julielle

Yes but as I told you, you're better looking for that at Obesityhelp and not here, anyways, I tried to help and now i'll just shut up, I don't seem to be making myself understood.

True, but there was never any doubt that Dr Aceves was a great vertical sleeve surgeon, and as this is a vertical sleeve forum it would make sense that he'd have great reviews here. I just don't know if he's a great DS surgeon, from what I know it's a MUCH more complicated surgery, but I have not had it done myself, I chickened out at the cost But you may have more luck on the ObesityHelp forums since they're not geared to any one surgery like this one is.

Sorry I was just trying to help, I don't know that site much but when I was looking into the DS I read a lot on forums and everyone was saying to NOT get a doctor not on that list, they weren't affiliated with the site. So I figured they knew what they were talking about. That was the DS community at ObesityHelp by the way.

I seriously tried EVERYTHING, I tried to fly to Chicago, I said I'd take any flight to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Las Vegas... anywhere that I could at least get closer, and ALL the flights were full with about 20 people on the waiting list. Newark was not fun today, every single flight was totally full. The counter agent there tried to route me anywhere she could think of, chicago, atlanta, dallas, she even looked on other airlines, there was absolutely nothing available. She could have put me on standby for the next flight to San Diego but it was full and I wasn't the first person on the standby list, so that was a very small chance. (That flight did end up leaving at 3:30pm, the flight after at 5pm was also cancelled). I've spent the afternoon on hold, on hold 1.5 hours to speak to United, did get the flight refunded (WHOLE flight, woo). I did manage to book a new flight Nov 7th to 12th, very thankful to Dr Ponce who had NO availability those days but agreed to squeeze me in anyways! So this trip is 2 days longer than the one I was supposed to do this week, instead of having surgery on the same day I arrive I'll be having it the next day, so that will help, I'll be able to drink Water on the flight. And I'll have an extra day before I return, so I'll book a hotel in San Diego the night before my flight, so in the end I think it'll work out!

From what I've read, the only doctor in Mexico that's recommended for the DS is Dr Ungson. I don't think any of the other surgeons are recommended for that procedure. Here's the list of the recommended ones I found: http://www.dsfacts.com/duodenal-switch-surgeons.html

I've let my coordinator know, but I didn't have a deposit down so that's not a worry. Hopefully the airline credits me the WHOLE flight but they were talking like they only want to credit me half of it since I "used" part of it. Argh. Frustrating! It was all super well scheduled too where I would start my period next weekend, now if I switch for next week or whatever I'll have to deal with THAT too. Blech!

Well I'm supposed to be having my surgery today, but I'm sitting at home. I'm completely heartbroken over it, I got up this morning at 3:20am to catch my 5:15am flight from Vermont to Newark. Flight is on time, flight to Newark is uneventful. Get to Newark to check where my connecting gate is to San Diego, and see that my flight is cancelled. They cancelled it while I was in the air on the way to Newark (it's only an hour flight). Quickly went to the customer service desk to find out, they basically looked at me as if this was all my fault basically "You should have expected your flight to be cancelled, don't you know there's a monster storm on the way?". Well, yes. I've been watching the weather channel and following Sandy for days, I know it's not supposed to get bad in the NYC area until at least sunday night, why would I ever think an 8 am flight to the west coast would be in trouble? Not only that, My flight was the ONLY flight cancelled. All other flights were on time and leaving no problem. Los Angeles departed at 8:15 I think. San Francisco was no problem. Las Vegas no problem. Only my one flight. And they're trying to tell ME it's because of the weather and that I should have known better! At this point I'm in tears saying that I need to get there I'm having surgery! She looks and says there's no way I'm getting to San Diego, there's no way through Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, nowhere. All flights are full today, but she offers me to get on the standby list for the 3pm flight. Ok first, if the 8am flight is cancelled due to weather, why does she think the 3pm won't be, and it's so much closer to the storm? Argh. So obviously the flight isn't cancelled due to weather. Then I say well OK, now I'm stranded in Newark, I need you to get me on a flight back to Burlington. She goes "no, we don't do that". I said "Well, you cancelled the flight while I was in the air, this morning the flight was still OK, when I got on the plane in burlington the flight was still OK, I could NOT have known this was going to happen, you need to get me back to my car in Burlington!". Again, the answer was no, we don't do that. They were going to leave me stranded in NYC with a storm on the way, nice right? So then I said well, can I purchase a ticket to Burlington? (I'm desperate). They say there's 2 tickets left, 600$ each. Keep in mind this is a 1 hour flight. 600$ is more than I paid for my complete round trip ticket to San Diego. Anyways they finally relented and got my husband and I on the LAST two spots on a plane leaving for Burlington, and they didn't charge us. So I'm back home. But I've been travelling for the past 10 hours and I have nothing to show for it. And I'm so heartbroken over it, I was so scared going into this but I kept telling myself it would be OK, I starved for 3 days on the yogurt for nothing. I feel like a giant baby because I just can't stop crying about it. Now I don't know when I'll be able to rebook, my mother is only available until mid November to watch my kids, which only gives me a 2 week window... and if it doesn't happen then, I'll have to wait until April. To me that's like... giving up 6 months of my life. It sucks.

