TinyTina

:frown:Hi all out there! I'm just hoping some of you might have some words of hope for me. I was banded in Mexico on June 5, 2009 by Dr. Huacuz. I almost shied out of it the night before I flew down there, but a friend coaxed me to go. My experience at Dr. Huacuz's clinic was good, but when I got home and off the morphine which made me almost giddy, and finally removed my bandages, I saw the road map of horrible scars all over my once smooth abdomen. I wanted to fall to the floor and ball. It's been a month and even though I've been relentless about applying polysporen and scar creams, I'm positive these scars will show loudly for the rest of my life. I'm SO depressed about this. But that is not all. I have had really bad shoulder pain since the surgery. It's slowing up a bit, but usually comes if I eat too much or too fast. On top of all this, I have not lost any weight (other than what I lost before the surgery on the liquids - which I'm starting to gain back). I am SO depressed. I know I should go for a fill, but if I do, I'm afraid the shoulder pain will come back in full along with more vomitting. I've only vomitted a couple times when something got caught in my band opening, but I know I wouldn't want that to increase. Does anyone have any words of wisdom or hope for me??

Ok, before this turns into a full out "witch hunt", can you please just keep your advice to the stuff that will actually help me going forward?? As opposed to mocking and belittling "the poor sap" who DUH! supposedly didn't do any research before "that sharp thingy went in"!!? No need for the nastiness. Please. I've already had enough just with the experience alone. Gee, not only did I stumble upon the "worst surgeon in all of Mexico, nay the world", but somehow I must have got stuck with the worlds worst search engine too because NONE of this stuff about Huacuz came up all those nights I spent at my computer trying to Google him or his clinic PRIOR to my surgery. In all that time all I found was one negative thread on him, which was actually berating not him but his first partner from some 15-20 years ago. And in same thread, several bandsters came to Huacuz' defense so vehemently that I was left with the impression that he was genuinely and generally liked. My bad. All I could find on my surgeon were positive testimonials. I must be a complete idiot!! FYI: my surgery of choice would have been Ontario, but being a single mom I couldn't afford to pay 3X what I paid in Mexico. As for scarring info, all the articles, websites, doctors, and doctor's assistants I researched and spoke to PRIOR to even deciding on the surgery, talked about only THREE incision sites, with the main port incision tucked neetly away in/near your belly button. I assumed that since this prodedure had been around for over a decade that the technique had been pretty much perfected and standardized. It never occured to me that a practicing surgeon would just go ahead an cut you right smack in the middle of your abdomen. Well, what's done is done, and I have to live with these scars now. Thanks for all the sympathy, but if anyone has information for me that will actually cheer me up, or support me, as opposed to making me feel like this website's biggest loser (and I'm NOT talking pounds), I would appreciate it! BTW: if anyone's interested, I know ALL about the gas introduced into our abdomen cavity during lapband surgery, and it's ill effects post-op. In fact a fine surgeon/researcher from Calgary wrote an entire article following an in-depth study on the post-op effects of said gas. He found that at least 20% of patients still suffered the shoulder pain as long as 5 weeks and beyond surgery. He also found methods in which these negative effects could be curbed or lessened by surgeons. Such as a) using less of the gas, :smile2: warming the gas prior to insertion, or c) removing as much as the gas as possible before suture. Unfortunately none of this can help me now, but I did send the entire article to Huacuz (in the hopes that he might consider reading it before performing any more surgeries). Now if I could just find an article on proper surgical suture techniques for him...:biggrin:

Thank you, Cathy. I get my first local fill this Friday. I guess I should brace myself for some more "PB's" afterwards (?) I'll let you know how it all turns out. Thanks for all the info. And BTW: congratulations! I looks like you've done really well yourself. I hope I can start seeing results like that soon too! TT

Hello Elcee, Thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your support. What is PB? Maybe that is what I experienced, and not so much "true" vommiting. I only had this about 3 times when something got caught going down. My surgeon gave me an initial fill day after surgery of 2.9, I beleive. I've always been a very slow eater and chew my food a lot more than the average person. I've tried to be conscious of this even moreso since the lapband on June 5th. I have 5 incisions in all: one is 1.5 inches long and located above and to the left of my belly button - VERY noticeable. I believe this is the one that is normally concealed in or close to the belly button, by more professional surgeons. Then I have a 1" scar between my breasts at bra line, and another 1" scar just below my left breast. Then I have 2 dark red "nodules" on either side of my abdomen. These stick out, like nipples. I don't think my surgeon was very well practiced in the art of sewing one up to keep scars to a minimum. Lucky me. :tongue_smilie: I hope you're right about the shoulder pain. And I definitely need to be more careful about what I am eating. Depression and food is a very bad mix with me. I have booked my fill for this coming Friday. I'm praying it all works out. Thanks again for your support! TT:redface: