BeautyVGSJourney

hey that means you are doing something right! keep up the good work, and keep being honest to yourself, they are not even worth your time.

antibiotics only work if the cold or infection is caused by a bacteria. They do not kill viruses, your immune system gets ride of viruses, so make sure you are taking your vitamins specially if you are doing sometype of diet. Like skinynaked said the use of a lot of antibiotics can cause bigger infections such as Clostidium difficile, because you kill your normal flora and other things that are normally not often present in big quantities come and take over. I would talk to your doctor and see what they suggest, you definitly don't want to have an antibiotic resistance from miss/overuse of antibiotics (this is a huge medical problem). Good luck!

Sorry for all the typos, typing with my phone

I believe that if your are ill specially if with a upper respiratory infection they will not do the surgery. I wood personally be very tempted to do it if they said yes but its not worth it. If you do it and have not gotten over your cold (most colds are caused by a virus) the virus or bacteria will have easy access to your sleeved area. Call your surgeon and ask what you can take to get over the cold faster and that will bout affect your surgery. I hope your are able to get over what ever pesky thing came! Good luck and I hour you can have your surgery!

just think, its getting closer until you have your sleeve!

I am sorry you are going thru that Sharon! Please keep your chin up, I agree she sounds ignorant and I am sure you will find a great doctor for you!

No I am going with Dr. Ponce on May 10th. I hope you find your sleeve buddies!

Congratulations Michele, and good luck in your journey! Sue you will probably have a sleeve buddy or two by then, I don't have one yet either but mine is not till May. I am going alone, so I guess I want a sleeve buddy more because of that LOL. Good luck!

I also breastfed my daugther and at the time I had less weight problems that I do now. breastfeeding helps your uterus contract and get smaller sooner, so that is good news. You will also be sharing some of your calories with the new baby. I will suggest exercising and making sure you do not gain anymore weight. I don't think the number of calories is quite has important as the quality of them when you are breastfeeding, I would suggest getting enough protein and healthy vegetables in. Drink lots of fluids! Congratulations on your decision to breastfeed, I know it was the right decision for me.

awesome congratulations Leesake, I guess we will both be under the knife that day. I can't wait!

I agree, is all a matter of personal comfort! Are you having a sleeve revision or going from lap band to sleeve? I have heard great things about Dr. Aceves, good luck with your surgery!

Congratulations JaniRN!!! I cannot wait for mine on May 10!

oh I did not have that one! I will check it out, I am not going with Dr. Garcia but I like to watch good videos. Thanks!

So how do we ask for this to become a sticky? I think its a great post that I might want to read and read, specially when the going gets though!

oops that was MsMook1979

Welcome to the forum, I would encourage to watch some youtube videos too, tons of great people posted their stories some of them include kellawanda, slimmfast, amysdmom, nettiepiehead, msnook1979, thinjourney and there are a ton more!

I agree with all that has been said, and would like to add.... like someone said, the sleeve will not "fix" the depression, anxiety, and the many other things that might had started the whole rollercoaster of unhealthy eating, so is super important that whatever that might had been for you, you figure it out and find other healthier ways to deal with it. After talking to many doctors and nutritionists, I have heard many times that if we do not work on that, we will just find a different unhealthy way of coping (such as alcohol). So keep in mind that the worst thing that can happen is not gaining the weight back (I know none of us want that). This is a journey in which we need to do more than just eat healthy and exercise, we need to find ways of dealing with our emotions and other things which do not include food. The sleeve allows us to concentrate in those things since we don't have to worry about all the bad food we are eating and the stress of being fat and doing the many unsuccessful diets we have all done. I go to keep reminding myself of this. Good luck!

Thank you so much for posting this! I am having my surgery May 10, and there is so much truth to what you said. The only reason I am having this surgery is because I did all of those things you mentioned! and unless I change that, I will lose the weight and gain it all back! I need to see my obesity as a addiction, and deal with it accordingly. Thank you so much for posting, this is a great reminder!

