Is WLS successful in the long run?

I am nearly 7 years out and 125# at 4'11". I have maintained thru VSG and dS conversion. 

I am very healthy, taking only thyroid medication.

having read some of your blogs, I respectfully say the problem is you haven't changed your food choices, still eating lots of carbs, even though many have suggested that is the problem. 

If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.

I am doing the best I can with what I have been given. I can't help but feel badly when I read your post.  I hope you are not trying to be mean to me or make me feel like more of a failure than I am. Anyways this is about future people trying to get the best surgery possible for the healthiest long term outcome.  After many years many people still fail long term and I think the medical profession need to step it up. You were fortunate to have a VSG and then a DS.  I wish I had done the same, but I am in a different position. I know what you are suggesting.  I honestly have tried to eat very low carb.  Fat and protein are too full of calories for me.  I eat too many calories on my low carb days and gain weight rapidly.  Easily 3000 calories.  Food slides right through me.  3 gi docs and many radiologists understand my plight. I was hoping for the 3rd time in 10 years to finally be able to get this rny fixed, but my insurance keeps denying to cover any revision for any reason.  Yep they turned me down 3 times. I can't tell you how difficult it is to never feel like I have swallowed food.  It is like living on clear liquids forever.  If I do what I am doing at least I am hanging around 200 lbs.  If I eat fat and meat I gain rapidly and would easily weigh 300 or 400 lbs.because dense food slides right through me too.  When I eat veggies and high fiber starches they at least make my gut feel fuller and I eat less calories.  I never eat sweets or juice and rarely eat white carbs.  Occasionally I eat Nutrasystem or Slimfast snacks because they are low carb, high protein and high fiber and don't mess up my blood sugar levels. I know I need to eat 250 calories less a day and burn 250 calories more a day.  That sounds so easy when I say it but so difficult to do.  I will keep trying.  But again this isn't about me.  My guess is you would recommend the DS to a close friend or relative...right?  I absolutely agree.  It seems to me that RNYs have too many variables and considering the number of them done they require too many revisions.  Thanks for your input.  Hopefully people will read your post.  Sincerely, Tri

I totally was not trying to make you feel bad. 

When I post I usually am trying to help. 

I totally and honestly have never seen or heard of anyone who eats dense protein after wls and gains. 

I totally wish you well and hope you are able to get some help.

Thanks :)  Tri

I will say I am not at the weight I would like to be at. But do I feel better. Hell yeah I do. Am I a success? Yes and no. I work daily with my food issues. 

I am a food addict. I also an alcoholic. I do really think WlS has made me understand my demons I have with food. Made me come to terms with my other addictions. I consider that part a success. I still feel my tool working with me.

Do I fall off the wagon with my eating ? Of course I do. But do I consider myself a failure with WLS ? Nope. I consider myself in recovery.

I come here for support and go to meetings for AA. I have not found a support group in my area that is the right fit for me with weight loss. I also go to therapy. Which helps a lot. It makes me feel not as crazy in my head when I can't get out of my own head. 

I used to walk two miles a day. Now I walk four to five. I never in a million years believed I could even walk the stairs without difficulty. 

I get on the scale daily. I make sure I take my vitamins. 

Good morning basset hound people (I love basset hounds too):

I admire your honesty and perseverance.  Everyone has addictions: food, alcohol, *****graphy, gambling, shopping, blogging, computers, cars, music, and the list goes on...take your choice. Most people have compulsions for something.  I think it goes back to survival.  Hunters and gatherers needed perseverance.  Not letting out compulsions hurt us and using our compulsive instincts to push us to do good.  

This post is about the medical profession using our healthcare dollars the most efficient way and surgeon's being honest with patients about expectations.  Giving us reachable short term and long term expectations.  If heart surgeries failed as often as WLS there would be a ton of research to find a better methods. I'll get off my soapbox again now :)

Again I admire your perserverance.  You are a success in many ways.

Tri

I posted not because of the medical profession. I posted since so many people are just people who want to hear people's stories about their personal WLS journey. 

I think WLS programs are very conservative in what they say our goals are. They almost universally tell us 50 to 60 percent excess eight lost. I see lots and lots of people do much better than that. You seem to want 100 percent of people reaching 100 percent excess weight loss. No one ever, evrr told us that would happen?

Are heart surgeries more successful than weight loss surgeries? I'd bet you monry yhey aren't. I'd bet the spectrum of success and failures are the same ss for WLS. Heart surgery patients go on to have all kinds of complications. Some die within a few years of heart surgery. Some need pacemakers and constant medical intervention. Some do great, but go back to the same bad habits that got them needing heart surgery to begin with, and they end up worse than before.

With major medical issues like super morbid obesity, there is no magic surgery. In the end, how we treat ourselves is just as import as the surgery itself. TANUOR.

Exactly. This was part of my informed consent meeting with my surgeon. I asked about complication rates for my hospital, and how they compared nationally. Then I asked him to compare them to other types of surgery I might need down the line if I remained SMO . Specifically, heart surgery has a much higher complication and mortality stats. Other than being SMO, I was perfectly healthy by every measurement, so these questions were key in my decision making.

I've posted before about my clinics conservative estimates of what to expect from surgery. While i've put their stats on the backburner haha I can't say I was uninformed. 

I don't want to get into a blame the patient scenario (we all dealt with that plenty before deciding on surgery i would imagine). The reality is WLS is a tool, not a cure.

WLS means different things for different people, sure, but at its most basic, it is there to make it possible for us to do the things we need to do, to lose the weight. In my case, it disrupted my disordered eating patterns enough to give me a chance to focus on the behaviours that need changing. At only three months out, I can already see how incredibly easy it would be to eat around my surgery. The only thing stopping me, is me (at least until i can afford a cookie slapper). And by me, I don't mean alone. I need online support. I read everything I can to understand my new lifestyle, and I work with a behaviourst to keep things in perspective.

I found your post very interesting & sad & I do hope that you find what works best for you.

I did kinda missed the part of your post that was commenting on the medical profession as a whole. There's no way every Drs/surgeons/medical professionals can give every single person short & long term expectations the exact same answers cuz everyone is different. I.E some people are very gung ho in making it to goal in the first year, others take longer, some not at all., etc, etc

They can give the basics, give you some statistics, but in the end it becomes up to the patient on how well they do, in the short term & the long one. That is barring other things like medical complications from surgery, or other medical conditions that might come up in their lifetime, even then it makes things more difficult, but not impossible.

Finding the right surgery can be very difficult, but as you can see it can only do but so much. Bouncing around from surgery to surgery can be incredibly frustrating especially if you get very little results for your efforts.

Best of Luck in whatever you choose to do.