I was working from home the other day and watching daytime tv while working. I was amazed to see a commercial for lap band surgery! They were making it seem so trivial and really down playing the seriousness of it! I am just amazed. It baffles me. No matter which option you choose they are all life changing and major medical procedures.

What are your thoughts? Am I overreacting?

Yes, I saw it too... the one thing I liked about the commercial was the person in it wasn't skinny...she was a little chunky, which made it more realistic..meaning not everyone gets skinny with surgery. The thing I didn't like about the commercial was they had the lion/cat comparison of how hungry you feel before and after surgery. Let me just say for the record.... my appetite/hunger feels like the lion and not the kitty LOL two years after surgery..

I agree with you, they also make it seem like its nothing to have the surgery but then if they said what it was really like no one would have it now would they LOL.

No your not over reacting at all.
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i have ISSUES with these commercials - what i'm seeing around here is this: it's being advertised as COSMETIC lapband surgery. i think that some surgeons are going after people with $$$, or those people who might spend a similar amount on a face lift. it's all SELF-PAY, which means that these folks simply hand over the money, it's done on an outpatient basis, and then they walk out and consider themselves to be FINISHED. no counseling, no 'qualifying,' no nothing. can't you just see what's gonna happen in a few years???? so many of these people will be having problems, or gaining weight, and then they'll start screaming that the surgery FAILED them, when, in fact, their surgeon FAILED them, and they themselves failed the surgery.

and now that i've written this, i expect that a few folks who don't get it will read this, and say WOW, all i have to do is find a surgeon and hand over some money, and it'll be MAGIC. and, in one respect, they'll be right - but it's not MAGIC. they'll still have to do the work, no matter what approach they try.

yeah - i got problems with this.

There are surgeons who seem to treat WLS like cosmetic surgery. I've found this by looking at various websites for doctors in my area. One has a local former miss something who is or was also a tv morning show or news anchor who gained weight endorsing for him. There's a video where she's being interviewed and she says something like "i've already lost 40 lbs but would like to lose 15 more." and she wasn't overweight for a really long time. But she was probably selfpay. She's probably from the land of "fake boobs and real buttholes" (words changed to less offensive-a national destination for the rich and famous town near here. This doc also has several websites so if you typed in lapband.com and other such things, you get his website. I decided not to go near him because I got the impression he wouldn't take someone like me seriously. Although my doctor is located in that aforementioned community, I feel much more trusting of her and her staff, even before I met them just by how seriously they take this major life change. It's also like the dentists here-their ads focus on cosmetic dentistry and less on maintaining healthy teeth. Being a down to eart what you see is what you get kind of girl, I'm wary of them, too.

yup, it's much more than a botox injection. I'm already sseing problems I'll be having and I've only had one visit to the surgeon!

I have a clinic in my area that advertises if your 40 lbs overweight get lap band. That amazes me that someone would go through major surgery for 40lbs. I mean we all have our struggles but that surprised me.

I was part of a survey pannel for the lap band idea - I had disapproved of the idea because I was shocked to see how a $16,000 procedure (that is usually not covered by insurance because it is considered cosmetic) would gurantee a "possibility" of 20 lbs lost and chance of up to 40 lbs, but no gurantee that you will keep it off after 2 years.

Why would a person want to spend $16,000 for 20 - 40 lbs of weight loss when all they need to do is watch what they eat and get more physical?

I think weight loss surgery should be strictly for more health related issues... e.g. 100 lbs or more and who has had the problem for more than 5 or more years. Weightlloss surgery should not be taken lightly... pardon the pun.

If only it were that easy.


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I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so judging!! Truly - no offence.

I should say I'm thinking as a person in my own shoes, the true reason why I got bigger is because I ate what I wanted when I wanted. For me, there is no medical problems that had caused the weight problem, just pure laziness.

yes it took me almost 5 months to lose this weight, but I personally wouldn't be spending $16,000 to do so.

You know, I don't know anybody who would have surgery for 20 - 40 lbs. But I'll tell ya what...I'd spend a million dollars (if I had it) to have the quality of life I have now compared to what I had before. The pain of carrying all that weight around was almost unbearable. I only had to pay about $1000 of my own money and that was because I went out of my network of doctors. But my daughter's insurance wouldn't pay for hers. So I paid most of it. And I'd do it again in a heart beat. The weight was afffecting her health a lot worse than mine was affecting me. She had high blood pressure and she had a back injury that was excruciating. Today, thank God and Dr Champion she has a new lease on life. Like it's been said in this forum many times, it's a personal choice. I take my hat off to anybody who can lose the weight and keep it off without surgery. However, I also admire anybody who has the courage to go under the knife. It's a scary thing. But well worth it in my book. After all...we're all trying to get to the same place. I wish you all success which ever path you choose.

Thank you for saying that magi, very wise!

Commercials are, by their very nature, meant to minimize the negative and show the product in an appealing way. Personally, I found them to be trite and unappealing.

