Update- 4 years post sleeve.
Absolutely phenomenal from the initial meeting to now, 4 years later. My husband, myself and my husband's mother have all had gastric sleeves done with Dr. Billings. His bedside manner is wonderful. The price is high (paid out of pocket) but you get what you pay for - we literally bought ourselves more LIFE. More TIME. More ENERGY. More MENTAL SPACE (not having to worry about everything I put in my mouth).
It sounds drastic- cutting out 70% of your stomach, but honestly it reset our bodies to experience fullness in a completely new way. I could always eat a little "more" before. I'd be "full" but seemed to have a second stomach or sugar/desserts. Now the experience of fullness is completely different. It's dramatic and intense- no more insane cravings to binge or mental fixation on the next diet craze.
We had kids late, at 38 and 41, and I can chase after my toddler without feeling winded. I don't feel like a constant failure for eating carbs. The only food I can't tolerate that I could pre-sleeve is dairy milk. All meats, nuts, raw veggies, etc are fine. A lot of people have negative bias against gastric sleeves because they know someone who did it a decade or more ago and it "didn't work" long term. I'm here to say the technology has improved dramatically. I believe it's going to be incredibly common in the US in the next 10 years and will be solution to the obesity epidemic for those of us who were raised by the 50 billion dollar diet industry.
Note- I'm not a fan of ideal protein, the low calorie nutritional program they have- I did it 4x at other places before getting sleeved. Always gained the weight back after the program ended and I was starving while doing it. After being sleeved, I no longer have to worry about food. I yo-yo dieted for 27 years (since I was 10 years-old). I was always 30-60lbs overweight, not huge but mentally the load was insane.
To be honest, the recovery was fairly simple. Easier than my C-section when I was fat. Pain was only bad days 1 and 2. I lost 100lbs and have effortlessly kept it off for 4 years, I am 43 years-old and even had baby #2 after surgery. The 29lbs I gained during this time pregnancy fell off effortlessly in 6 weeks postpartum. When I was fat I gained 60lbs and only lost 10lbs afterwards (my baby was 10lbs so I held onto the extra 50 lb weight gain post baby #1). I can't say enough good things about Dr. Billings and his team when it comes to gastric sleeve surgery. read more