If you've been banded for a year+ and having complications...Please share!

 Let me clarify, I don't have cardiac issues.  My doctor said my symptoms could be either cardiac or gastric, but because cardiac issues are more immediately life threatening, we needed to investigate that first.  My heart is fine, thankfully.

Ok I stand corrected.

 You're new, Join date 5/29/12, but welcome!

On June 15, 2012 at 8:44 AM Pacific Time, NanceC wrote: I am not new to the post I do read however, I don't usually post.  I had surgery over 3 1/2 years ago and have had no problems with my band and there are others like me out there.  When people are not having any problems and are losing weight they usually don't post.  I have lost over 80 pounds and still losing slowly because of lack of exercise due to no fault of myself.  I am starting excising today to speed up my next goal of being under the 200 mark.  Yes, I do believe the band is not for everyone only you can decide.  Would I do it again?  YES!  The band has help me and in between losing to maintain my weight loss with no gains because of portion control.  I have been away from the board for a little while and can not believe all the negativity.  If you are looking for advice, my advice would be to not look at all the negativity,  Although I do feel bad for everybody that has had bad experience from their bands for whatever reasons, and do my own research on pros and cons of each surgery and what is good for you.   NanceC,
Congratulations on your weight loss it's a lot of hard work and you deserve to be congratulated.

Some of my issues with the Lap Band are trying to educate pre-ops regarding obesity related conditions that someone who has lost a great deal of weight still faces, I have lost 94 lbs in 6 years and my BMI is 27.8 which still puts me at all the same risks as I was, when I weighed 256 lbs.

Here's the truth, At 162 LBS I still have a BMI of 27.8. This indicates that I am still overweight. 
According to the National Institutes of Health, being overweight or obese have known risk factors for the following:

• diabetes
• coronary heart disease
• high blood cholesterol
• stroke
• hypertension
• gallbladder disease
• osteoarthritis (degeneration of cartilage and bone of joints)
• sleep apnea and other breathing problems
• some forms of cancer (breast, colorectal, endometrial, and kidney)

Obesity is also associated with:

• complications of pregnancy
• menstrual irregularities
• hirsutism (presence of excess body and facial hair)
• stress incontinence (urine leakage caused by weak pelvic floor muscles)
• psychological disorders, such as depression
• increased surgical risk
• increased mortality

So if a persons intentions for losing weight are not purely for vanity, and they think they would not be happy at 199 pounds ( 3 1/2 YEARS after their WLS ), while still being at risk for the above mentioned obesity related risks. Then I would urge pre-ops to consider other options.
I am not a big fan of the RNY, but if the Lap Band & the RNY were the only choices available to me...If I had this to do over again today, I would choose the RNY over the Lap Band.


If we put ourselves through WLS, then we need to be mindful of those risks.

Success should not only be measured by amount of weight lost. We must learn to redefine our definition of success.


BTW,  Care to discuss in further detail your comment I highlighted below ?  I'd be really interested in understanding and having a respectful discussion with you on why you believe this to be fact..
" When people are not having any problems and are losing weight they usually don't post. "

Lisa

I am not pro band or anti band, I figure you have to make your own choice and chose what you "think" is right for you. You can research this to death and listen to everyone from here to China and it won't help you if you or the band fails you. All you can do is make the best choice possible.

If I were just considering WLS I would probably do the sleeve but I do have to add that I have been banded for 6 1/2 years and have had no problems with my band, I did pu**** to far and kept it to tight for a time and kept passing out from lack of nutrition...just because I wanted to see a certain number on the scale but have since had some fluid taken out where I could eat and am now at a healthy weight (about 20 lbs. more than I want to be) but at least I'm not passing out....I am currently trying to drink more water so I can lose these pesky 20 lbs.

All in all I am healthier now than when I was at 280 lbs. and believe me people DO treat me differently and it is not because of more confidence, I probably had more confidence then because I did not have skin hanging...

Debbie with all the injuries that the band has caused to so many people, it should not even be a viable option. It's a dangerous and life altering product that should not be on the market period.

This is not about which surgery is the best surgery out there.

This is not about which surgery you will lose the weight faster or slower with.

This is not about choice.

This is about a product ( The LAGB ) which if it had been manufactured by a smaller less powerful, no name recognition pharmaceutical GIANT, who didn't have DEEP pockets, without high paid powerful lobbyists in congress... it would no longer be on the market.

LAGB are ruining the quality of so many peoples lives, and this shouldn't be about amount of weight lost. It needs to be about quality of life, and while you have had excellent quality of life after LAGB...there are far too many of us who are suffering. There are better options available and LAGB should not be one of them.

I am going to have my band taken out and revise to the DS this fall/winter. 

