Banders to be - Worried?

[valentine]

Hi Valentine. I am private. I don't meet the criteria for my area on the NHS. My BMI is 36. But my mother died of a MI at my age and her father had two heart attacks. So I think this along with my joint pain got me in on the private side I was sorry to read about your band troubles. And my post was not intended to minimise your situation in any way - I know this is a risk. I am lucky to have two folks close to me who have had great success with the band but they are only six years in. Mi just see the difference it has made to their quality of life and self esteem I am just so weary of the daily fight with food, the feeling of self loathing when I fail at the latest attempt. Switching between various diet clubs, fad diets, sensible eating plans, low carb, low calorie...at one point a visit with the nurse for a year, where I lost two stone.....but nomatter what success I have, I always end up back at where I am right now - so desperation stakes here is making me willing to take the risk Going back to your question about NHS or private? Do you think that makes a difference? What did you do. Cheers

I totally empathise with everything you say... When my band failed I spent 3 years gaining the weight back and it was like the worst failure ever...

With a BMI of 36 you don't meet the NHS criteria whereas I did when I had my band .. But in 2004 I was desperate and didn't want to wait so I took the band option... The sleeve was never offered and I certainly never heard of it...

Had I have had the sleeve option back then I think that would have been my choice...
Have you not looked at the sleeve option??

Can't do any harm to read up on it ...

Whatever you choose I sincerely hope it works for you .... I'm not sure what improvements have been made to the band over the years to stop them eroding, slipping etc ... My partner , his brother and I all had such dreadful experiences of the band it's hard to speak positively of it....
However when it was in good working order it was a fab tool to work with and I did well with it

 

[valentine]

Thank you so much for sharing. I hope you are well on the way to a full recovery. Your experiences are sobering. I will definitely have a long discussion about the other options. Until I came on this site I would never have considered a sleeve or bypass. I'm hoping that advances made in the last 10 years have made a positive improvement to safety and long term outcomes.

It's such a valuable source of information and personal experience on this site...

I'm only a week post op with my bypass so I am a newbie where that is concerned..

I can answer questions about the band much more knowledgeably even though I don't have one anymore..

I actually think if I had been given a choice in 2004 I would have been sleeved... As back then I was wary of the bypass or "stomach stapling" as it was often called... ...

If only we could bottle hindsight eh...

I think this site is a great place to gather knowledge from other peoples experiences ...

Good luck with whatever your surgery is x

 

[kurstywursty]

Hi Valentine. I hope your recovery is going well. I asked my surgeon how the band and the sleeve compared. He told me he would not consider the sleeve due to BMI not being high enough x

 

[SingerMo]

It's such a valuable source of information and personal experience on this site...

I'm only a week post op with my bypass so I am a newbie where that is concerned..

I can answer questions about the band much more knowledgeably even though I don't have one anymore..

I actually think if I had been given a choice in 2004 I would have been sleeved... As back then I was wary of the bypass or "stomach stapling" as it was often called... ...

If only we could bottle hindsight eh...

I think this site is a great place to gather knowledge from other peoples experiences ...

Good luck with whatever your surgery is x

Thank you I'm sure we will talk more.

How are you feeling 1 week out.
Are you resting and recuperating.
Must be strange getting back on the horse.
Good on you for persevering even through the tough times.

 

[valentine]

Hi Valentine. I hope your recovery is going well. I asked my surgeon how the band and the sleeve compared. He told me he would not consider the sleeve due to BMI not being high enough x

This is what makes me cross ... I know another girl on here with the same BMI as you and she was sleeved and is now at goal 5 months later...

I kinda think that sometimes surgeons promote the surgery they want to do rather than what patients want to explore and at least talk about...

And that's always in the private sector ... Just shows how things differ from surgeon to surgeon... X

 

[valentine]

Thank you I'm sure we will talk more. How are you feeling 1 week out. Are you resting and recuperating. Must be strange getting back on the horse. Good on you for persevering even through the tough times.

I'm doing much better the lasts couple of days... Seem to have turned a corner.. Had a small amount of drinking yoghurt this morning with my protein shake and it made such a nice change..

It is strange getting back in the saddle with restriction being back with a vengeance .....
after 3 years of band unfilled wilderness it is really comforting in a strange way..

We all tell ourselves when we are banded how it has re educated our eating habits and we won't ever go back to our old ways....

That was my mantra and it just didn't happen..

I would say the first 2 years with no fill I tried really hard and when my weight crept on I would do TFR VLCD diets to bring it down again... Total YO YO dieting... The third year was when it just became too much....

I had an epiphany moment .....

That's when it became apparent as to why I had WLS in the first place.... If I could diet and control my eating I would never have been banded in the first place ....

 

[SingerMo]

I had an epiphany moment .....

That's when it became apparent as to why I had WLS in the first place.... If I could diet and control my eating I would never have been banded in the first place ....

I totally get what you're saying.
None of us want surgery, anyone who thinks it's the 'easy' way, is an *@¿! but we've tried the alternatives and this is the option that might make just the difference.