regrets??

I don't regret my sleeve. I am still early out (2 months). I haven't had any of the symptoms you describe. I also haven't wanted to eat the way I used to, but I really don't have a lot of hunger right now. If (when) the ravenous hunger I used to feel comes back I wonder if I will miss eating normally. I really have had an easier time of it than I expected (knock on wood!)

surgery is a tool, not a fix-all. they regret it because they're not using it correctly. Their experience does not dictate your own!

Unfortunately, they have something even harder to live with than the band.. With the VBG, eating "healthy" is hard to impossible many times as the good stuff- veggies, dense protein etc will not pass through the banded part.. Same reason why bandsters sometimes revert to eating heavily refined foods- they break down and can pass through.. it's either eat crap, puke constantly or starve.

It's hard to believe it's even a surgical option!

It isn't anymore!

I don't think Anthem BCBS knows that -- it was listed as one of the covered surgeries in their medical policy :|

Ick, weird. Do they list just gastroplasty or VBG as covered? We have a form of "gastroplasty".. Yeah, I'd imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a surgeon to actually do one!

Copied and pasted directly from my insurance's medical policy:

Medically Necessary: 

Gastric bypass and gastric restrictive procedures with a Roux-en-Y procedure up to 150 cm, laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (for example, the Lap-Band^® System or the REALIZE^™ Adjustable Gastric Band), vertical banded gastroplasty, biliopancreatic bypass with duodenal switch, and sleeve gastrectomy (open or laparoscopic) are considered medically necessary for the treatment of clinically severe obesity for selected adults (18 years and older) who meet ALL the following criteria:

It's listed as one of Tricare's covered bariatric procedures still to this day. Even though there aren't any reputable surgeons performing this surgery anymore, it's on the covered procedure list.

I don't know I feel pretty damn normal. I had a small country fried steak with white gravy for breakfast this morning with some hashbrowns, for lunch I had my standard 5-6 tortilla chips with salsa and my one chicken fajita with beans, rice, guac, chicken, sour cream, sauteed onions and jalapenos, and for dinner I had 2 chicken tenders with honey, 6 fries and 2 jalapeno bomber thingies. I don't eat like this every day or even in maintenance especially all the fried foods, I'll blame the pregnancy on the fried food craze I went on today. I eat pretty normal though minus the pregnancy. Oh and I shared a bag of skittles with my 13yr old son tonight. I have zero, not one single regret, and I wouldn't want my enormous stomach back if someone paid me to put it back in me.

The VBG is such a jacked up surgery, and so many of them were botched from the beginning. I had the band too, and it might be advertised as "reversible/removable", but what they (surgeons/manufacturers) neglect to tell people is the amount of damage that has been done to the stomach after having it in our bodies.

There is one successful VBG to VSG patient on verticalsleevetalk and she's doing really well.