patients had at least one complication requiring reoperation. Presently, only 148 (53.6%) patients still have their original band, 49 (17.8%) had their original band replaced with a new one, and 79 (28.6%) had their band removed."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19730234
"The percent of excess weight loss at 4 years was higher in the gastric bypass group (68 ± 19% vs. 45 ± 28%, respectively, P < 0.05)."

Regarding this study - I find this VERY disturbing: "Between 2002 and 2007, 250 patients with a body mass index of 35 to 60 kg/m2 were randomly assigned to gastric bypass or gastric banding."  Randomly assigned a surgery type???  Holy fuck!!  Who would participate in such a trial??

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18795380
7 year study on lapbands, with SOME patients converted to RNY:
"Patients converted to gastric bypass, and those retaining gastric bands throughout the study had very similar outcomes."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18656830
This is interesting in that the LapBand patients long-term assorted into two types when you plot weight:
"It has been our perception that the weight loss results after gastric bypass are relatively normally and tightly distributed around the mean, making it relatively predictable. However, we have found that the results after adjustable gastric banding are more highly variable. In fact, there appears to be 2 groups of patients after this restrictive operation. One group, that is able to work well and does not struggle much against the restriction, accepts the limits that it imposes, and another group, that does not easily learn to deal with the restriction and hence mal-adapts."

Great links.
Would you be interested in helping webmaster, at least informally, any directory of useful links of content on OH?

Question... how do you typically answer the following?

I am pushing 76 and wonder if anyone else my age or older has had lap band surgery.....I also wonder what the difference is between Lap Band and Relive ..... I'm not sure yet but I think I've found a surgeon in the Kalamazoo, Mi. area.....Any comments?

I've been starting to get more of those lately. Wondering if you knew of any trends in how that topic was addressed. First, LapBand versus Realize (though we would run with some relive as well!, or, perhaps Relieve). But second, half the time, I see this showing up with some particular attribute, in this case, age. (Last week someone asked me which band was best for men!). 

I collect links and information Eric,
So not all of those links are originally mine. Diana is a master at hunting down information and many of the links toward the bottom are copied from one or more of her posts.

k,
Kudos to whoever. Free form reinvention & shareing is part of peer support and interaction, and/but, from the informational perspect, it always pains me personally how often good sources that could be cited aren't cited.  (But, that's just me on the information emphasis side).

I'm willing to help and steer people toward any information I come across. I just didn't want you thinking I came across all those links on my own.

I have a GREAT link regarding hair loss that I stole from EN.

www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4395463/Hair-loss/#36338514

 Eric, 

Peer support and sharing is different than PAYING experts and providing reliable, unbiased information.

A professional journalist  would be a great way to move forward on that. 

And if you are answering these types in enquiries without the requisite  credentials, it is irresponsible.

Even people who've never had any form of WLS CAN dump.

Only about 30% of people who have the RNY/gastric bypass do dump.

Just guessing here, but I'd say the per centage of people with the Sleeve or the DS who dump is about 1%.

DO NO HARM?

Harm is when an entire industry has failed to tell every last patient that has been drawn in by their desperation to not be discriminated against in a society that wants only people that are pretty, and comfortable to watch and look at.  Out of desperation I have watched people riddled with a list of health ailments when they were healathy fat people at the start, told that they just needed to take a daily multiple vitamin, likely Balcium, likely Iron, and possibly B12, but testing would be 3 6 and 12 months and then annual for life.

Nevermind that no effort has been made to also tell them that despite compliance, the majority of studies that aren't filled with bias by the joke that is supposed to be an independent corporation to manage data, yet ...well what does it matter, they are changing it NOW.  Now that they have used the SRC data to manipulate the SMC and other insurance and State insurance plans with data generated for their ends.

Everything has a spin, and I have never seen such effective use of the word EFFECTIVE!

Every document starts with how obesity will be the end of all society, costs, blah blah.  Then comes the answer to save the world. 

THE MOST EFFECTIVE TREATMENT FOR OBESITY.

Just think a moment.  No you didn't hear SAFE. 

EFFECTIVE ONLY means you will lose weight!  How about you ask that surgeon that just drew you the picture of how he will cut your stomach off of your ESophagus end, and it looks like this nice smooth pouch that big old stomach.  I will never forget wondering how they keep the old stomach from migrating where it shouldn't go because it is cut off and when I would get a stitch in my left side, I would think that was my old stomach pulling at wherever they tacked it up to hold in place.

EVER Notice that not a single demonstration of how these operations are done represents an accurate view ofo what a stomach looks like?

Ever notice when you go to a normal surgeon, they pull down medical posters to show you what is going on and what will be done on a cut away. 

If they did that here just imagine the questions that would raise.  Dr. What are those big fat hundreds of arteries and fingering veins cradleing the stomach for?  Seems if you cut it off, they are there for some important reason.  What do they do?  Will that cause any health problems that aren't in the abdomen area?

