Research

I attended an info night and went into the meeting thinking I definitely wanted VSG, but the Dr clearly preferred the RNY.  He said at 4 years out the regain statistics are comparable with lap band and only 40% of people have kept the weight off.  I'm having a one on one with him on May 17th and am trying to find the same stats that he was quoting but I'm not having any luck.  Does anyone here have any recommendations of current articles with statistics, etc for the VSG. 

I have never heard this but just make sure that you do the surgery that is going to be best for you.  You can regain weight with any of the surgeries and I know people who have.  Make sure that you research the complications, issues with each surgery.  I did not want to do the RNY because of the malaborption and to have my insides rerouted.  Now I do know in the back of my mind that I can the surgery I already have and change it to the DS but I do not ever "plan" on getting back to my starting weight ever again.

There are pros and cons to all weight loss surgeries so make sure you research and pick the one that is best for you and not someone else.

I take the lap-band out of the equation - theres too many issues there.

With any of the bariatric surgeries - regain is a possibility.  I tell people that I did not lose my weight because I had surgery.  What the surgery did for me is level the playing field.  It took the biological pressures off so that I could work on my behavioral issues that led to obesity.  Thats where lasting changes come from - not from surgery but from learning a new lifestyle and committing to it.

A few questions for your surgeron and surgery center:

1.  Is the surgery center a ASMBS Center-of-Excellence?

2.  What are their aftercare programs - do they have RD's with bariatric experience, support groups, exercise physiologists?

3.  What are their stats compared to national stats?

4.  How long do they track their patients after surgery?

These are the things you need to be looking at with a surgery center.

I would believe him.  His sleeves probably do stretch and the regain is probably just as he describes.  Overall, the statistics are actually showing that when the sleeve is made correctly, the correlation in weight loss is almost the same as with RNY and better in the longer term.  Look at the published five year results on Dr. Cirangle's website. The bottom line, the sleeve is made very differently from one surgeon to the next and the aftercare is also very different.  If you carefully choose a surgeon that is known for making a tight sleeve and has excellent aftercare, the sleeve becomes a no brainer.

I found some research regarding long term statistics.  It seems the statistics are based off a larger sleeve and that smaller sleeves are now more the norm.  These stats are very encouraging and perhaps I need to find a surgeon who is more up to date on this procedure.

http://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/Abstract/2012/08000/Laparoscopic_Sleeve_Ga strectomy_for_Super_Obese.12.aspx

http://www.soard.org/article/S1550-7289(11)00579-X/abstract? elsca1=etoc&elsca2=email&elsca3=1550-7289_201211_8_6&elsca4= elsevier

Yes!!!!  Find someone who is very successful with the sleeve and is a huge proponent of it.  Make sure that he has done at least 300 or more of them over a period of time.