LV426

Hi, I live in San Diego and have been struggling with weight loss since I was a kid. I've been on numerous diets, exercised until I have dropped and no matter what I do I lose a few pounds and then rebound and gain more. At the moment I am around 347lbs and I just turned 30. Thankfully I have not had any other medical problems other than the weight and I can get around just fine although prolongued exercise now seems to take the wind out of me faster and my knees hurt more than they used to. I also find that I can't run very far without my knees giving out from the weight. I really want to get the weight off but I am wary of having major invasive surgery such as the gastric bypass. Mainly because I feel that is just too extreme and unhealthy and also because I fear that quick weight loss will actually leave me with more problems. Not to mention that I will be left with a huge amount of excess skin with that kind of rapipd weight loss and I would like to try to avoid that as much as possible. I'm trying to decide if I should try this, I really don't like the idea of having to rely on surgery in order to lose weight but I am getting frustrated and desperate. I don't want to be an invalid in my old age because I am too fat to move around. I am concerned mostly about having to go to another country like Mexico to have the surgery done. I am sure that there are perfectly nice hospitals and medical facilities there but I still have concerns. I'm also not sure that this will work for me. I do have a lot of strength and discipline and can stick to diets and I do exercise at least 1 hour a day but I'm not sure that the lap band will even help me. Does anyone have any advice or comments they would like to share?