Basic decency and humanity, not to mention kindness.

I saw a comment that said, "Good luck. I'm sorry that the band will hurt you like it did me." The poster is in enormous pain from damage caused by the band. It is fairly reasonable for her to have an opinion that is less than glowing about the band. It was probably just the wording that people are objecting to. But everyone has a different way of expressing themselves. Chronic pain sometimes really causes people to change. I don't think anyone meant to really hurt the poster who just had surgery. It's just an unfortunate consequence of the pain and how it was expressed.

Personally, I don't wish anyone harm. But to hear some people say it, I'm out to ruin the lives of everyone I come into contact with. It's all in how you read it, I suppose.  Like I told Kate, as long as I know myself and what my motives are, I'm okay with whatever anyone else thinks.

While I will post my honest opinion about my personal experience to a preop who is researching, I will not "rain on the parade" of a post op who isn't having any issues, especially someone who is very recently post op.  There are plenty of posts from those of us who have had problems as independent threads...there is no reason to jump into a thread of someone who is celebrating, anticipating only positive results, and recovering from major surgery and try to burst their bubble

i experienced this as a post op newbie.  When I was researching in 2008-2009 I posted often, asking a lot of questions.  I received NO negative information re: banding, yet during my first 6 months, all I heard was " just, wait, your band will fail you too!" Often in red, bold font with a lot of punctuation.  

I understand the anger, frustration and disappointment that band complications cause, but empathy must be put out there first.  There are so many variables in anatomy, doctors' skills, undiagnosed conditions that may or may not be triggered by WLS AND all the new information that is available today, vs when we had our WLS, it's impossible to say that every complication, symptom, condition is because we have lapbands.  

Take it easy on the newbies folks....you'll have a better chance of getting the information out there if its delivered with a bit of empathy and support.

There is a fine line between education, sharing your story and bullying, viciousness.  Which I have seen here the last couple of days too. 

There was a time when my band was not working for me the way I had hoped and I was GREEN with envy when I saw those posts of people that were doing well.  It frustrated me and I was feeling very remorseful that I had chosen the band.  I was wishing with every fiber of my being that I could go back in time and chose RNY.  So I do understand the despair of not losing and feeling like a failure or thinking the band is a piece of ****  I just try to remember when I see a post like that the person must be full of pain and anguish.  I know a newbie won't understand that though. 

I think there is a constructive way of handling the pain of your band failure.  And everyone needs to figure out what that is for themselves. 

By the way...my band did finally work out for me and I did have a happy ending.  It just took almost 18 months of fills.   

I'm not generally in favour of censorship but am glad OH has removed the post.

I don't really care if any of you were offended by what I posted....I seriously don't care. I was responding to her rant about the negativity on the board.

You don't like the fact that I was a successful bander and I followed the rules and it still hurt me and now you cannot explain why that happened. OR wait you all probably think that it sill somehow is my fault!!! I feel sorry for you all, and in my honest opinion if you promote the lapband and you know that it can harm then you are just as guilty as those who sell and and surgically place it.

I'm not an angry ***** either lol, I don't have the energy to be angry. Honestly I do pray for you all that this doesn't happen to you.  

I don't really care if any of you were offended by what I posted....I seriously don't care. I was responding to her rant about the negativity on the board.

You don't like the fact that I was a successful bander and I followed the rules and it still hurt me and now you cannot explain why that happened. OR wait you all probably think that it sill somehow is my fault!!! I feel sorry for you all, and in my honest opinion if you promote the lapband and you know that it can harm then you are just as guilty as those who sell and and surgically place it.

I'm not an angry ***** either lol, I don't have the energy to be angry. Honestly I do pray for you all that this doesn't happen to you.  

This had nothing to do with your success. I am glad you succeeded. It has nothing to do with your awful band problems. I am deeply, sincerely sorry they happened to you and I am very sure it was in no way at all your fault.

The OP did NOT rant about negativity, she just said she hoped she was going to get support and find some positive stories.

This was simply about unkindness to someone who is only just out of anaesthetic after having got the band! Others on here, despite dreadful experiences and understandable bitterness against the band, manage to treat newly banded people more kindly.

i don't remember you as being anything other than nice in the past so I think on this occasion your recent experiences made you forget the vulnerability of another.

Ya she did rant about all the negativity and then basically said that if it failed it was because of something we did to make it fail. Read it again Kate.

I pasted what she said below. This is not a rant. She simply says, as a new bandster, that on another board there appear to be more success stories and fewer complications. IMO she is not referring to complications like yours or Nic/'s. As someone who is new to OH, she is clearly surprised by the number of problems discussed, if she is a regular on a board like LBT where anything negative is treated with disbelief and the bandster is always seen as to blame, I can see why OH alarmed her. She needs to read all sides, which is why it is a great shame if she has gone back to the everything is roses LBT board. 

I go on a UK board and if I were to describe it, I would say that there were many more positive posts and many fewer complications.  But that does not mean that I do not wish to take part in this forum. It is possible to read her post very differently to the way you did. To me it says, I am newly banded, I am alarmed by the negatives I see here, these are not reported on my regular board,  I am hoping that it will not be the case that there are no positives. I think she is worried!

She said:-   It is a little discouraging to see all the negatives on here about the band. I belong to a another support group of just banders and most all of them have had good results and very few complications. Most of the complications have been them just not being compliant with diet. 

I am hoping to see more positives on here. A friend recommended the site to me. 

You can twist it any way you want to Kate but I read it right, you still cannot explain why she said it was our own faults if the band failed. AND no Nic and I are not the only ones who have experienced this....the fact that you all blast anyone who failed is sad as hell. That has been going on as long as I have been on OH and it still happens the only difference it that there are less of you that consider yourselves successful. Wonder why that is???

I am going to jump in and say that I have gotten a tremendous amount of support from Kate from the time of my banding in February 2009 to my emergency removal  this past October . Kate has been nothing but positive, whether my band was rocking for weight loss or when it damned near killed me. My situation is that my body rejected the foreign object. Nothing I could control no matter how desperately I wanted to keep my band. I still get ongoing support and encouragement from Kate and many others too numerous to list. Being a person with a failed band, I also wholly sympathize with those among us who have been severely affected by their experience and who are suffering lasting effects, however, being out and out awful to a newbie is not OK. We have to be supportive and informative. 

Judy