did I do the right thing?

Ok so I'm kinda freaking out right now....I know I am probably being stupid but I got my band 5 weeks ago and I had lost 20lbs in the first 4 weeks. Yes I'm very happy about that but......now i have gained back 10 of the 20 and I am hungry again like before the band. Yes I can get a fill in 1 week but I am so worried that I made the wrong choice. Should I have gotten the gastric sleeve??? Sounds like a lot less work. Am I going to be on a permanent diet the rest of my life??? That's how I feel right now. I need someone to tell me I made the right choice......please

Won't comment on the surgery - what's done is done. But if eating health6 and making good food choices is à "diet" in your opinion, then yes, you will be on a diet for the rest of your life. WLS is a tool ... Not a miracle cure. Good luck in your journey.

1.  20lbs  in 4 weeks is a LOT. Did you expect to lose 4lbs every week! You won't! And you will have many weeks with no loss. Happens with every surgery. 

2. If you have gained 10lbs back, you are eating too many calories.

3. Yes, until you get saline in the band, you may still feel hungry, and this may not change until after several fills. 

4. Yes, you will be on a diet for the rest of your life if by that you mean making healthy food choices; as you would with any surgery! It is possible to eat round any of them 

ALL the band does is, when it is properly adjusted, is help you feel satisfied with less food. You choose the quality of the food, you choose to walk away from food. The band should never prevent you from eating, all it does is slow the progress of food so that our brain believes we have eaten more than we actually have. So if we walk away after we have eaten a planned amount, we are less likely to think of food and so less likely to want it. If I am busy, I forget to eat. If I m bored I certainly don't.

All weight loss surgery requires you to change your eating. With both the band and the sleeve, you absorb everything you eat. With the sleeve, it is physically harder to over-eat but you could still gain weight if you lived on the wrong foods. With the sleeve, more people experience much lower levels  of hunger than with the band; but not everyone does. With the band,an higher number people report not feeling less hunger but IMO, that is often (note, often, not always) down to unrealistic expectations! 

There is no point in wondering whether you made the right choice. It is done! I love my band, it has changed my life and worked for me and for almost everyone I know in real life as opposed to online. You just have to set to and work with what you have. If you need help, feel free to ask me. 

 

Edited for typos .  Several times! Bad typing day!!

The band is probably one of the harder wls procedures to live with and see significant results with, but it's not impossible.  Make it work.  Eat what you're supposed to eat and how you're supposed to eat and follow the rules to get the best possible experience.  Wrong choices and behaviors yield catastrophic consequences with band complications.  

I just had a revision from the band to gastric bypass cause it didn't work for me. Total weight I lost with it was just 37 pounds n gained about 25 pounds back.  But it does work for others. I had the revision last week hope gastric bypass works for me. Good luck to u. 

I had my band placed in 2011. I didn't lose weight because I couldn't deal with the horrible tightness in my chest when I ate, so I always drank to relieve the tightness. This, as you know, means that I was not using the band correctly. Therefore, it never worked for me. I just learned how to eat with my band.... no good! So I basically got to the weight I was before the banding. I have arthritis which hinders my activity which made weight loss difficult. I opted to have a revision with gastric bypass, which I just had done last Monday and I have already lost more weight in total than all the time I had with the lapband. What I'm trying to say is with the lapband, you definitely have to work the tool in order to lose weight. You have to watch your caloric intake, because even if you can't eat a lot, you still can eat the wrong things which can cause a slow weight loss or weight gain. Me, personally, didn't like the lapband because what was supposed to be a full feeling for others was an uncomfortable tightness for me. I couldn't use the lapband like it was supposed to be used. After I got my band, I felt the same regret. I really felt depressed because my family and everyone at my job was looking for me to lose weight and I wasn't. I got so tired of people asking me about it that I even lied and said I had the band removed because of a malfunction.