Such a sad thread

It's 1 a.m. here and I can't sleep. Have read all my usual boards and nothing is happening so out of curiosity went to the VBG board. I think this thread is an object lesson in how surgery may seem a life saver but then as knowledge progresses and experiences are recorded, what seemed excellent then suddenly doesn't seem to so good. These people really were guinea pigs - I suppose we should thank them as their experiences probably led to our much improved surgeries.

I wonder if in 20-30 years time (many of these had surgery in the late 1980s), the current main types of wls will all seem as barbaric! My heart goes out to them!

http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/vbg/4263145/Old-WLS-is-cau sing-lots-of-new-problems-Need-help/

Yes Kate very sad!  I think is is why I never judge anyone's choice of surgery as we all react differently and have various processes to go through just for the hope of finally losing weight!!!  Blessings to all on the journey of weightloss!!!  

WOW .... :(    That is so very sad. So many of them seemed to be very young when they had surgery ! Many of them like 17 .Thanks for posting it really makes you think and be thankful that things have progressed so far since then.

Oh my, Kate, indeed such sad stories.  One never thinks of the horrific complications possible.  I am reminded daily on this site of just how lucky you are in England, Kate, and me in Canada where at the very least our surgeries, costs and all follow up are paid on national health.  It doesn't solve the legal issues, with which we've had experience when my Mum had a surgery error occur during heart surgery, but at least we don't have to worry about the cost of repairing their mistakes.  My heart goes out to them.  Do they have any recourse through Medicare, I wonder?  Sleep tight. Karol

Karo, a lot of us in the UK don't get our wls paid for. This is changing and more people are now getting it on the NHS - our National Institute for Clinical Excellence decides in general terms what surgeries the NHS will pay for and wls is now on the list but some Primary Care Trusts (district level) are more prepared to pay than others.

As my BMI was only just over 40 and I had no co-morbidities, I was self pay.
But now that I have the surgery, it is an existing condition and so if anything were to go wrong, I would get free NHS care, even if it had been actually at the time of the op. And I could get free fills but i choose not to as I really trust my own doc!

Kate

Very sad and a cautionary note to anyone who has bariatric surgery...we don't know what we don't know....time will tell.

Those are very sad stories indeed.  I just hope we aren't the ones posting stories like that in 20 years.  I don't expect to be...but I bet they didn't either.

 Sooooo sad :-(   Yeah, kinda depressing, and I've been wondering for a while when the next "bigger better mousetrap" will make today's surgical options obsolete.  

But, in a way, it also gave me a sense of comfort.  I had no choice but to change how I ate and how I moved my body to lose weight with the band.  I had to.  Those changes are what will (hopefully) keep me from going back to where I was, more than the fact that I've had wls.   

Tami

My mother had a stomach stapleing proceedure in the 80's I think, but it could have been earlier  Im not sure.  She had it done at the same time as a friend and neither  were successful.  They both had issues with the staples coming undone not long after.  My mom went in for RNY in the 90's and they discovered she had a very large hernia that was obstructing many other organs including her heart.  The doc told her that if she hadn't had that surgery should would not have lived very long.  She was successful at first and lost a lot of weight, but the malabsorption played h*** with her body and she broke her hip & wrist within 6 months of eachother and was diagnosed with osteoporosis.  She was bedbound for months and the wieght slowly came back.  She took the vitamins she was supposed to most of the time (not 100% of the time) but it was not enough.  Eventually she gained all of the weight back and with the other problems she had from past surgeries she passed away from a massive heart attack.  That is why I am so affraid to have RNY or VBG/Sleeve, she was overweight when she passed away but miserable from the health problems her WLS created and I honestly believe she would have lived alot longer if she would have had no surgery or one that didn't affect her health so horribly.

Very sad indeed.

It dont matter what surgery you have done, lap band, gastric, sleeve or the others out there .  There is no long time proof for ANY of these surgeries .  We dont know what can happen to us with these surgery's  5 yrs down the line 10 yrs down the line .

Right now the sleeve or the DS is the "in" surgery but we dont know what can happen yrs down he line and next month , next yr or even tomorrow there will be some new weight loss surgery out there that is suppose to be better then what is out there now . 

There is no magic cure for weight loss we get these surgeries done as tools only , its us that has to put the work in , its us that has to make the right food choices, its us that has to exercise , if we dont do those things then we dont lose weight no matter what WLS you have done .

I always tell my husband that the 20,000 dollars I spent getting the lap band is the most expensive learning lesson I have ever had in my life, because deep down I knew what I had to do to lose weight it took a piece of plastic in me to finally "get it" .