stoongal

I will if you are still there..

People just need more education on this procedure, they will be supportive afterwards when they see how well you are doing with it. Unlike the band we can eat anything we want, if we leave out excess carbs, we lose - leave some in and we maintain, easy peasy. You will love the freedom of it once you tummy is healed. At 8 months out now am down over 63 lbs and loving life again, everyone now seems supportive as I educate them as I go... Time will do it my dear, Cheers, Donna

What are you taking for the pain? Can your doctor give you a cortisone shot to tide you over until you lose weight? they can last 3 months and longer and give a lot of relief! I didn't hear about this surgery in time so ended up having my knees replaced in the 5th year of my knee problems. But did start getting arthritis in my hip shoulder and one hand shich prompted me to get this surgery as i hated the thought of life with more arthritic pain! Now they are so much better, some soreness now and again but nothing like before! I would make sure to get on Nu-naproxin and get cortisone shots for now! Really really helps! Good luck with it! Donna

Hi Katt, Sorry - was babysitting this afternoon, so didn't get to all this til now. You asked about my sources. Well, until this is resolved legally in a court where it will all come out, I can't yet name names - however these several sources I can guarantee have all worked in and around and with the Betancout crew and were privvy to his secrets. I would not post these things if I wasn't assured that they are so! But anyone with eyes that goes there can tell these are not professionals. On the job experience is all they have and it just isn't enough when things go wrong, yes, they can give injections and try and put in IV lines etc. and remove drains but they are not trained for emergencies and complication detection. So many have been failed in their aftercare as a result with devastating results. A crash cart is just not enough. Donna

Amen to that sentiment, I think people should know a few facts about the qualifications of the staff there... Dr. Betencourt's real name is Joey Perez, he has a 7th grade education, and was a used car salesman. He is not a doctor, is not wealthy, rents his facilities only and has lost a condo recently. Saverro, who speaks great English - everyone assumes he is a nurse. In reality, he is a trained massage therapist. Period. Claudia, a teenaged (16 or 17 yr old) high school student, is the daughter of Sylvia, the housekeeper, and yet works in the OR and gives needles etc acting as a nurse. Dr Almanza's wife - his surgical assistant, is only a hairdresser. Dr. Lopez wife, also on the surgical team, is only a nail esthetitian. As I have stated before, NO ONE there is qualified to care for you! AVOID this outfit like the plague! It is a disaster waiting for a chance to happen! And it could be happening to you or another one of us if you still chance it! I was taken in by the lure of the price and was lucky, I championed them as I believed all they said. Betancourt can charm anyone to believing he is being wronged and maligned and he should be believed and trusted. Too many people with complications are still too sick and in the hospital to write about their experiences. Time will tell. They will be shut down eventually! Disillusioned and saddened, Donna

Highest weight: 244 Surgery day weight: 221 Current weight: 159 Feeling good!:sad0:

My two cents on the Shirley issue, she was a band to sleeve revision and had her sleeve done by Dr Pompa long before she was the main US coordinator for Betancourt/Dr.Almanza. Also she was definitely NOT fired. She QUIT! This is NOT hearsay from my part for sure!

Aw honey, I am sure every woman on this site can relate to your emotions right now, been there, done that sort of thing. Maybe he will do a double take if he meets you in 6 months, if not him, others will! and before long after that you may have to beat them off with a stick! LOL!! And you will be the one doing the picking! Just know you aare doing the best you know how right now, and you are pretty vulnerable and obviously, he is not ready for you at this stage in his life. Someone special will connect with you down the road, and you are not too old! I am 72 and I know the older guys' eyes follow me while they sit on the benches at the mall as I walk by, because I have a new confidence and it shows in my body language. In the meantime, think positive thoughts and get out walking for fitness and you will begin to feel better with every pound you shed! You will LOVE your sleeve! and yourself and that special someone who will appreciate you in the future! Believe it! Donna

We had a chart that shows the various benefits of weight loss surgery, and the number given for sleep apnea was 74-98% RESOLVED - (meaning it's GONE) So I would be very optimistic if I were you!

Great news, Stacey! I know you will have a very postitive experience with your new sleeve. We all love ours. I have been eating more than I should for a while due to emotional issues with my sister Linda and all, but have lost over 55 lbs so far - and hoping for at least another 20, 25lbs. Have slowed down quite a bit lately but still happy that I am a more normal size (no more plus sizes for me - EVER!) You are not too heavy and certainly young enough it will make a huge difference in your life! You will be a slim beauty for sure! Will be watching your progress with interest, now that I am back on the boards! Feel so relieved to have finally told everyone about my sister.as people were still choosing Jerusalem due to my old posts and I felt so bad. I liken it to playing Russian roulette - why gamble with those odds.

