From the News-Enterprise, this is one of the better told newspaper stories about lap band patients and their successes that I’ve read. Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown, Kentucky has begun doing lap band procedures. They tell the story of Sandy Weaver, who has lost 82 pounds in the last 11 months and Mary Divinksy who has gone from 254 to 170 in the past year. Good before and after photos as well. Dr. Nandakishore Dukkipati and Dr. Srinivas Kaza of Advanced Surgical Associates of Kentucky performed their surgeries.
ELIZABETHTOWN — When Sandy Weaver sits down to dinner tonight, she won’t sit long. A couple ounces of meat, an ounce or two of vegetables and she’ll be full. It’s all her stomach can handle after bariatric surgery that Weaver says was the key to weight loss after decades of obesity.
Weaver underwent gastric band surgery 11 months ago. With a band blocking the lower majority of her stomach, she’d lost 82 pounds as of last week.
Sure, she’d like to have a cheeseburger — especially one with a bun — for dinner, but she won’t, she said.
“It’s hard to explain. I miss it, but then I look down and see my lap,” she said. “I have a lap now. It’s worth it.”
And Ms. Divinsky’s tale:
Mary Divinsky, a 59-year-old from Sonora, said she tried everything before she looked into the surgery.
“All the diets invented, I tried them,” she said, rattling off a list of diets and weight- loss programs from Weight Watchers and the Atkins Diet to fasting.
She struggled with her weight since childhood. Friends and relatives can hardly find her in her third-grade class picture because she was so tiny. In the fourth-grade photo, however, she was heavy enough to look like an entirely different person.
She boarded a dieting roller coaster in the early 1980s. She would lose 50 pounds, stabilize, get discouraged and regain the weight.
“I did the yo-yo thing for years and years. Lose it, gain it back, lose it, gain it back. I just thought (gastric band surgery) was the right thing to do,” she said.
Divinsky is the unit secretary at HMH’s intensive care unit, so she knew about the program early. Plus, her brother has had a band for three years.
Poor health drove her decision.
She was taking the highest dose of oral diabetes medication and knew she was a step away from needing insulin shots because of her weight. She also had high blood-pressure.
She started a pre-surgery diet in January 2007. At that time, the 5-foot, 4-inch woman’s weight had peaked at 272 pounds. She weighed 254 when she underwent surgery April 23 — Divinsky, Weaver and one other patient had the surgery on the same day.
Divinsky weighs 170 pounds now. Her goal is 153.
And the really happy part of the story for her family:
She no longer takes medication for high blood-pressure or diabetes.
Patients usually decrease or drop their obesity-spurred medications within a few days, Dukkipati said
And the same for Sandy:
Since the surgery, she stopped taking acid reflux medication, hormones and water pills for swelling. She no longer suffers sleep apnea and her insomnia has improved.
And that part of the story brings us back to Dr. Paul O’Brien’s study at Monash University study which found a 72% decrease in the risk of dying that lap band patients experience over people who use diet and exercise. 72% is a very big deal, and would, no doubt, make a lot of people who love you very happy to know.
There is a lot of good basic information in the story, so if you’re beginning to consider having a lap band procedure, it’s a good article. It covers all the basics.
And while Advanced Surgical Associates of Kentucky does not have a website, their patients have a MySpace page where they provide support for each other.
Love My Lap Band! 