The band has gotten increasingly tighter and tighter and tighter causing lots of problems. Unfills only help so long. This afternoon I'm having the last little bit of fill taken out to buy some more time so I can hopefully make it until the fall when a surgery is more convenient. If it becomes an emergency it can be done sooner w/o too much of an issue though.

When I went into band surgery and for the first 18 months after wards I was so hopeful, happy and optimistic. Problems were not goint to happen to me and my band. Well, when they started happening I felt so discouraged that I stopped spending much time on OH. Over the last several months I've done all the hard mental work of accepting the band is not working for me and not only that, it is hurting my body. Now I am ready emotionally to move forward with a revision.

I had the band place in May of 2007.  I was a model patient and lost steadily.  I lost 110 pounds in 18 months, and was feeling so much better about myself.

 In may of 2009, I ate a piece of bread and got stuck,  I had a complete unfill.  I had to work my way back to getting the band filled.  In the meantime, the surgeon's  office made a personnel switch.  There was a new GP doing the fills.  She was very conservative.  Many times she would just give me a tiny fill, which I hated because they didn't make much of a difference and I had to pay good money to her AND to the surgeon every time I went in for  a fill.

 Long story short, I was never able to find the "sweet spot" again.  Then she said my pouch was becoming mushroom shaped.  She was scared to put much saline in for fear she would make the band slip.  I would tell her that the amount she was giving me was not making a difference, but she wouldn't give me any more because she said the barium would not wash away out of my pouch.  Finally, I went to go get another tiny fill in November, and she informed me that the band had slipped.  They said I could have it removed, repositioned, or just leave it on in it's slipped position since I didn't appear to be having problems.  I have gained back nearly 50 pounds, and my appetite is big again.  

I am a teacher, and have had a very busy and stressful year after the tornado that we experienced in Joplin last May.  I have been putting off making a decision about what to do about the band until summer.  Now summer is here, and I need to decide whether or not to reposition the band or to revise to the sleeve.  I am not sure the insurance will pay for a revision.  I am going to a new surgeon next week.  I am leaning toward the revision, if my insurance will pay.  I have had some docs tell me that they have to remove the band first and let me heal, then go back and do the revision.  However, I don't want to have 2 surgeries.  The more I think about it though, the more I want to be free of having to come in all the time for fills.  I am scared that if I have the band repositioned, it will just slip again.  Many posters on here have had that happen.   

I don't have any ill-feelings about having had the band.  It was a great tool while it lasted.  I had not had so much success with anything else, so to me it was a success story, until just recently.  

Please don't reposition your band Sally, it is better to be without a tool, then to reposition or place a new band. You will most certainly be looking at a third surgery if you reposition or re band.

Lisa

Prior to getting the band 2 1/2 years ago I debated between it and RNY (VSG was not as talked about at that time). The band was advertised as "least invasive" and that is a very powerful term. I was self-pay so the thought of complications was very much a consideration for me so "least invasive" seemed like the most logical choice.

I phoned Allergain prior to banding and they assured me that the lap-band was a lifetime product.

As far as the band I was aware that most complications occur AFTER surgery, not during. I asked the "lap-band advocate" about post-op complications with the band. I was very specific! I told her that I could only afford ONE surgery and this has to be A ONE SHOT DEAL! Well she lied straight to my face and told me that the stats I saw included data from the "old bands" and that with the "new bands" that all the kinks had been worked out, and therefore you almost never saw a band complication with the "new bands".  Well imagine my surprise when I get my band and start coming on the OH lap-band forum and start seeing all these ppl that were banded just a few months before me (with the "new band") having all these complications?!

Anyway.............got the band. Went month after month for fills thinking maybe this would  be the ONE. Never was. Never reached the "green zone". 19 fills. 4 partial unfills. Never a happy medium.

Now no restriction was another complication of the band that you never heard about at the time either! It just was not talked about. So I would come on here and tell about it, but instead of getting support, what I would get would be "it's a leak/it's not installed correctly/you have a bad Dr.". And those were the nicer ones. The other ones were insinuating that I was too stupid to know how the band works/I expected a "magic bullet"/the band won't make you put the fork down/the band won't make you exercise/the band won't make you diet/the band is only a "tool"/I expected the band to do all the work/etc.

Well eventually others started admitting that they were not reaching restriction as well. It actually seems to be a common problem. HisLady mentioned about a yr. ago that she saw a different Dr. when she went that time and that particular Dr. told her that about 20% of bandsters never reach restriction! Iknow personally, had I been told that I NEVER would have gotten the band, and I'm sure that info would be a major concern for a lot of others as well had they been told this prior!

So basically after self-paying for a band that NEVER worked the way it was advertised to work, I am now in a position of needing to revise, or at the very least, have it removed.

I have in the last month or 2 developed a little night reflux now as well. :-(