Congratulations, that is wonderful! I am sorry about your mothers passing, but I am glad you realized how important was to take care of yourself. I also have a lot of the same family history, and am doing the surgery now, even though my IBM is only 36 because I know that if I wait any longer it will only be a matter of time that I will have the same problems. unfortunatelly is so much easier to put on the weight than it is to take it off! Thank God for this surgery! I am very happy for you!

oh Kansasgirl, I decided to do mine the same day I arrive to have an extraday at the hospital and hotel. I am staying two nights at the INT and two nights at the Lucerna.

I vote you wait until the 10 and do it with me! LOL I wish I could do mine sooner :-( got finals until then! Anyone having/thinking of having theirs with Dr. Ponce De Leon (or any other surgeon at the INT) then?

I am not saying there is anything wrong with your post, only giving my opinion in the subject. From personal opinion not everyone joins every organization there is, some lack of time, lack of decire or they just don't feel is beneficial. Some choose to join one or many, its all a matter of personal opinion. In countries such as Mexico these orgaizations mean little, in the USA we put more weight in them, so I agree they cater to American clientele so its good when they do things to make Americans more at ease, but lack of doing this does not equal they are bad in anyway. Most of the ones I mentioned (if not all) belong to organizations in Mexico because this is where they live and practice. We in america often live under the impression that we have the best of everything and that if is not american it must not be good (I know you all don't believe that since many of us are going to Mexico for surgery). I personally would still go to mexico for my surgery even if my insurance had covered it, I believe Dr. Ponce is more experienced than most of my local surgeons and thus will provide me with better care. That is true about most Mexican surgeons, they just have been doing the surgeries longer and with more frequency.

I agree that being a fellow for ACS is a great thing, I don't think it should be the only thing someone should look at when choosing a surgeon however. There are wonderful surgeons in Mexico such as Dr. Ponce De Leon, Alvarez, Rodriguez and Aceves, I have heard nothing but great things about them. Yet they don't all have FACS by their name. FACS membership starts with an application and not all surgeons, specially in other countries choose to be part of their membership. So even though I agree that is wonderful that Dr. Kelly chose to become a fellow for ACS, I believe that all of the above mentioned surgeons could be members also if they chose to. Just my two cents.