Oh grrrr I just realized I'd have to do customs twice in one day (US and then Canada), that's gonna be a bundle of fun. They always look at you like you're shady, I want to break down and confess all my sins whenever they stare at me. I guess it works.

I'm in the process of transferring movies and tv shows to my laptop and ipad! I have 5 movies and the last few weeks worth of shows that I follow so I should be good!

Well I'd love to have BOTH! I don't even know if I can chew gum... I didn't ask. I have lots of different flavors of yogurt so at last I can switch it up, I do miss actually biting into something though! It'll be a while before that happens again I guess!

My pre-op diet is only yogurt I asked if I could have broth or other clear liquids and was told no, I would kill for a big hot bowl of broth right now, I'm really not so much into sweet things so a little bit of yogurt is fine, but all day only yogurt has gotten old and it's only day 2.

ERp yeah, I'm in Canada so we got Dell Voice, I have it on my iPad and my smartphone, it allowed us to make calls from anywhere using the wifi (or it lets us text too). Google Voice would be the equivalent for americans but I think you need to set it up while you're in the US? Can you download the Skype application onto your smartphone using wifi?

Yes, I'll have my ipad with me and I'm pretty addicted to the internet so as long as I'm awake and the wifi is up I am sure i'll check in!

None for me, I booked the surgery 3 weeks ago, and I'm having it on sunday Purposefully booked it fast so I wouldnt' have time to second guess myself too much!

I'm at like 49.5 or something, I'm squeaking in just under the line.

I'm hungry too! It feels like I could eat all the yogurt in the world and I'd still be hungry because it doesn't feel like it has any substance. I want to chew on something! I don't even know if I'm allowed gum so I'm just dealing. Hoping the hurricane/storms don't impact my flight sunday morning, my layover is in Newark So I'll be super stressed if the storm is near, and then i'll have surgery after landing, yay!

Guys, I am a real internet psychologist (no I'm really not), but this is what I figure: People are more likely to join a message board to talk about a horrible experience than a good one. Or a neutral one. Verticalsleevetalk is a pretty big forum, along with ObesityHelp they'd show up at the top of any Google search for someone looking for a chance to tell their story. If Dr Alvarez had a lot of complications in a lot of patients, a % of those would surely have come here to mention it. Instead you only see good (or maybe neutral) posts. Since we know people are less likely to talk about the good than the bad, this alone would tell me that the Dr knows what he's doing. But let's say that I don't do message boards at all, I don't use the internet much, and so I don't feel I need to come here to give a negative opinion. I wonder where that person would have found the Dr to begin with, I mean I doubt American surgeons would be telling their patients "If you can't afford me, I know this guy in Mexico...". Anyways, totally not saying that a person can't have had a bad experience with him. It's surgery after all, it's not a vacation, we don't know what their bad experience was either. For one person, a bad experience could simply be "He cut my stomach and it HURT! I was in pain for DAYS!". I don't know what their experience was, so I can't judge if it's something that would personally bother me. If after talking to these people who won't come online and post their experiences, if you feel they have legit reasons, then just cross this doctor off your list. I mean you don't want to be going into surgery thinking you've made a bad choice. It's not like there are not many other qualified surgeons to choose from.

