altering perfectly good insides

hello, how do you get over the thought of altering a perfectly good stomach, i was up all night thinking about this..im totally freaked out...also the unknown, the future, how do we know what life willbe like in the future as a result of this sleeve...i just feel like I would be constantly worried about something going wrong with my stapled stomach...like I would never get over the worry...ugh...one day i am on board then the next i freak out..and what if one day a way less invasive solution comes up?

I think if you have ever had any type of replacement surgery, it may not be so hard to do this.

I have had both knees replaced, my mother rehabbed at my place after having both hips replaced and a friend rehabbed at my place after having a knee replaced.  I do not have the fear of WLS and believe this is why.  I already have the lap band and am willing to go for revision.

Stay with OH and keep reading and you will gain the strength.  Good luck!

We can not see into the future but I have read some posts where this surgery has been being done for years and years for people with stomach cancer and they have gone on to live healthy lives.  The thing that I find to be more comforting about this surgery is that my insides are exactly the same as they were except for the stretchy part of my stomach as been removed.  My plumbing is still all the same.  I look at it is similar to having my appendix or gallbladder removed.  I don't need them and they let me live a much healthier life.  The question is if you wait are you still going to be around when that next miracle solution comes along.  For me, the answer would be no.  My blood pressure was out of control, I was having problems breathing, my heart was having problems, I couldn't sleep, etc.  I have now been released from every doctor and do not have diagnosed health problems at this time.  Sure that could change down the road but I have used the past 15 months to change my life and for now it is working for me.  I am the same as I was physically before the surgery except that I am now skinnier and healthier.

Super job, and great advice. I am just starting my journey, 13 days post oper. Thanks for boosting my dYnamic.

My above post was to Jackie T. And the end word was day. Auto correct to help...not...lol

Hi Nicki,

I appreciate your honesty, lots of us go back and forth over whether we are ready for surgery, but let me play devil's advocate for a second.

Who says you have "perfectly good insides" ? True, your stomach has not been surgically altered, but your entire body has been affected by morbid obesity. For me I was very aware that weight was not just an external issue. My liver was enlarged and fatty (lots of elevated enzyme levels in my blood work); my heart and kidneys starting to show the stress of continued high blood pressure despite diligently taking many medications.

As Jackie noted in her post, stomach surgery has been around for a long time. VSG specifically for weight loss is relatively new, however it has been more than 100 years since gastrectomy (stomach removal, whether partial or even complete) was first used as treatment for ulcers or stomach cancer. For those patients weight loss was just a happy side effect. Knowing there is so much history behind the surgery makes me that much more confident that longterm problems are unlikely.

All the best in your journey, Katy

its not a perfectly good stomach if it helps you gain so much weight , it is a very bad tool that used improperly allows you to pack on the fat

 replacing it with a sleeve will replace it with a great tool that will allow you to lose weight if you use it properly

Funny it used to be unethical for a surgeon to remove a health organ , during the early space program Astronauts where required to have there appendixes removed  so they would not have attacks in space, but many surgeons refused to do it 

I had a lot of these freak outs as well.  The best thing I can tell you is to go to support groups and hear from people who are living with this surgery and how their lives have changed.  Make sure you have a lot of confidence in your surgeon and his team.  I had an excellent surgeon and his staff is absolutely amazing.  They are overly cautious about everything and that gave me a lot of confidence in him.  They also had a very comprehensive program, so not only did I have the months of weight management, psych eval, etc., but I also had to go to exercise therapy, be evaluated for sleep apnea, and have chest X-rays and EKGs even before the insurance submission was made.

I'm only about a week post-op, and sometimes it's really tough, but then I remind myself of all the people who have had success.  Honestly, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't my last resort. 

I guess I got around it by never thinking I had a "perfectly good stomach" in the first place.  My stomach was a ghrelin-producing atrocity that caused me monstrous hunger pangs.  And guess what?  The biopsy report on the part they removed said it showed signs of "chronic inflammation".  So what was in there was far from healthy.  

I just figure there's less stomach to have a problem with now.  And I have a good handle on what the future holds because of all those that have come before me and lead very normal and healthy lives post-op.  At 10 months out I can tell you that life is MUCH better than it was post-op and I don't envision a problem with continuing to live this way for the rest of my life.  

Most people don't know I have had the surgery and I pass as a "normal" but healthy eater all the time.  People tell me they are jealous that I can eat half my dinner, decline dessert and take the other half home for leftovers.  I just smile and say it's what I do to fit into my size 7 jeans.  

This is one of the reasons I went with VSG.  Since the alteration is such a minor one.  All it does is remove a part of an organ - not the whole thing, nothing is rerouted.  And, really, my stomach wasn't "perfectly good" anymore thanks to entirely too much abuse. :/