Getting Banded in 2 weeks! Questions & Opinions!

Hey Everyone,

I'm getting banded in exactly 2 weeks, and I am so excited, yet nervous. Let me give you all some information. 

I'm 20 years old, almost 21, and weight has always been an issue. Everyone in my family is overweight and/or obese. Both my parents have been banded, and I'm next. 

I've always been overweight. I was always the fat girl. I remember so clearly when I was younger I got an anonymous message that said, "You're so cute, but you're fat. If you lost some weight I would go out with you in a heartbeat." That was over 8 years ago, and It still hurts me to think about. I ended up finding out it was my crush. Anyways, irrelevant information. 

I have battled my weight issues for years and years. A few years ago I lost 40 pounds on my own, but I was working out two times a day, and meticulously counting all my calories. I ended up putting it all back, and 15 pounds more. I work out so much and eat so healthy, but the scale barely budges. I'm miserable. My father tells me, "You can't fight genetics." I agree with him because every time I lose weight, I mess up my diet once and its over, I put everything back on. 

I'm 220 and I hate myself, if i'm being completely honest. My BMI is 34.5. I don't want to go anywhere because nothing fits me; I live in leggings and baggy clothes cause of my fat. 

I just have a couple of questions. I'm keeping this surgery a secret. The only people that will know are my parents and brother. I do have a lot of friends, and I am turning 21 in a few months. Am I going to be able to drink and enjoy being 21 (at least for that weekend? I'm not a drinker, but you turn 21 once)?

Will it be noticeable? I know this is very vain, but I do not want visible scars. Will I be able to wear a two piece come summer time? If i get intimate with someone will they be able to feel the port? How bad is the vomiting (my parents have been banded for over 6 years and still throw up everyday). 

Please note, that I am not using the surgery as the "miracle" to lose weight. I know diet and exercise are key ingredients (no pun intended) in losing weight. This band is just a tool to help me. My parents have already started prepping by throwing away all junk in the house and we all eat very clean (chicken breast, brown rice, steamed veggies; almost every single day).

Thank you all for taking the time to read my post, and your much anticipated answers/comments.

Welcome.

the scars are tiny and won't show after a while.

you can drink to celebrate but carbonated things may cause painful gas. Note some doctors say not for 6 months after the surgery, mine didn't. Many people find they get more affected by alcohol than pre-surgery, maybe due to the smaller amounts of food! 

once the weight is gone, the port can be felt. 

you should NOT be sick. I don't want to comment on anyone else's surgery but anyone who is regularly sick is either eating carelessly or too tight. Being too tight can cause serious damage to the oesophagus and is one of the prime reasons for serious band complications. A great many bands end up being removed and being tight enough to vomit regularly is often one of the reasons.  I bring food back maybe once every two or three months and it's ALWAYS careless eating. Trying to remember the last time and I think it was back in August/September when I was eating rather tough lamb! 

Hi Kate,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post, I really appreciate it! I'm glad to hear about the scars. My dad said after about a year and a half I can get the scars taken care of surgically (laser removal of some sort). My 21st birthday is in a little over 2 months, and I do not like carbonated drinks to begin with. I was planning on doing a Vegas trip with my friends, but I'm starting to feel like I should postpone that!

Is the port very obvious? I've read that after a while I can have the port exchanged for a smaller, less visible port. I wonder if this is true. The only reason I'm being vain with these things, such as scars and the port being visible, is because I'm still very young. I want to go out with my friends for a night out, I want to be intimate with guys again. I'm also moving out in about a year, so I would like to be able to enjoy that experience to the fullest extent (or as close as possible)! I know the limitations about eating/restriction, but I am referring the social aspect of hanging out with friends, not eating :) 

I am just so excited, and nervous. It will be my first ever surgery. Any recommendations as what to say when people ask how I've been losing weight? I do not want anyone other than my brother and parents knowing about this.

Thanks again!

It's hard for me to answer about the port because I am 40 years older than you, have had four children and am never going to have a flat stomach! 