Well, let us see.  There is the long known Deficiency in Folate.  And when you are deficient in Folate, if you still sho you have normal levels of B12, we will just send you home and not tell you anything about what we learned of your Folate.  We won't tall you that a Folate Deficiency represents teh same as a B12 Deficiency, but since we didn't ever tell you about the word Folate, we will never mention it to you even if you are low.  We will be testing you though, just not telling you because we have to remove YOU from the cost variable so we can keep hold of the claim to the words COST EFFECTIVE.

When you go to the Orthopedic surgeon for those herniated discs in your neck, you won't know that it is related to a deficiency in any one or all of B12, Folate, Copper, and if you just don't happen to also have anemia, because we don't want to spend anymore money to test your homocysteine levels, and that is the only way to know if you have had a B12 deficiency and Folate even when our tests show serum levels are within reference range.

So those discs in your neck, you will never know they are just one of many neurological manifestations because the word Neurologicaol disorders has been replaced on the Risk disclosure with Metabolic Disorders to confuse you because you don't really know what that word means do you?

It worked so well when we voted to keep using the word MORBID when someone had the bright idea to not use that word because it might encourage an even worse feeling aobut themselves when they figure out they fit in that category and now have a label that most people think relates to DEATH.  But in the medical world it just means sick.

But we wanted to put the scare into you so you would come let us mutilate your healthy body organs just so you can endure the miseries we are going to heap upon your entire body, most of which will be misdiagnosed by the doctors who are clueless to the damage of the Central Nervous System.  And the fact that if you used to use depression meds, well, no need for those anymore.  Oh no, not because we solve depression, but your nervous system just will not work with SSRIs anymore.  So if you couldn't take hte other options, and tha twas the only thing that worked for you, well you are a little screwed, but just think you can feel that way and be skinny too!!!!

Just remember, if you go through something stressful, and your tendency is to not eat much when you were fat, and with your new lack of interest in the taste of food so much as the need to feed your body, because you think we told you the whole truth and that you will be just fine when you haven't a clue.  And when your nervous system falls apart, and you finally flip, if you ever figure out how to put it all together, well, we got those tort reforms to cap our liability, so you will likely be too far down the line, and fsorry you are disabled now because you have the mental cognitive function of an 80 year old in early dementia, but hey, you get to be skinny doing it!

You will never tire of feeling your bones thorugh your skin.  And if you do happen to go through a period where you don't eat enough because you are depressed and your antidepressant doesnt' work anymore, well, sorry about that but just go try on skinny clothes.  It will do wonders.

And if you see that document that is all about how the neurological system  is damaged from bariatric surgery, and we have now invented special names for the related diseases that you will be replacing for your fat, and those things that we kind of encouraged you to stretch into fitting the description your insurance wanted, you know when you said you once thought you had sleep apnea but figured out you didn't when you realized it was your nose closing up from the new cat allergy?  Well, we listed you as having sleep apnea, and now you are part of our statistics showing that you have been cured!  And you have now traded that fake sleep apnea for the long list of ailments, oh, what?  YOu are seeing double?  Oh, yes.  That is diplopia, or for the doctors, opthomoplegia, not sure I spelled that right, but just say double vision.  Yep, sorry about that but you had to go get your eyes checked anyway because of how bad your vision has gotten from the A deficiency.  Well, can't really say that because we don't test for that.  In fact although we claim you need a baseline test of all of these nutrients before any surgery, and then after, there is really only one way to adequately care for any bariatric patient that wants good health AND to be skinny (some people just want it all), but hey, we would lose too much because the insurance industry would stop paying and we would make you all feel sooooo bad that you don't have someone to destroy your life without you knowing.

Oh what's that?  Why did the FDA approve the surgery?  And why doesn't this surgery have to disclose the full known risks and secondary health conditions that can destroy the quality of your life, in far larger numbers than any drug could ever do that has to do that ten minute disclaimer at the end of their commercials?  Well, that is behind closed doors stuff. 

Regulatory agencies just clog up the advancement of business.  Just think.  If they hadn't removed those regulations that were preventingt the financial sector from creating derivative income sources, they could never have tapped that market for those mortgage backed securities that had such demand, pretty much the way the public demanded these surgeries once we got it out there and they had no clue aobut the truth, and just think, how many people would never had been able to own a house had it not been for th eneed to keep feeding that machine market, and those risks were just insured, and well, guess that wasn't a good analogy, but that was mortgages, this is human beings lives.  YOu can't foreclose on a person's body just because they bought without knowing the full risks in the purchase. 

I could go on, but you get the picture.

This is the biggest duping of the public since the mortgage crisis was created the same way this industry demand was created, and with all of the people who don't see the full picture, when the tax dollars will have to be paying for the healthcare for their riddled bodies when they retire, but then according to that mortality statistics from PA adn that other one from UTAH, it won't matter because most won't draw on that. 

This is actually good for the future economy if you look at it that way.  They all get surgery because they are workers with insurance, and when they are ready to retire, they won't be able to be a burden for long if they last that long.  That one was what, at year 13, 16% dead? 

