Looks like my screen name is coming true.

I had my first appointment with my new surgeon yesterday. Since it had been two and a half years since I'd seen my original one, he did a fluoroscopy on me. We saw that my band was extremely tight and that my pouch was extremely dilated/stretched. The tight band was news to me, since I hadn't felt much restriction in a long time and could eat close to a full meal (and I'd had a fairly significant unfill due to SEVERE acid reflux at my last appointment with my original surgeon). The band was so tight that we couldn't see the barium emptying out of the pouch at all. He said that my opening between pouches was probably about the size of a pencil eraser, and that he was amazed that I'd lived with it for as long as I did. He did an immediate complete unfill, since he said that keeping it that tight was pretty dangerous. He said that eventually it could migrate and close off my stomach entirely and I'd have to have emergency surgery to remove it.

He gave me three options, all of which are surgery. Remove the band and leave my stomach alone, go in and reposition the band, or do a revision to a sleeve. Right now, I don't meet the BMI requirements for my insurance to approve a revision, but he thinks we may be able to make an argument that it's a medically necessary surgery anyway. Ideally, I'll revise to a sleeve; if that isn't possible, I'd rather have the band repositioned than removed.

I admit that I was kind of hoping to have something wrong with the band in order to justify revising to a sleeve, but actually KNOWING that something is wrong bothers me more than I thought it would. I almost started crying at the surgeon's office.

Now it's time to hurry up and wait while we get everything together and submitted to insurance. It's going to be at least a wee****il anything gets done, since the insurance coordinator is on vacation this week.


(X-posted to revision forum)

Hi,

I'm sorry you are going through a difficult time -- I hope everything works out okay for you.

Hugs! Seems the band doesn't work for most long term.........and some of us even short term! :-(

Hope u will be able to revise. U will do much better with the VSG!

So very sorry for what you've had to endure.  Keep us informed as to what happens with you.

I'm in the process of revising and it will probably be to the DS.  I got my band in 2006, lost 60 pounds, started having problems and ended up with a slipped band.  They unfilled and I slowly gained the weight back-everytime they'd try filling it would slip again.  Recently I ended up in the ER unable to keep anything down.  I finally was able to get fluids down and now am back to mostly regular food.  But my surgeon said the band has to come out.   In fact, he said he no longer puts bands in-he only takes them out.   He said  I could revise to the sleeve or RNY and really pushed RNY because there are long-term studies of success vs. the sleeve.  Then I read on here about the DS and my surgeon said that was also an option and had the best long term success rate.  I still have to get insurance approval but my surgeon made it sound like it wouldn't be an issue and I am a "light weight" with a BMI of 39. 

Good luck to you-I'm just looking forward to getting rid of this band and finding a tool that does work for me.

Get rid of the band, once it becomes an issue it will always be an issue!

Take care!

That is my ultimate goal, if I can get insurance to pay for the revision.  If not, I'll have to get the band repositioned until I can save up enough money to self pay.  My surgeon says that only about 1/3 of banded patients are successful.  Another third struggle, and the final third fail.  He said that he doesn't do many bands any more.  The demographic that were choosing bands a few years ago are now choosing the sleeve instead, so he does mostly sleeves and band-to-sleeve revisions.  And to be quite honest, if I'd had the option of the sleeve when I was originally choosing my WLS, I probably would have gone with it, too.