Regret that I didn't do it 15 years sooner!  I have my life back.  I'm "ME" again!  Maintaining easily.  Amazing. 

(I apologize if you've already seen this under a different forum.  I wasn't sure where I should post it, so I thought I'd try a couple of different places because I'm sort of desparate!  Thanks for your patience!)

I just want to be clear about that.  But my story is a bit unusual.  Anyone out there willing to read my story and maybe offer some help?  Here goes:

I had a great surgeon but l had my first bowel obstruction while I was still in the hospital recovering from my RNY surgery. (This was May 2007)
Seven months later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, then thyroid cancer.  I had to have a double mastectomy and chemotherapy.  As I was going through this, I was also diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome.  At this point, losing weight was not exactly my top priority.  I ate what I could when I could and didn't feel bad about it at all.  I was looking death in the face and losing weight just didn't matter all of a sudden.  While all of this is going on, I was rushed into emergency surgery to fix a hole in my stomach.  Next, the bowel obstructions began.  I think I had a total of about six.  I just don't have the exact number in front of me.  I know I was in the ER about every 2 months throwing up bowel contents because I was obstructed.  After each surgery to correct the obstruction, I would have to have surgery to fix an incisional hernia that would occur afterward.  It was like some horrible never-ending cycle of surgeries.  I finally had a huge piece of mesh put into my abdomen that seems to have stopped both the obstructions and the hernias. Fast forward to today.  I haven't had to have surgery for about a year and a half now.  I am also in full remission with no signs of cancer, thank God!

Here's where I failed:  

Not only did I fall back into my habits of extremely poor eating but because of my Sjogren's syndrome, I am unable to eat without drinking at the same time.  As I understand it, Sjogren's is a type of autoimmune disorder that attacks the mucous membranes of the body.  My mouth gets terribly dry.  Eating without drinking isn't do-able.  So here I am, having gone through a hellish couple of years but glad to be a survivor.  Unfortunately, though I actually took all of my weight off and then some (because I was so sick) I have now put all but about 50 pounds back on.  Because of my surgery, I now have no valves just a hole at the bottom of my pouch which has stretched to probably at least something closely resembling a regular stomach and because I have to drink while I eat, the food just gets "washed down the drain" and I feel as though I haven't eaten a thing within 15 minutes of having eaten a meal.

I'm under the impression that surgery cannot be reversed unless it looks like you'd die without it being done.  (Is this true?)  The insurance that I have now will not cover any type of bariatric procedure.  I am hypoglycemic, considerably malnourished, anemic, have to receive B-12 injections....but not about to keel over.  I'm afraid if I'm like this now, I'll be in a world of hurt in 20 years.  So, if I'm only experiencing the "cons" of the surgery but none of the "pros", I want to have it reversed.  Can this be done?  Can anybody help me?  I'm not trying to scare anyone off or even badmouth the surgery.  I just happen to be one of the few people who had a host of traumatic health complications some related to the surgery and some not.  My weight gain is completely my fault, though I feel helpless to be able to effectively use this tool now because of my inability to eat without drinking...not to mention the fact that my pouch has grown considerably.  (this has been confirmed with my many abdominal procedures)

Anyone?

All the best to you all...I hope your experiences are all what you hope them to be.

Jennifer

Leading up to the erosion, I couldn't eat anything solid for over a year and would occasionally run a low temp.  Finally one day I had a temp of 102+ and just couldn't get it to go down.  My band area hurt to press on it. After trying to for two days to get the fever to go down, I gave up and went to the ER and found out I had an outrageously fast heart rate.  No one could figure out what was wrong and I kept telling them I thought it was band related.  Finally they called in my bariatric surgeon, this is day four, and he had me wait another day so he could find a good time slot to do some "exploration".  So when he did open me up, he freaked out and said it looked like a bomb had gone off inside of me.  I was hospitalized another nine days on seven different IV antibiotics.  When I asked him about a sleeve several months later, he teared up said he had never had a band patient die on him and blah, blah, blah but pretty much, he didn't think I should proceed.

Sorry I got carried away, it is still tramatic to me. Bottomline symptom of an erosion: high fever, fast heart rate, can't keep ANYTHING down (even fluids), and pain in my abdomen when pressed on.

Thank you for sharing.  Have you been to any AA/NA meetings ?

A quick note - you need to be careful taking the amino acids you mentioned with some antidepressants... especially SSRIs... my doctor told me thats a huge no-no. I have severe persistent depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. Both are well managed with a combination of medications and behavior modification. I found a terrific therapist who specializes in food addictions. Addictions do transfer. I found myself doing the booze thing and shopping. I got a handle on it for now - and know where I need to go when I need support. O am a year out from RNY.