I told people the truth, eating less, eating slowy, exercising more. But I don't like actually lying so if anyone asked (and most people were too polite), I told the truth but asked them not to tell everyone 

About being social.  At first it may not be easy because you will be eating so carefully! You can tell people you are dieting and so explain the small portions; you can tell them research shows (quite true) that eating slowly makes you feel full on less food. 

But the difficulty may be the care you have to take until you really get used to the band. One of the times I have problems is when I forget. Social occasion, lots of conversation, I want to join in. So I swallow too quickly and then think #*^#! 

But it becomes second nature. If you ate a meal with me, you would have no idea I have had surgery. You might comment I had a very small appetite. That actually is a problem if you are eating something someone has cooked for you. You leave most of it and they might be hurt or offended! 

But if your band is properky adjusted it never stops you eating, if it does, it is too tight. Food should pass through within about a minute. It used t be taught that it should remain above the band but research showed this not to be the case and that if that happened it was the cause of probiems. 

So this means you can always eat more! This is dangerous for weight loss but useful socially! For example, every now and then I eat at very expensive, Michelin starred restaurants - always very special occasions when I want to treat myself.

that sort of restaurant never serves large portions but they serve many courses, sometimes as many as seven small courses. Because each is small and there us a civilised pause between courses, I can eat the entire meal.

so socialising is not hard - not taking in too many calories while socialising is VERY hard.

I'm choosing to keep this a secret, because my family (cousins, aunts, uncles, family friends) is very unstable. When I had lost 40 pounds by myself, my cousin told everyone I was doing crack to lose weight. My aunt then took her side and spread lies about me telling everyone in my family I sleep with men for money to afford the things I have (around then I was working anywhere from 40-70 hours a week). There's a lot more, but I will not got into details. But basically, I have one effed up family! 

I'm honestly just worried about the future and having another boyfriend. I will not tell any guy unless I know for a fact I am going to get married to this guy. Which will not be any time soon as I am barely 21 years old. I completely understand the social aspect, I just have to be more careful as I tend to be a mindless eater. If there is food in front of me I will just eat it out of sheer boredom. 

I'm so excited for this next chapter in my life. I'm so tired of being the fat friend. The one that always gets told "you're pretty, but if you lost a couple of pounds everyone would want you." I'm going to have so many self esteem issues vanish, but some will still stick with me. I will still have that "fat girl" mentality. Thanks again, Kate!

Any time!

Everyone scars differently.  I had the Lapband in 2008 and when I had my Tummy Tuck in 2009, my scars were still purple and raised and very visible to anyone.  Thankfully, having my tummy skin removed, removed the scars too.  It all depends on whether you scar well or not.  The port become very noticeable for me once I lost all of my excess weight.  If I wore a tight tee shift post TT, you could see it easily.  

I don't believe in lying about weight loss.  IT's my belief that being honest with others who are struggling with their weight is a good way of paying it forward.  If it hadn't been for my friend being honest with me, I wouldn't have ever known about the LapBand and I would still weigh 488 lbs.  Instead her honesty helped save my life.  

You will have to make major changes in your eating and drinking.  Alcohol will stall your weight loss.  IT's something that you should rarely do, if at all.  IT's a lifestyle change and one that needs to be totally adopted or you're not going to see your goal.  

I have lost 331 lbs since getting my LapBand and I have no regrets, BUT I truly have changed my entire life.  When I date, I don't share that I had WLS, but many will ask since they see me eat such small portions.  If someone honestly asks me how I lost weight and they themselves are obese, I will tell them.  

Life goes on....

I have to disagree with Kate and I can because we are buddies, she expects me to. I and many many others have had a totally different experience with our bands. Mine went ok for a couple of years altho I never lost much weight, about 20 lbs. Then it started slowly tightening because of scar tissue, Over time I had fills and unfills until I finally ended up having to have it emptied completely and that helped for another couple of years but then the tightening continued and I ended up having to pay for removal because my insurance would no longer cover bariatric surgery. I have what appears to be permanent damage to my stomach and esophagus, I have heartburn so bad that it feels like hot lava bubbling up my throat all day, every day and have to sleep sitting up. Explain that to a boyfriend!

