Upper GI results...

Hi everyone, I had a vertical banded gastroplasty in 1995. After the initial 8-week liquid diet, I didn't have the sensation of taking four bites and being full like I'd heard I would. I could eat pretty much normally from the beginning, so the little bit of weight that I did lose in the liquid diet phase quickly began to return. Since then, I have struggled with my weight, so I am now in the process of obtaining insurance approval for a revision RNY gastric bypass. Today, I had an upper GI to determine the cause of my VGB failure. Before the procedure, the doctor told me that patients with previous WLS have strange looking anatomy, and that he might not be able to tell too much just from those images. So I was surprised, as was he, when we looked at the x-ray. He said that my stomach looked like that of someone who had never been operated on, that it was completely anatomically correct except for a few pieces of metal (I guess remnants of staples) and a piece of clip (from the band) at the top. The shape and contour of the stomach itself looked completely unchanged - he even said that there was no "gastrostomy," (the opening they make to secure the band to - the staples meet the band there and close the rest of the opening). This is typically present in VGB patients. I still don't know what caused the disruption to both the band and staples, but I know that it must've been early on. I've never heard of anyone having such severe disruption in both the staples and the band that the stomach looks like nothing was ever changed. My question to you all is, have any of you revisioners ever been told that your post-op stomach looked anatomically unchanged when the upper GI is done, with the absence of the gastrostomy? Or do you know anyone else who this has happened to? Did the doctor ever explain what caused this to happen? I'm very curious to see your responses. Thanks!

Funny you should ask, the surgeon I saw yesterday told me that that happens frequently to VBG and he further said that 'they' knew about this hardware failure 3 years before my VBG in 1997.  He wondered why anyone would have given me that surgery due to the failure.  My VBG didn't fail in that way.  I think that 10 years ago they knew so little....good luck,  kat