Quote:
Originally Posted by htismaqe
My surgeon doesn't do lap bands anymore, they're kind of complicated and they don't always work the best.
I'd say 90% of the surgeries they do are sleeve gastrectomies, which is what I have. It's unlike a gastric bypass in that the stomach is still in the digestive "pathway" if you will. So none of the complications that come with bypass, which is extremely invasive and certainly life-altering in a way that's irreversible.
The sleeve gastrectomy is really a breeze comparatively. The stomach is shaped like a kidney bean. They just draw a line from the opening of the esophagus to the opening of the small intestine and cut off about 3/4 of the stomach. So you still have a stomach, it's just 1/4 of the size.
The only real potential complication other than stretching out your stomach and gaining weight back (which I haven't done because I simply can't eat too much anymore, it makes me sick) is vitamin deficiencies. Those are pretty easily rectified and nowhere near as severe as the vitamin problems that come with a bypass.
PS: almost forgot, I ended up losing about 110 total pounds. If I had to guess (my memory is fuzzy, it was 4 years ago now), I lost about 40 pounds of that prior to surgery because I had to be on a special diet for a month prior or they wouldn't do my surgery. The other 70 pounds came off in the first year after I had it done.
|
Cool. Good for you for addressing the problem.
At my high school reunion, I saw a female friend who'd had that surgery done. She wasn't particularly overweight in high school but you could see that she was built to become overweight. At every reunion she got bigger, and she finally did the one of those surgeries a few years ago (not sure of the details) and now looks pretty healthy again.