Are you aware that there is a 10 year limit on the band and then it needs to be removed and a different surgery done. You are young so I would think you would want something that would last longer. It is also the least effective weight loss surgery with only half of the people losing any weight at all and that could be as little as 5 lbs. Please please read some of the forums on failed lapbands on social media. There are many like myself with permanent damage, some so bad they have actually had to have their stomachs removed but mostly erosion into the stomach or slips that cause great pain. The band is not the simple easy surgery that I was told it would be and there are thousands of us who live with constant pain even tho our bands have been removed. Please investigate more before you go ahead with this so you can make a fully informed choice. Don't fall for the lies that I did that it is just a simple easy reversible surgery, it is NOT!

I do agree with Kate on your parents tho if they are vomiting more than once in a great while they MUST see a bariatric surgeon immediately and get their bands at least loosened. That is also a sign of slipped or eroded bands, they are putting themselves in great danger by leaving it too tight! I wish you lick but please do more research and also consider a little counceling because this will not increase your self esteem that comes from with in not from surgery.

I've lost 100 pounds and I've kept it off for 8 years now. I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO HAVE MY HEALTH BACK. That damn band has set off one health crisis after another with my body and now I'm actually being tested for even worse **** and it IS band related !

The band is such a horrible decision for most of us. It's really not what it's cracked up to be at all. I hope you reconsider and save yourself a lot of pain and misery. You seem like such an intelligent young lady from your post. 

You already watch your parents throw up every day due to the band. Why would you want to subject yourself to the same? Throwing up every single day has health consequences. I ended up with esophageal issues due to this. Your esophagus can become "baggy" and stretched out and cease to work correctly. It is quite painful and dangerous.  You cannot reasonably sustain a diet of chicken breast, brown rice and steamed veggies every day for the rest of your life. The band will not allow you to consume brown rice, most likely. And a lot of veggies are also off the table due to the fibrous nature... they tend to cause problems in banded people. 

Mayo Clinic has chosen to stop performing gastric banding due to the high failure rate. Many of the world's better surgeons are also choosing to stop banding because of the complication and failure rate. Why would you set yourself up for failure at such a young age? It breaks my heart to even think of you going through what I went through with the band. I'm 46 and I'm damaged irreparably from that torturous device. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, ever. 

You are worried about scarring. Well, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that if you choose the band, you'll end up with a lot of scarring due to the fact that most of us have to undergo multiple surgeries... band slips, revisions, removal... we end up with a LOT of scars. And a lot of internal scar tissue, as well. The band causes the body to react against it and try to fight against what it considers a foreign body. This means a LOT of scar tissue down the line for most of us. I have a road map on my abdomen from the multiple "corrective" surgeries I went through with the band. I wish I had chosen a better surgery from the get-go. It's not too late to change your mind. But once you get on the operating table and they put you out, it's too late and your life will change massively. 

SO many of us end up with Vagus nerve damage from the band... stabbing, sharp, horrible left shoulder pain... no medication even remotely helped. I suffered with that pain for years and years. People said, "It's just gas pain." It's not just gas pain. It was much worse than the post surgical gas pain that a lot of people experience. This was literally like being stabbed repeatedly over and over and over from morning until night. I'd wake up in pain, I'd go to bed in pain. The week after I had the band removed was like an epiphany. I couldn't believe what I'd put up with in the name of losing weight. It was like I was brainwashed to believe that it was all "normal." Being in atrocious, life altering pain for years is not normal. And so many of us accept it. Don't put yourself through it. Please research more.  I'm sad for you because I think your desire to be thinner is overriding your ability to make a good decision in this matter. I understand it because I did the same thing. Wishing you the best. Please consider a different surgery. You'll have better results and be happier in the long term. (I had my band done in 2003. I've watched the band harm so many people. I hope you'll understand where I'm coming from and know that my post to you is meant to help you avoid what we all went through.)