xpost need advice

Post Date: 4/19/12 12:01 pm
I had Gastric Bypass in 2007 but have gained my weight back. Wanting a revision to give it another go. with a second chance I know I can make it. Problem is my surgeons office wants to see if it is a problem with the actual surgery or whether it is just me not following the diet...AAAHH I am not following the diet which is why I gained the weight back..They want me to see the nut to get me back on track and lose the weight (85 lbs). If I could have followed a diet with portion control and choices I would not need to go to the weight loss surgeon. Insurance is not a problem. and I gained my weight back from poor choices and portions over what I should have done. I can now eat like before. Any advice for me to get them to change thier minds and give me the surgery?

Please don't respond with hate and tell me what a loser I am for not following the diet. Don't you think I know that. I know the mistakes I made you don't have to tell me.

If you did have a revision what would you do differently?  Are you addressing your food issues with a counselor or other source?  I don't blame them for not wanting to give you another surgery.  To tell you the truth, if I didn't have medical issues I would never have had a revision because I knew 100% that the reason I regained 100 lbs was because I had out of control carb addiction and if I could get a grip on that I wouldn't need a revision.  That isn't to say that the revision doesn't help.  With my first surgery I never felt restriction.  Now I have pretty good restriction so that does help me feel satisfied after eating.  I also don't get hungry like I did before.  But I am the one that looked at the issues that caused me to fail my first WLS and make the changes necessary.
I do think you should have testing to see if your surgery is still intact and if not maybe have that corrected.  But in addition to that I really hope you deal with whatever food demons you have.  Remember, the surgery doesn't make your food choices for you.  That is all on you and if nothing changes then nothing changes.

Well, first and foremost, you're going to have to jump through whatever hoops the surgeon or the insurance company put in front of you if you really want a revision surgery. 

A lot of times if the weight re-gain is from noncompliance, I have seen both surgeon's and insurance companies deny revision surgery and make you follow a nutritionist/supervised weight loss program for 6 months or so.  I know that is not what you want to hear, and I'm not trying to be a downer here. 

My suggestion would be to do whatever they want you to do so that you can show them you ARE compliant and willing to make whatever change is necessary to be successful.  However, if they do some investigation and find that you have a pouch dilation or your stoma is stretched out, or find some other "mechanical" failure, they may not make you jump through too many hoops and could approve you at that point for the revision, especially if you're doing everything they tell you to do.

Good luck! 

How do you get a stretched stoma and how can the doctor tell?

 You can Google stretched stoma for more info; I know a little about it....... As far as I know over eating will cause dilatation and stretching of the stoma.... I'm not sure if fluoroscopy would show it, but I know an EGD would show it.