WAMom

I'm in WA State now, but I am originally from DFW and was banded and revised 5 yrs later to a VSG. Dr. Kuhn is awesome. He's been in the WLS business for a very long time. I worked for a GI doctor at Baylor and he highly recommended Dr. Kuhn to anyone asking about WLS. I've heard good things about Dr. Barker. I had a friend who worked in his office. He runs his clinic more like a number system, and you have to wait and wait, so don't take kids to the appts. But everyone says when you see Dr. Barker you have his attention 110% of the time and he will make sure you have all your questions answered. I'm not sure what Dr. Benavides does these days, but anyone associated with primarily Lap Bands and what used to be The Surgery Center of Richardson I would run from. Dr. Frank Felts not so much. I had another physician several years ago that originally put my band in. After years of problems such as vomiting, dehydration and sickness, Dr. Felts failed to find anything wrong with my band. He refused to say anything negative about the doctor who did my original surgery. After MANY Barium Swallows and TWO Upper GI Endoscopy Scopes Dr. Felts said it was all in my head and fired me as a patient, giving me 30 days to find another doctor because I dared to tell him he was WRONG and I was so dehydrated I couldn't swallow Water let alone eat solid food 4 1/2 years out from band surgery with ZERO Fluid in my band. BTW, My band was found to be put in BACKWARDS and dangerously close to my Aorta!! Dr. Felts was also JUST GETTING STARTED doing VSG and he refused to tell me how many he had done of the regular VSG surgeries and how many revisions from Lap Band to VSG he had done. I felt like he wasn't being honest in my personal opinion, he wanted me to have TWO surgeries, one to remove the band and a second to do the VSG as he didn't have the experience he was used to doing ONLY Lap Bands! I found Dr. Manuel Castro who practices at Methodist Dallas on this forum by another person. She had him for both band and VSG. She highly recommended him. I had surgery by Dr. Castro in August 2010. I had an allergy to the skin-prep that was worse than recovery pain. Dr. Castro called me several times to check on me. He investigated and called me to inform me what my allergy was so that I could avoid it in the future. The doctor himself did so, not a nurse! He can be hard to understand as he has a thick Spanish Accent, but he is VERY VERY caring and talented. Something I personally had NEVER experienced before from a Bariatric Surgeon! I highly recommend Dr. Castro. His wife was his office manager at the time I had surgery and can be difficult to deal with. Be sure to verify your own insurance as she soemtimes isn't clear about it. Otherwise, he is worth the wait and dealing with his wife! Dr. Castro is a Lap Band to Sleeve Revision Specialist. I can't think of any other Bariatric Surgeons I personally dealt with in DFW. If Robert Powell is around AVOID him like the Plague, he's the idiot who placed my Lap Band Backwards! LOL Best of luck to everyone! I hope this is helpful, it's 5 yrs worth of my experiences in one post! -Carrie

I eat a lot (way more than any human I know) of the Fage 2% Cherry Flavored Greek Yogurt. I am almost a year out from a revision from band to VSG. It's a thick product as you know and I'm not sure a few months after surgery if I could have even gotten one down of the little pour over type containers. I can now eat 2 of them back to back and often do for a light lunch, but I am STUFFED to the max when I do. I agree that the Protein drinks are yuck. The only way I was able to get them down was Isopure Fruit ones, I don't recall the name, but even they get slimy if they seperate so you must keep it well shaken. Best of luck! -Carrie