Total Weight Loss

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Lapband didn't work - should I rename my blog?

So I've peeked back into blog land to see how everybody is doing and it looks like a lot of people I followed have not posted in a while. I think there are probably 2 main reasons - either they are doing great and don't need the support or they aren't doing well with the band and blogging is depressing. Unfortunately I am the latter. To catch you up quickly, I had my lap band surgery in July 2010. I slowly lost about 40 lbs within 2 years and then gained back 15 in the last 2 years. I know I am responsible for my weight loss, but let's face it, if I was great at losing weight, I wouldn't have needed the lap band in the first place. Part of my issue was that my surgeon was an asshole (unfortunately I only had 1 surgeon to choose from in order for my insurance to pay 100%.) He was well qualified as a surgeon, but his personality sucked. He made me feel like dog poo (aka shit) every time I came in without a weight loss. So, I stopped going and went from a 40 lb weight loss to a 25 lb weight loss. I didn't have any terrible issues like I've read some of my fellow bandsters have had - no band slippage, no eroding, no overfill issues - it just wasn't an effective form of weight loss surgery for me. I work for a hospital and need to use our physicians in order for my insurance to pay 100% (I have a daughter in college and another going in 2 years, so 100% covered is important to me!) Last year we hired a new (female) bariatric surgeon. She is very approachable and it didn't take long for me to tell her my story. She first told me that I was not a failure - which brought on a flood of tears which isn't super professional, but she completely understood. She said that she doesn't even suggest lapband any more because of the issues that have been found long term. Now, please know that this is my story and there are a lot of people banded that have done well. If you are considering weight loss surgery, I'm sure you are smart enough to do your research and not base your decision on a few people's experience. However, I did find this information at web md which on one hand says that the long term study of lapband surgery has shown that it is effective, but on the other hand says that recent studies have questioned the effectiveness and safety. Talk about confusing! http://www.webmd.com/diet/weight-loss-surgery/news/20130117/lap-band-shown-effective-long-term-weight-loss?page. Anyway, no matter what happened, I received a lot of support from blogland and am hoping for some more help. Since I don't have over 100 pounds to lose and only have 1 comorbidity (high blood pressure), my current surgeon says that it's up to me whether I have the sleeve or gastric bypass. I'm looking to get surgery in March 2015 so I have plenty of time to make my decision, but want to do as much research as I can. Lastly, for some reason I can't do a lot of fancy things I did previously with my post (like adding pictures and links and breaks for paragraphs). The message says "The browser we detected is unsupported and may result in unexpected behavior. Please choose from our list of supported browsers for the best experience." I then tried to pick a "supported" browser and my computer went crazy. Any suggestions?