I had the band from a little over a year and WAS MISERABLE with that choke chain.  I had horrible reflux and most foods got stuck even without a fill.  I had paid $15k for the surgery and for all my fills.  I had the worst quality of life and was always throwing up.  I only lost 20 lbs with the band and gained them back as all I could have at one point was shakes.  So I drank a lot of shakes and ate cheese doodles when I wanted salty because that wouldn't get stuck.  I also had soups but if they were too thick they wouldn't go down as well.  Then I researched and found the DS.

Let's see it's been 1 year and 5 months since my surgery and my life has changed SO MUCH I can hardly believe it.  In the past year I got married, had a baby, bought a house and lost over 160 lbs.  It can't get any better than that.  I've regained my self confidence and feel so blessed with all the great things that happened to me. 

I now have a beautiful baby boy that was born 8 weeks ago and lost all my excess weight.  I got pregnant 6 months post op by accident.  I will admit I was scared to death and didn't know what to do but I spoke to my surgeon and he told me what steps I needed to take and that although it was too early post op that the baby and I would be OK.  I went to my regular OBGYN and a high risk specialist as well.  At the beginning I got sonograms every 3 weeks and once I hit my 7th month and so far the baby was growing great the were doing them every 4 weeks.  I increased my carbs to ensure that I wasn't on Ketosis during the pregnancy.  I continued to take the same amount of vitamins, plus my perscribed prenatal and additional folic acid.  I made sure I educated both my OBGYNs with information on the DS.  I made it very clear that I didn't get the RNY and that this surgery was very different to the RNY.  I also made copies of my surgeon's lab work sheet and got labs done every 2.5 months or so (above and beyond the ones that my OBs required because of the pregnancy) and made sure LabCorp sent me copies of the results.  I would then take them to both my OBs for them to examine.  Thankfully I had an extremely normal pregnancy.  I did have bad morning sickness for the first 4 months and then after that I felt great.  The hardest part of my pregnancy was the last 5 weeks.  I became very swollen to the point where the last 2 weeks I couldn't even walk and was on bed rest.  I also became slightly anemic the last month, however, my hematologist told me it had nothing to do with my DS.  I did continue to lose weight throughout my pregnancy.  When I got pregnant I was 240 lbs and when I gave birth I was 202 (went down to 192 but with all the swelling I went back up the last 3 weeks of pregnancy).  After 2 weeks of giving birth I was already 172 lbs and at 4 weeks I was down to 160.  Now I am 155.6 and I feel AMAZING.
DISCLAIMER: I was very lucky that I had a healthy pregnancy and didn't affect my weight loss, however, I do not advise ANYONE to get pregnant on purpose so early post op.  It can be very dangerous for you and the baby.

I have very little excess skin on my thighs and belly.  However, my arms are HORRIBLE.  I will definitely get them done in a year or so.  Right now I feel very happy with how far I've come.  I married the man was with for close to 9 years and he has been amazing to me.  He treats me like a queen and I can't ask for more.  We had a rocky relationship for a while and separated and that's when I decided to take care of me.  I guess when you feel better about yourself you see things and treat others differently.  I LOVE MY DS.