DallasCheer Chick
I had the Lap-Band in July 2005. I decided on this procedure because it was less invasive and I thought I just needed a little help to pursue my weight loss. Come to find out that when UHC approved my Lap Band they did not get any fills approved. So when I lost my job, I was rushed into having to my first fill less than two weeks out of surgery because I was losing my insurance. So here i am with a foreign object in my body with no medical insurance to have it maintained.
So I went a year and a half with only having the initial fill done and lost weight but very slowly. I had been having horrible acid reflux and (not to gross you out) but food literally spilling out my nose at night. My PCP kept telling me I was taking my acid reflux medications at the wrong wrong time of day but no matter what I did it kept happening. So with no help or concern about my issues. By this point I had not gotten a solid nights sleep for approaching a year. I decided since I now had insurance that I better go to see an endocrinologist on my own since no referral was needed from my PCP. Had an Upper GI and x-rays and sure enough my band had slipped. The doctor that originally did my Lap-Band surgery is no longer practicing so I saw another doctor in the office. She deflated my band completely and for the first time in over a year I got a good night's sleep had not acid reflux and did not wake up in the night strangling.
This was in late September 2009 and I had my band removed October 1,2009. My doctor told me she suspects my band had been slipped for at least a year and a half from the size of my esophagus. The endocrinologist had to go in and vacuum out food and pill debris that was in my stomach cavity. It is a wonder that I received any nutrition from the small amounts of food I was eating or the diabetes, depression, acid reflux etc. medication I was on since so much of it was not being absorbed.
My esophagus is now wider than my back bone and my surgeon says she has never seen an esophagus that large. It is called a MEGA ESOPHAGUS. With this being said in hopes that my esophagus would shrink some she would not do a revision at that time nor would I qualify since I had lost 71 pounds with the band. The only surgery I would consider again would be the band.
The morning of the band removal I weighed 171 pounds I am currently up to 215lbs. I gained over forty pounds in 3 1/2 months. My doctor says the reason I was so successful with the lap band was because of the slippage. She says basically I had been starving. Example: I could eat dinner at 7PM at night get up the next morning at 8AM to brush my teeth , hit my gag reflex on my tongue and throw up last night's dinner that should have already been long digested. So she explained that I was not hungry and could only eat a small amount because the food was still in my stomach from what ever meal I last ate.
I am now waiting to be approved for the sleeve. This is my journey. I have now decided to "JUST LET GO AND LET GOD"!!
UPDATE: 11/11/13
So I had my revision from the Lap Band to a Gastric Sleeve over 3 years ago on 8/31/10 with Dr. Colleen Kennedy.The morning of surgery I weighed 241. I only lost 11 lbs with the sleeve. I followed the instructions of my surgeon went to all my follow up appointments until I was laid off in April 2013. I questioned my surgeon as to why she thought I was not losing any weight. The only thing she kept saying is revisions don't work as well as virgin surgeries. I told her I could understand if I had lost weight and put it back on but never to lose it I just can't understand that. She told me that when I went to do my swallow test after the surgery that she was chastised because it was thought that she made my sleeve too small.She prescribed me Phentermine to help curb my appetite in hopes that it would help. I still feel as if she didn't do something right because I don't know of any surgeon that would prescribe such medicine had they not felt at fault for some reason.I still have all the health problems I had before.
So on 10/14/13 I had an EGD and it was confirmed by my new surgeon Dr. John Alexander that my sleeve indeed was made way too large. I have not been able to live the life I am supposed to be able to live. I just want to be healthy and rid myself of the health problems that took my mother's life at 55. A letter of medical necessity was sent to BCBSTX and I received approval on 10/31/13. I have prayed about it, done years of research on my new surgeon and will embark on my last and final WLS on 12/9/13. I am going to have a revision to the surgery that I should have had originally in 2005. My surgeon has explained that some patients need a malabsorption tool to be successful. Their are all kinds of things that go into play for the causes of obesity including genetics. He explained to me that the long term studies have been done on the Gastric Bypass surgery and although the Gastric Sleeve is to be a really good alternative without having all the issues that so many patients have had with the Lap Band. Long term studies have not been done on the sleeve to gage it's long term success rates. As of this morning my current weight is 228.2 lbs. I will try to post back after surgery and let everyone know how it comes out.
