Ok, here's an update: 

In 2009, Dr. Herrera couldn't find my port, so he told me that it had flipped and I needed to go in and flip it back over. He said he would wave his fees, and I could do it at a surgery center so that it would cost less, since I'm self-pay. Well, when he got in there, the port had not flipped, it had just shifted and he had never noticed it - then again, he never had never scoped me or used any other diagnostic equipment to see if it had really flipped. Still, I was out $2k and a day of surgery to find this out. 

Then, in 2011, I really started having problems with the band. I had frequent heart burn and reflux and I could barely eat anything. If I ate more than a few bites of food at a time, I would either cough it up or my heart would start to race. Dr. H scoped me and said it was a "small slip" and that he wouldn't fill my band anymore - that I needed a revision (at the cost of several thousand more dollars with the newly hired revision specialist). He wasn't even willing to go in and fix the slip. 

So, I found a new doctor who told me on my first visit to him when he scoped me that I had a hiatal hernia. During the fluoroscope he pointed to the screen and said "see your stomach here?" "That's your chest." Then he pointed to an area farther down the screen and said "it's supposed to be down here."

He performed surgery on me soon after that and said that I had a "massive" hernia and that about half of my stomach was in my chest and it took a long time for him to carefully work it down out of my chest and take off the old band and put on a new one.  Now, how in the h*ll did Dr. Herrera miss that? Or how about, maybe, he should have fixed the hernia (that he knew about) when he did the very first surgery??

Oh sure, like any good salesman, he's a nice guy. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give a 8 for personality but a 1 for his diagnostic skills. 

I would never see him again and I would NOT recommend him. 

Wow, I LOVED my band, but in the past month after 6 weeks and two hospital trips later, my band was removed 9 years after it was placed, almost to the day. I guess I will now look into the GASTRIC SLEEVE, but ya know friends, I can't afford USA prices. WILL HAVE TO GO TO MEXICO. I am at 157lbs now. I HOPE TO be no more than 180 by December.  I want to get the gastric Sleeve in Mexico by November or December of 2016.

ANY advice for me?

Hi everyone, I just join today I need some advice. July 8th will be 2 years since I had the lap band I went through fill unfilled. I'm thinking about having the band removed because: left side pain , my heart beats really fast sometimes while I'm eating. I'm tired of getting sick and stuck. I'm thinking about getting the sleeve. I loss 108 ponds from 388 to 280 Any body having or had any problems? Thank for your replies 

if you had a band erode once getting a second band is a big mistake.  Your pouch is not going to be strong enough to support another band.  I would do the DS if I had to choose between a band and the DS. 

I had a Silastic ring around my pouch that eroded into my pouch over time. It has recently been removed and suggested that the lap band would benefit me. The surgeon said that he would have to undo my RNY and re-route my intestines and sleeve my stomach in order to do the DS. I am doing the what ifs now....what if I should have had the DS done instead of LB. The LB and DS are both new to me since I have had the RNY for 16 years.