What can I say that no one else has?  I feel like my story reads like so many others out there.  I've always been overweight, teased in school, dieted on some of the craziest plans imaginable (Cabbage Soup Diet anyone??) and yet the weight always came back--and it always brought friends along!!!  :o)  Seriously, about three years ago I hurt my back--fell off a step ladder while taking things off of my wall in my classroom on the last day of school--and that's where it got bad!  I've gained about 100 pounds since that day.  I've tried so many diets I've lost count--and that isn't including all of the medication that is out there to "help you."  I've read the warning labels on those things--I think surgery might actually be safer! 

I went with the Lap Band because as I understood it (and I love my research) it was the "most reliable, least invasive and most safe" surgery.  HA!  Wish I knew then what I know now...and if I did I would NEVER, EVER have gotten the Lap Band--or as I have come to call it, the CRAP BAND! 

I thought the lapband was the answer to my prayers.  It turned into my worst nightmare!  I did super the first year, I was a compliant bandster and I followed directions.  I lost 119 pounds total, from highest weight to the summer of 2009.  That July, one evening I ate a piece of meat (like I had done a hundred times before) and I got stuck...like the kind of stuck where you can't even swallow your own spit!  I went to my surgeon the next morning and we unfilled the band and he checked for a slip.  I spent the next year getting fills and unfills because one time it was too much (by maybe .05 cc's) or too little (and I was starving, or at least it felt that way).  I continually went back, even being a self-pay patient, so that I could have the best chance of losing weight.  Nothing worked, the band was either too tight or too loose, but I continued to throw up daily.  I never had acid reflux, but I began having episodes.  I started living life the way no one should have to, keeping a cup in my car or baggies in my purse in case I needed to throw up.  After that year we did an endoscopy (the only thing my insurance has paid for since their is a weight loss exclusion on the policy) and found my band had eroded and nearly breached my stomach lining.  A surgery that should have taken 45 minutes took 3 hours and almost became an "open" procedure...worst pain of my life and I've given birth--twice!!  I also had a reaction to the anesthesia, something that didn't happen before.  I gained all of the weight back and then some.  I worked with my regular PCP, but having spoken to the surgeon, he said my stomach was very likely messed up and would have "significant scar tissue."  I kept the pictures of the erosion (and so did my doctor for a study) and the band itself.  I know, that's weird, but I paid $15,000 for that piece of crap!  I just had revision surgery on Wednesday, April 4th...self-pay once again.  I wanted the bypass or the sleeve but even after a year of "resting" my stomach was still "hammered" as my surgeon put it and right where the RNY pouch would be.  It was tough but the lap band let me down in ways I cannot even explain.  For someone who values her research, I found years later that many of the websites I used and blogs I found were run by or in some way profited from the makers of the band.  Talk about feeling as though you had been sold a bill of goods.  I am a kindergarten teacher and I teach my children every day to tell the truth.  This is not a life I would wish on anyone.

I am revising to the sleeve on April 3rd and am looking forward to seeing real, true, lasting results and life-long changes.