I knew just how long and difficult the road I had chosen was. I wouldn't want someone to have tried to sell me on the idea that it's the easy way out with models and happy music. It's a hard row to hoe.

Angela

Magi...beautiful post

No offense taken


Yeah, like the Tampax commercial... "have a happy period"... okay right.. as happy as cramps, headaches, feeling like crap for a few weeks, bloating and snapping peoples head off... happy happy joy joy lolol.

Hey there!

I have long worked with bariatric surgeons and I'm here to tell you that the lap band is usually not the way to go for several reasons.

1. The lap band is only for patients who have a lower body mass index. With the lap band, don't expect to lose all your excess weight. It's only designed to help you lose so much.

2. It's not a permanent fixture on your stomach like stapling is. The ring can easily slip, tilt and even erode into your stomach. Common problems include the band becoming too tight and you have to go in to have it adjusted. The same adjustment is needed if you stop losing weight.

3. The band is removable. Unlike stapling, it can be removed and your stomach anatomy stays the same like before you had surgery. So, what was the point to begin with???

It seems to me, just from seeing it, that this is a solution for people who "think" that it will work because the stapling scares them too much. It's kind of like buying the cheap car only because you can't afford the expensive one and it ends up breaking down a week later.

Here in Indiana, the band is quickly becoming a procedure that no one wants to touch. It's expensive and it doesn't work well.

Also, most self pay patients either don't have insurance or their insurance does not deem it "medically necessary". Most of the time, that just means that the patient did not do the requirements set forth in their contract and they don't want to take the time to do it.

Our practice does not do surgery on patients who have not participated in a weight loss program with their doctor. It just eliminates the patients who don't want to work for their health.

Seeing it and living it are two different things... Unless you've experienced it yourself how can you say what its like?

Let me get this straight..cadillac of surgeries = GBP and the hyundai of surgeries = lap bands... OY VEY!!! I happen to know MANY people who have had the band and with great success. Who are now living life at goal and loving it. I know many who have not lost so much. I also know people with GBP who are doing the same.


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to quote tamaralynn "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so judging!! Truly - no offence."




I do take offence ...how could you say "to" in that tone...hehehehe



And I will take a fence if I want to, it's round my house.


Angela
very silly girl

I'm not offended, but I'm very frustrated with one-size-fits-all, it-can-all-be-broken-down-to-simple-principles advice for weight loss.

I've been struggling with my weight since I was 5 years old. I went from stick slender to obese in a few months. I was put on a strict diet at five and on prescription amphetemines by 13. Traditional dieting has only made me fatter. There is no "just" about weight loss for many. I think it's important to understand that for many people trying to lose weight oftem means a very steep uphill battle, often against their physiology, emotions, brain chemistry, and sometimes even culture.

I've got a master's degree in psychology, I've always worked and gone to school spending 60 hour week minimums, and always had at least two jobs (until I became disabled with fibromyalgia, most likely because I was burning the candle at both ends trying to prove to the world and myself that I wasn't stupid and lazy). For years I've felt like I was seriously defective because I could succeed at everything I intended to except for losing weight which was supposed to be "easy" wasn't it? It's what all the magazines, books, and doctors were saying. "Just" eat less and exercise more.

I've decided against WLS, not because of the expense, or a belief that it wouldn't be a useful tool, but because I have physiological reasons for considering the surgery too risky for myself. In part, a suspected connective tissue disease, and susceptibility to bacterial and fungal infections as well as a tendency toward very low sodium blood levels. These would be less of a concern with a lapband (except for the connective tissue disease - this could be a problem with inflamation or an immune response to the lapband). There are definitely a lot more factors than just fear or dreams of a quick, easy fix that might go into a person choosing lapband over gastric bypass, or dietary restriction alone over wls.

I think it's very easy to believe that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to weight loss, and there just isn't. I'm tired of hearing "if it worked for me, it will work for anybody." What makes a person think this? All Joe can prove with "it worked for me," is that it worked for Joe, not that it will work for Sue, or Alan or Betty.

I think as long as researchers, doctors, and individuals assume that there is a universal treatment that works for each individual, the only truly successful weight loss efforts will be found through personal trial and error.
I think more research has to go into why some approaches work better for some people rather than others, instead of trying to find approaches that work for everyone (which don't seem to exist).


I think there's at least a breath of change, in that doctors are starting to recognize that there is no "easy" weight loss; and there are at least some hints of research as to why specific diets seem to work better for some people with specific issues. Such as reduced carbohydrate diets for those with insulin resistance. I've found that reducing carbs works very well for me, though I have a very difficult time sticking to the diet because it goes against everything I was taught was "healthy." Even though I now have two doctors not only approving of the approach, but prescribing it, because of the insulin resistance diagnosis (confirmed by a glucose tolerance test), I still find compliance a challenge. BUT, I'm learning and making progress.

Maybe someday trial and error won't be the only way for an individual to be successful. For the time being though, that's where we're stuck and we have to be very tolerant and opendminded regarding the paths that some people are choosing, even when, or maybe especially when it's a path we personally wouldn't take (for whatever reason).