Fairness

In all fairness, surgery of any type carries risks:

Infection

Surgical injury

Risk of anesthesia 

Pneumonia 

Death

Bleeding

vomiting

Other risks associated with the type of surgery.

The bigger issue is that if you have Lapband, you're probably going to have at least another surgery to repair, revise or replace your band.  The odds are against you retaining your band longer than 5 years.  I get that we achieve success with our bands (not all but many), and I wouldn't for a minute go back and do it differently, even with the complications, based on my situation at the time.  This isn't 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 or 2010...the newbies now have so much more data, options, information available.  Why not allow those of us who've had a difficult, albeit successful Lapband journey guide them in a better direction???  It's ok to disagree.  It's not ok to steer someone in the direction of a WLS that's almost GUARANTEED to earn them subsequent surgeries and life long damage.  It breaks my heart to hear of the afflictions some of our young banded friends are suffering.

There are better choices today.

True Story!! 

Lap Band is the worst mistake I ever made.  I told my surgeon also and he did not disagree.

I'm just glad that the better surgeons in the world are speaking up and saying that the lap band is NOT all it's cracked up to be. Maybe as more of them (and those of us who have been damaged by lap bands, as well) give our less than glowing opinions about  the band, more people can be saved the trauma and pain.

I'm sick of telling people how sorry I am that they're in pain from banding. It's been TEN years now that I've repeated it over and over. It's disheartening.

It kills me when I read of young people with horrific quality of life from band damage.  It also is disappointing that when we post our own experience truthfully, we are called "irrational bashers".  My wits are fully about me :)

Steph that is an awesome post. No matter what anyone's experience here is with the band, bad, or good..............you have to admit that you all have seen tons of band complications and early removals. It really is very unfair to encourage a pre-op to get the band b/c you might have done well with it even though you can clearly see the extremely high complication/removal rate of the band. So can you all just put your pride aside in an effort to prevent the pre-ops from getting what in all likelyhood will be only a temporary "fix", and encourage them to research and so they can choose a much more effective and long term WLS? Seriously..........you wouln't recommend the band to your daughter or son would you? So please stop encouraging people to bet them just because they are strangers to you and you want to prove your point!