Good luck toda free@last In other awesome news, EVERYONE in my household is sick right now. My 3 year old son is not so bad, just some sniffles. My 6 year old daughter though, I was up half the night with her because she'd have non stop coughing fits, a stuffy nose, just miserable. I would take her into a steamy bathroom, propped her bed up, attempted to unclog her nostrils with saline, rubbed Vicks all over her, ugh. And my husband started coughing and feeling like crap last night. So I'm sure I'm already infected and just don't know it yet. That'll be super fun having coughing fits with all those fresh incisions, ugh ugh.

Whew good news the Dr will fit me in on the sunday so all is good and my date remains unchanged What a load off my mind!

I'm with Jaime Ponce de Leon, this is no error of his though, this is a breakdown in communication with the coordinator I guess! I would honestly rather be at home recuperating too but, we're talking about the difference of a night in a hotel and a night at home, not a night in the hospital and a night at home. I'd still be doing the 2 nights at the hospital, I'd just get no hotel stay. It would have been nice to have a stress free day in a real bed to recuperate before having to spend all day flying (Leave San Diego at 11am and get home at midnight, blech!) My issue is that If they felt it was safe to let everyone go home after only 2 nights, then why wouldn't they do that to everyone? If they make everyone stay an extra night in a hotel it must be for a reason, that's what worries me.

Ugh yep, she has me down for the wrong day. I'm not sure what to do. I have several emails from her where she confirms that I'm having surgery on the 28th, and now suddenly she's basically saying that we always agreed on the 29th. So I have 1 less day to recover which just makes me feel oh so much more secure in my decision to fly to Mexico for surgery because I have to come home a whole day early

I read the book he wrote, I think you could find most of the same information on his Youtube channel. I can't say if the town he practices in is safe or not, but I know a lot of people rave about that surgeon. I know what you mean about waiting times, in Quebec where I live it's a 3 year waiting list for the surgeries, that's not because of pre-op testing that's just because so many people want the surgery. I wasn't willing to wait, hence I go to Mexico. I had to fill out a pre-op questionaire where I had to disclose any issues, so that's where you'd tell them about your asthma etc. They do bloodwork and some pre op testing the day (or the night before) your surgery but I'm not sure how extensive. I know that they told me that if I had a CPAP machine that I should bring it. I guess it's assumed that you'd have kept up reasonably well with your own preventative screenings with your doctor at home and things like apnea would have come out by now? I guess the best way to get an answer for your questions would be to send him an enquiry, I'm sure he (or whoever he uses to help him book surgeries) would be able to answer you and advise what they do for higher risk patients. I do know that as a higher risk patient, I think Dr Alverez is a good choice. Another that I hear very good things about is Dr Aceves, maybe look into him as well, they have similar prices I think (they're both around 9k?)

The surgery has been done for a long time as the first phase in the duodenal switch surgery. Also it really is a simple surgery, less than an hour... I mean yes it's a major surgery but it's not a complicated one, there's no bypass and doctors don't really need years and years of study to know how to do this. That said, dr Alvarez has a lot of Youtube videos here that might help you with your decision: https://www.youtube.com/user/Endobariatric?feature=watch

Erp kind of stressful when the coordinator doesn't seem to remember booking you on a certain date! Hoping it was just a misunderstanding and I'm all set to go on the 28th, if not then I guess I might be going in for surgery on the 29th... which isn't a huge deal but my flight home is the 31st and that's one less day to recover before flying, argh! Hope it works out.

That would be contrary to every post I've ever read about him, I didn't choose him myself because he was out of my price range, but I think 100% of the reviews and notes I read about him were quite positive. If you have spoken to "several" people who've had serious problems with him I think they probably have an agenda and are trying to sell you on another surgeon, it would not be the first time that someone badmouths someone else to try to steer some business away. But honesty, just do a search on the forum, I don't think you'll find anything bad about this dr, he's probably just as good or better than a good percentage of the doctors in North America, I'd have zero qualms choosing him. I chose a different doctor because in the end price was important to me too, if I could find a doctor that was safe and had a good rating and a better price, that's what I chose.