Biatric surgery

Hello I am 22 years old and weigh 297 pounds. I want to be healthy but I worry so much about saggy skin. I have also never had any kind of surgery in my life and I think the sleeve would be best for me. My mom is pushing me to.get biatric surgery because for us being overweight is genetic. My mom used to.be 540 pounds like 10 years ago and then.she got the lap band and it changed her life. I'm sharing for extra support and pros and cons of your choice about surgery and how it effected your life. Also I work for the state and have Dakota care Insurace and would like to speed up the process and would like to know if anyone has insurance and what they did. I already started the wellness program about 6 months ago.

I'm glad that you started the process. You're doing this at a great age when you still your whole life ahead of you. As far as your skin, your youth is going to work in your favor. It still has the collegan in it to give you the elasticity that many older people don't have. I had my surgery just about 9 1/2 years ago and my husbands' health insurance covered it. It usually takes 6 months to a year to go through. The only way to speed it up is for a self pay. There are people on this site that have gone to other countries to have it done.

It was the best decision I ever made.

Good Luck in your journey.

Welcome!

If you haven't already, I'd recommend that you meet with a surgeon and go to some WLS support group meetings. Getting surgery because someone else is pushing you into it is pretty much the exact wrong reason to ever have surgery! So doing your own research and fact finding seems pretty important at this point. It's great that your mom has had success with WLS, but ultimately you're the one who will need to live with your own decision so you really want to make sure it's the right option for you.

Excess skin is a fact of post-weight loss life for a lot of us. However, it'll happen regardless of how you lose the weight so unless you're planning to stay at 297 for the rest of your life, it's a risk you'll have to take when you lose weight. Younger people do tend to have less of a problem because their skin is more elastic and less damaged from a lifetime of obesity... but it's impossible to predict.

Your surgeon should be able to advise you about what the best surgery for you will be. For instance, if you have a history of GERD or diabetes, RNY is normally the better option. (I'm glad you're not considering the band!)

There normally isn't a way to "speed up the process." Your insurance company will have its hoops for you to jump through, and if you want bariatric surgery, you'll need to jump through those hoops. If you call the number on the back of your insurance card, you should be able to get the information you need. In theory, if they have a requirement for pre-op waiting, your current wellness program participation might take care of that.

All of that said - I opted for VSG because it seemed like the right choice at the time. I didn't have any history of GERD or diabetes. The idea of having that "remnant stomach" hanging out in my body totally freaked me out. I have had some issues with acid in the last few years but that's been manageable with an H2 blocker, but I have the awareness that revision to RNY might be something that needs to happen in the future.

WLS has changed everything about my life because it has let me lose weight and sustain that weight loss. Losing weight inspired me to make exercise a part of my life and that led to returning to college and figuring out my passion. It also made me pursue therapy and do a lot of work to improve and treat my mental health. Post-op life has certainly had challenges, but those challenges aren't related to WLS. The work I've done to improve myself because of WLS has definitely helped me to cope with the non-WLS challenges too. Win-win :)

Saggy skin is a small price to pay for huge improvements in health. Living longer? Feeling better? Totally worth needing to wear spanx on special occasions, in my opinion.

Everybody's insurance situation is different, so we can't give any advice for your particular case. However, it is VERY rare for the process to be sped up at all. The six month waiting period for surgery can be very helpful for getting emotionally ready; surgery is not magic and many folks need to work on the emotional side of weight loss just as much as the physical.

If you're interested in the pros and cons, check out Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies. It's a fabulous resource!

Hello and welcome!

I had RNY 8 months ago at 24 years old and 260 pounds (you can check my siggy for all my stats). Saggy skin is an unavoidable reality of massive weight loss. My rule of thumb is that if you lose more than about 80 pounds, you will have excess skin. Additionally, the only way to "get rid of it" is skin removal surgery.

Sleeve vs RNY vs D. Switch is a decision you have to make on your own. My decision was easy. I had slight heartburn so my chances of developing GERD with the sleeve was large. Also, I knew I needed the extra component of mal-absorption to get the weight off. Even more so, I didn't want to have to have a revision surgery later on, which happens more than I'm comfortable with for sleeve patients. I wanted to switch, but no one in my area preformed it. So RNY it was lol

Don't get surgery because your mom is forcing it on you. In that context, WLS is about as helpful as a kick in the pants. You need to want this and be willing to make the long term lifestyle changes necessary to lose all the weight you want to keep it off.

You can't really speed up insurance. It'll take as long as it. Call the number on the back of your card and speak with an insurance rep. They'll give you a better idea of what you have left and what you need to do.

Getting WLS was one of the best decisions of my life.

Pros:

No more high blood pressure

No more joint pain

No more obesity related migraines (I've had 1 minor headache in the past 8 months)

No more back pain

I can fit into "normal" places (classroom seats, restaurant booths, movie theater seats, bus seats, etc) without problem

I get more positive attention from people

I fit into "normal" sized clothing, making it much easier to buy clothes

I now take care of my teeth much better

I take care of my appearance in general much better

I can do things like yoga or zumba and it's fun, not just exhausting

I don't worry about weight limits on things like roller coasters or elevators

People don't look at me all judgy when I eat in public

I have the opportunity and desire to really investigate why I want to over eat and how to fix it

Cons:

I get cold a lot

I will have to have skin removal surgery

On January 23, 2019 at 3:03 AM Pacific Time, jmm1234 wrote:

Because of you age and the long time frame to live with it, I?d suggest you ask your doctor about a Sadi DS. It?s a hybrid between DS and RNY. I had it in 2014 and would definitely have regain issues if I had the vsg. I was concerned about the DS being to extreme, dumping from RNY and regain from vsg.

Ultimately anything you commit to will do really well if you have a good surgeon and follow the program.

I don?t follow the program so a procedure that bails me out is a nice backup.

Oh my. No offense to this poster but please if you already know you won't follow a program, just don't get the surgery until you're ready to.

These procedures are looking less and less significant with the introduction of laparoscopic surgery. They are not. They are just as big of a deal as they were when every surgery was "open". Your insides go through just as much stress as they always have. The results are just as life-changing; your insides will never be the same.

Please research all of your options. ALL of them. You'll be living with this for the rest of your life and at 22 you've hopefully got a long time ahead of you.

Also, fwiw, I'm still stuck back at your mom having the lap band at 547 pounds. If you're tempted to follow in her footsteps with that particular weight loss surgery please research like crazy and check out the failed lapband and lapband boards, as well as the revision board here. Much study has resulted in the lapband being removed as even an option at many surgery centers now.

Good luck. Whatever works for you, do that. But please don't do it without the appropriate study.

edited to add: this right up here is a good reason to study. No, the SADI is not a hybrid of the RnY and the DS. I refuse to do anyone's research for them, but honestly, do your own homework and please don't rely on uniformed internet posters when you're considering life changing internal surgeries. Sheesh.

With all due respect, no. Nope. Not all of us "fail every day at eating choices".

I believe we all have failed at some point with our choice-making. But every day for long term OH members? It's just not a thing. And as far out as you are, it shouldn't be a thing for you either jmm.

That's an irresponsible statement that you can not back up with anything other than your own anecdotal data.