Miranda, (you asked I am answering to the best of my knowledge and I actually have emails to verify the information here, THESE ARE MY REASONS. I don't want to start getting bombarded with bad comments about what I am about to say. I believe weight loss surgery is a very personal journey and everyone should do their own research and go with what they believe it’s best for them.) Be forewarned this is a very, very long response LOL. I believe Dr. Kelly has great surgical skills, but I have spoken to tons of people in Mexico (running out of minutes here!) and time and time again it comes out that he has a very short temper and is highly concerned about the number of patients he sees and the ones other surgeons in México have, some believe this is why he has been making more small mistakes, such as nicking a vessel on someone last year (that unfortunately turned out to be a very large one and cost her, her life because of lack of blood at that hospital, thankfully he no longer works there and I hear his current hospital does have this service. (The reason he can no longer work at INT, is because he was very rude to another surgeon in front of patients (but I did talked to nurses and other personal there who verified this), I don't know about the other hospitals since I did not call them). I talked to Dr. Kelly and he was very nice but even in our conversation I could tell he really put other people down (even other surgeons). I also talked to Dr. Ponce and he not once said anything negative about Dr. Kelly or any other person. Being in the medical field I admire humility (which Dr. Ponce showed a lot of and after talking to people who work with him (his anesthesiologist has been working with him for over 12 years) and other people I know he is humble). Dr. Ponce's sleeve complication rate is super low, even lower than Dr. Kelly’s, the reason he is not better known is because he does not speak much English (he usually uses a translator and from people who are not Spanish speaking I hear communication is not a problem, most specially because Trish is always helping and checks on you often even after surgery and when you are back in the USA). I speak Spanish so that is definitely not a problem for me, but has been super beneficial since I have been able to talk to people that most people cannot talk to because of language barriers. Dr. Ponce was very open about his complications and talked to me at length about them, I felt like Dr. Kelly was not very open about them and actually was annoyed by the questioning (I can actually understand that since there are so many rumors about him and his skills, so he was understandably defensive). Dr. Kelly just does not appear to me like a good team player, I keep hearing this from people who have worked with him and others who known him. I believe that this surgery has to be done by a good strong team, not one person alone, no matter how good of a surgeon you are, you can never do this surgery alone. Dr. Ponce has many years of experience in surgery even longer than Dr. Kelly. I hear people say well Dr. Kelly is FACS, I believe that is great but I also know for a fact that because someone is not FACS does not mean they are not wonderful surgeons! FACS starts by applying for and going to the process, some surgeons especially outside of the USA choose not to do that. So the way that is all started was because one day I was talking to Anid (Dr. Kelly's other assistant) and I asked her why Trish (one of his old coordinators) was not working with them anymore. She said Trish had quitted, decided not to work with them anymore. I asked why, but I was in a building in which I lost reception so I emailed her the question. I waited 2 days to get a reply, and never got one (yes they had been having email problems but Anid had assured me that there were no problems on the account I used and they had replied to all of my previous questions within minutes.) When I did not receive a response I decided to call around and find my own answers. I called Trish; she was very surprised that I was calling. Told me that she believed Dr. Kelly had great surgical skills but that she left because she was seeing he was increasingly more interested in what all of the other doctors where doing and how many patients they had and was making more and more small mistakes because of that. She not once tried to convince me to go with Dr. De Leon or never said anything negative about Dr. Kelly, only answered my question (even though I later found out Dr. Kelly had taken her assistant who she had trained, she still would not speak ill of him). I asked her a very honest question "if it was one of your loved ones having this surgery who would you recommend truthfully?" her answer was "this same question was the reason I left Dr. Kelly, one day three different patients to be, asked me the same question, and I could not answer it to be him. He is a good surgeon but I had started to see many things I did not like and had talked to him about it and nothing changed, so the only surgeon I would recommend to my family is Dr. Ponce." So after much research I decided to go with Dr. Ponce, not because of Trish or anyone person in particular but because he is in my price range and has a great deal of experience and happy patients including Mexican doctors, surgeons, nurses and people who I talked to. I had decided to do my surgery with Dr. Kelly before I found out about Dr. Ponce, if Dr. Ponce was not available I would probably had gone with Dr. Kelly until after what happened the last few days.... I emailed Dr. Kelly's staff after making my decision to change surgeons, within less than 5 minutes I got a phone call from Omar, I agree he is very nice and has been very well trained (I emailed the same address I never got a reply from but now was getting a phone call, so say the list this did not make me any happier). That same night I got an email from someone at Dr. Kelly’s office. She was very nice to me personally (even though she did accused me of letting myself be manipulated by Trish and her people) and said some horrible means unprofessional things about Trish, things that to this day I have found (I have looked!) not to be true. I sent her a reply and I told her what I told you about Trish comments about the doctor and that this was not my reason for changing, I also said how unprofessional her email was. I have not received another email from her addressing that. I later got a call from Dr. Kelly but I had left my phone home and thus did not answer. I then got an email from some random "patient" the reason I know she is not a true patient is because she emailed my personal account! She said she saw my post and was replying to it, the only people who have that account are Dr. Kelly and his staff and Trish. She talked about how Trish manipulated her into changing to Dr. Ponce and how she regrets it and how Trish herself took advantage of her while in México, asking for money to wash her car and the like (OK is the first time I hear anyone say this about Trish ever! I heard many times she brings people lunch, dinner and such, never asking for money, the only money thing I heard in the past was money for hotel upgrade while she worked with Dr. Kelly). All of this only made me madder and thus I would never use Dr. Kelly and his staff, but again this is a personal journey! So before I start receiving drama filled messages, whoever reads this keep in mind I am not bashing Dr. Kelly nor his staff, I am barely stating my experience, and like I say I have emails to prove it (they are in Spanish though); I am just answering a question that was asked about MY reasons for not using Dr. Kelly. I was very happy to receive an email yesterday saying that my deposit would be refunded this week :-)

I will be arriving in Mexico May 10th early morning and will be having my surgery there that same afternoon. Anyone else arriving to San Diego CA that day?