Gotta put this story out there I guess, to try & prevent more horrible outcomes. I went to Emmanuel clinic when it was not very busy. I found it to be an easy surgery for me to recover from & I am now 72 (this was last September BEFORE all the flurry of infections came out.) I trusted and believed everything my coordinator told me and I especially trusted Betancourt. I have since found out he in very mu*****ontrol of everything down there, and a lot of it is coverup and lies. Yes he is charming but charm is not what you are paying for. I even argued FOR them and posted to the nth degree refuting everyone who had negative things to say about them (the whole experience) I even talked my daughter and sister to go down and have their surgeries done, that is how confident I was. Fast forward to middle of January, I went with my family and for a few days had a very nice time. Dismayed at the size of the new clinic, and I was even more dismayed that Dr Almanza was so over-booked! My sister Linda went in for her sleeve after 10 pm at night, the 6th of the day! I was worried about that as it was so overcrowded in the clinic and so little room for anyone to maneuver, but held my tongue as we expected the best outcome. To make a long story short, my sister became very ill while there at the recovery house, Betancourt said it was gas pains and continued to give her pain control shots. She was in no shape to fly home on the Friday as booked, they caught the fact she had a collapsed lung and severe dehydration and she went back in for intravenous saline and oxygen, but they assumed there was no leak because of their tests. BUT THERE WAS, a centimeter nick out of the stomach high up near the esophagus, and when the housekeeper took out the drain, fluids gushed out of Linda's body. the housekeeper just cleaned it up and said nothing, so we assumed things were OK, no leaks. She was in rough shape when I flew home with her on Saturday. She had to go to the hospital in Edmonton shortly after she got home as she went into septic shock, had a collapsed lung again, severe dehydration and kidney failure because of it. They operated on her for four hours, and ended up with flushing out her body cavity - over a liter of pus!. She was near death and was for well over a week! We were devastated to say the least.. Slowly things have improved since those first weeks passed, but she was in critical care for about 6 weeks until she could breathe on her own and not need a ventilator to help with that. The infection spread and caused all kinds of porosity in her stomach and esophagus. To date she is STILL in the hospital in Edmonton, still being fed intravenously and with a feeding tube directly to her gut, while waiting for the last hole to heal in her esophagus, they did insert a stent but haven't tested it for leaks so far. She had a large hole in her abdomen due to all the 5 ensuing body cavity flushes they had to do every other day in the beginning weeks. It is healing and she will need two further operations, a skin graft and a hernia repair on the incision site. We do expect a full recovery but only after they test her stomach out with real food, which can be weeks away yet. She has lost her job, her income of course and a good chunk of her life due to this facility's operation. Safety should be your main concern, Betancourt and Almanza's "stacke'em and rack'em" policy is not doing anyone any favors. Dr Almanza, as nice as a man he is, is now a partner and profits are what it is all about now it seems. There have been many (20 I heard), complication tales from there since December, most were too sick to tell them themselves but are known to many of the coordinators. They all distance themselves from those, chalking it up to normal rate of complications. They have to do damage control, it is their JOB, and Betancourt controls them! Doing so many surgeries a day in my opinion is SO NOT SAFE! Do NOT believe the other Drs listed in the PR for their new website are actually doing surgeries there yet, as Dr Almanza wants the extra surgeries for himself mainly. Spend the extra now and go to a safe hospital down there, spend the $4000 more to save yourself from becoming another Linda, with hospital costs being what they are in the US I would think that would be more important than the up front extra now to save months of hospital and surgery bills as well as your lost income from your job should things go wrong. Check out my photo albums for a picture of me visiting Linda in the hospital in Edmonton last month when I was there. Sorry Linda, I had waited for you to tell your story but you can't sit up long enough to type it out on the computer and people really need to hear this! All of this is true and I am so sorry I doubted everyone that had problems there, even John who's wife wrote of his experience was pretty sick the day we drove to the airport with them and he ended up with infection and in the hospital. It was extremely busy the day of his surgery too. I am not saying that you won't have a good experience, but why risk it if you don't absolutely have to, is all I am saying, there are WAY too many stories like Linda's from that facility to ignore!