A Question for Pre Ops::Are you Thinking far ahead before Considering WLS?

When you have a lot of urination if you are a diabetic then generally your numbers are not controlled. Once you have your diabetes under control you go to the bathroom normally. Maybe you really need to check your blood sugar more often.. This is for Wendy.

Sorry - I have to respond. I deliberately do not come to the main board very often as it is so "Pro WLS" and the vast majority of posters are always hard on those of us, like me, who have had a vast number of health problems since having wls.
Prior to my surgery, I was MO, but never sick. I had wls primarily for appearance sake. (And there are many people who do this, but lack the balls to admit it.)
Since wls, I have had to my gall bladder out, have been declared disabled due to chronic anemia. (I take iron and get regular infusions, but remain lucky if I have a CBC over 10.) I have now been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and am facing a hip replacement. My PCP AND the surgeon have both said that my RNY is a big cause of this.
My teeth are horrible and my eyesight has rapidly gotten worse every year since the RNY.
I have to agree w/ Wendy in saying people need to look at the potential LONG term medical conditions that your body may suffer in you have weight loss surgery. I see so many people who only focus on the potential problems during the actual surgery and think that once they lose the weight all will be peaches and cream. It ain't that way.

Anne

      Anne I totally agree with you. Nobody talks about the bad stuff that can happen. I know that there are some side effects that may happen, sure. It happens to a lot if people. But nobody talks about some if the things that can happen that aren't usual. I use to go to the support groups thinking I must be the only one what is wrong with me. My first year I basically starved to death because my surgeon kept telling me I was ok and no one was talking about the type of things I was experiencing. I lost all feeling in my arms and legs, I began to have dangerously low blood pressure where I had to take a medicine to keep up my pressure, I had major malabsorption problems. Along with the normal iron, calcium and vitamin B13, I had copper, zinc, L-Carnatine, potassium, vitamin D, vitamin B1, and vitamin B2. When I finally found a new surgeon he said that we needed to reverse it right away. Come to find out that my pouch was full of scar tissue and collapsed on itself and I wound up with a gastrectomy. 5 years post-op from original RNY I continue to have problems from malabsorption of certain vitamins to vomitting in my sleep which causes me to have aspiration pneumonia. Even though I do believe in wls I think that patients need to be educated on the bad things that can happen and the only way that is going to happen is if people talk about it because the doctors aren't going to tell you. Before my RNY the only thing wrong with me was that I was Mo and had asthma(which I had since I was 5). Now, there is so many things wrong that my life will never be the same.

 I did 2 years worth of WLS research before making a decision.  My decision to have banding done was based on the following:
1) my insurance covered AGB or RNY
2) every doctor I spoke to recommended against a malabsorptive procedure due to my age and medical history
3) I chose Realize band because of the lower profile port and wider band which made sense at the time.

if I were making this decision now, I would have VSG.  The band isn't a good long term solution for obesity and has far too many complications coming to light years later.