But whatever you do, do NOT ever ask anyone if there is a connection to hte central nervous system damage that causes symptoms similar to schizophrenia, severe anxiety panic, dissociative disorder, depression, behavioral changes, degrading of the spine, neuropathies, those little areas where you feel like you are being stabbed with pins, or like you smeared with cooking oil and lit it with a match?  Or that entire area that you touch and you can feel it but it can't feel you?  Neuropathies.  Memorize that word. Might need it.

So forthose who aren't drinking the Koolaid, how am I doin?

Dear Eric,

I knew that there was a PRO bariatric industry stakeholder pro surgery here and that this board has never been about giving the full disclosure, nor was it a place for the pre and post ops to support.  Here you say anything negative and you get pounded almost like there are people who have been hired to beat you up if you dare say anything. 

And how dare you make the claims you just did.  How about let's pick that one that you think it is okay to let die.

How about we do one better.  How many do you think the ASBS decided would be okay to die because they chose to have all surgeons specifically never use the words Thiamine, Folate, and Vitamin D (D only mentioned AFTER it was made a big deal the the whole population so the testing can't be associated with the costs of bariatric surgeries).

The disclosures for the RNY used to hve those with Calcium Iron and B12.

And what if you are that one person that gets wet beriberi and when you get to the ER, there is only one thing that will save your life and fast, and without knowing that word, thiamine, yes, that one word stands between you and your coffin because so few ERs still even today know the signs an dsymptoms, and no patients of any bypasses are aware that they need to know all about those things and the dangers of not having tests beyond what is done routinely to keep cost down.

Information is the key to life for the people that are having these thingsdone to their bodies.  Just information.  YOu do not get to treat a risk disclosure like a parent tells a child, because I said so.  You must educate, and explain and fully disclose.  You can't just say take your supplements and assume that you have given soemone a risk disclosure.  And when you suggest that it is so easy to fix that calcium, iron and b12 issue with a daily pill.  How about that person that bomits every vitamin they put in their mouth?  How about tellinig the patient when they are heading home that if they keep vomiting, and feel weak, and fever, and swelling, that they need to get to the ER and say give me some thiamine and don't even bother checking!

BEcause they were afraid that the patient cost variable, once they knew that there is a delicate balance of zinc to copper, b12 to Folis acid, and a variety of anemis issues that all can destroy your entire life and central nervous system, and if you are doubly unlucky, you will have less than a 4 count on your D levels, when you are complaining ot hte doctor of the bone pain you are feeling that feels like your bones are eaten up with cancer.  Oh the pain.   Or when you wake up, and you have to scream for someone to come move your limbs for you because your joints feel like soemone is trying to separate them with a pocket knife if you try to move it yourself.

This industry is so filled with misinformation.  and I for one am sick and tired of my tax dollars paying for regulatory agencies that are letting the businesses they are supposed to be regulating for my protection, but instead, just let them dictate the bills and now give unlimited donations to the legislative bodies.

Go look up the donations of Allergan.  And those were when there was a $5000 cap.  I can't wait to see what happens now. 

Texas has been bought and paid for.  And for what?  So some professional politician can claim they brought jobs to the area by allowing this travesty?

And because this industry was getting pounded by medical malpractice suits they passed tort reforms, and they had to include risk disclosures on major surgeries, oh, wait, that was in 2003.  They didn't even have a risk disclosure registered with the Texas Administrative Code for Part A Gastric Bypass operations until 2007.  So does that mean they were performing experimental surgery on that one million people so they could use their data to generate a pretense of a well studied group of procedures?

There is a good reason the regular medical community has been distanced from this industry for decades.  Has anyone ever asked why if they hvae been performing these for a half century, they were only able to build public demand because a medical equipment manufacturer funded a PR campaign where the surgeons that created a laparscopic version of the RNY so that they would attract people who weren't desperate about their life and couldn't care less about a scar becase they had diabetes and this was something they needed.

This industry has known since they had the 1991 Consensus statement by the NIH, coincidentally the same period that was exposed for conflicts of interest and too cozy with industry, but within two years the lap version was being developed, and then presented to the ASBS in MN, and then again in 1998, and they were ready to get the show on.

Enter Paid celebrity endorsement deal.  All medical professionals stay out of the limelight.  Answer what is asked, never use Thiamine, Folate or Vitamin D, when talking deficiencies, and let people develop their desire and think  it is simpler and safer than it is, and use that word a lot, most effective, and that demand will drive the industry, and it will never matter that they haven't figured out we hadn't published one clinical trial, the medical standard, because if they don't demand it, then we will not bother, and once enough have been operated on, we can start doing studies on their records and not them, and looking backwards and asking questionnairs and then submit it to look like real studies.

There is no exaggeration in anything in this post. 

I would cite you the references but I fear the page would break!

If you are thinking of this, examine if you are willing to be the one that doesn't die, but you do lose everything of who you are, live a lifeof misery and pain with doctors trying to just shove you prescriptions becaue we live in a treat the symptoms healthcare world, and nobody will want to figure out what is wrong and the cause.

Or if you really are determined, please, go to a hematologist and neurologist for your post op care.

Do not start at the endocrinologist. 

Good luck!