Home and improving

[Oregon Rose 2]

Hi-

I am sorry I haven't been on the message board to answer questions several people asked me. I have been busy traveling home and sleeping.< /p>

A few days ago I mentioned I had pain at my lowest incision. Dr. Jossart said this is very common to have pain at this incision site. He said the incision was not straight back, but somewhat sideways. This incision is at the bottom of the stomach. He said there were reinforcing stitches there and a lot of the work is done from this incision. This is also the incision from which he pulled the excess stomach. Anyway, it is gradually feeling better little by little.

Someone asked me what medication I was on and if Lortab is the same as Vicodin. I think it is. In the hospital I had a morphine pump. I have to admit that the liquid vicodin instructions said to take 15-30 mls by mouth every 8 hours. I never took more than 15 mls because it makes me groggy.

Several people wondered why my doctor only kept me in the hospital 1 night. Its quite simple - economics. I was a self-pay patient. The cost for the Operating Room, one night in the hospital, the surgeon, and the anthesiologist was $17,300. Each additional night in the hospital was $2000. This is a HUGE sum of money.

Dr. Jossart is sensitive the fact the VSG surgery is coming out of the patient's pocket. Few insurance companies will cover VSG. He sends you home (or to your hotel) as soon as you are doing well in the care of a "support person." We had a list of what symptoms to watch for and a 24 hour phone number. My husband called the number one time because I was sleeping almost non-stop the first two days after being discharged. Dr. Jossart called back right away. In my case I had to stay in San Francisco until after my pre-op appointment 4 days after surgery.

On the 5th day after surgery I was allowed to fly home. (You should read my horror story with TSA at the San Francisco airport on another thread.)

You might ask me why I went to San Francisco for surgery. Why not have it in Oregon? Why not have it in Mexico?

I did talk to the surgeon's office in Oregon. Like most bariatric surgeons, she only started doing VSG a year ago. She can't have done more than a handful because it is all self-pay. The quoted self-pay cost was $35,000. Yes, you read that correctly - $35,000.

I am a scientist and came to the decision to have VSG after reading the medical journals on the Band, Roux-en-Y, VSG, etc. There are a handful of surgeons in Spain, Belgium, and the U.S. who have done the pioneering work on this procedure and have presented their work to the international medical community. In the U.S. those surgeons are Jossart & Cirangle. No one has more experience doing VSGs in the U.S. Now a lot of surgeons in various states are starting to do VSGs. There is a learning curve. I did not want to be part of some surgeon's learning curve.

Just about every surgeon who has done VSGs for at least 5 years has been busy publishing their VSG data in the medical literature and presenting on their VSG experience at medical conferences. As far as I know, no Mexican surgeon has ever published study results on VSG. This does not mean that there aren't good Mexican surgeons. Just that they do not have the experience or reputation of Jossart & Cirrangle.

Well, there is no place like home. I seem to be in less pain and feeling less tired. I got on the scale this morning and I was down 8 pounds. SUCCESS!!!:glare:

[Oregondaisy 2,021]

Wow! That is very expensive. I am very glad I found Dr. Aceves. I don't know about having his work published, but I do know that he has a lot of band to sleeve revision surgeries, and is doing 5 sleeves to every one band these days.

I am sorry for everything you went through at the airport. I had them tear my stuff apart at the airport the last time I flew, and it was no fun. I can't imagine them doing it if I was feeling poorly. Lucky for me, I couldn't even tell I had surgery by the time I flew home.

[cajun 46]

Glad you are home and feeling better, Oregon Rose. I read your TSA escapade. I'll be sure to wear my crocs when travelling for my surgery, so I can just step out of them! What a bummer! did you get names????

[*susan* 1,709]

I am also glad to hear you are home and on the road to recovery. It sounds like you had a good experience. I am going to have to go check out that other thread of yours now.

[Oregondaisy 2,021]

I checked around and found out that Dr. Jossart & Cirrangle have a 1% leak rate. That is a very low leak rate. Dr. Aceves though has never had one single leak.

I am glad though that you were confident in your surgeon. That is what you need going into surgery.

I hope you're feeling better every single day and that scale keeps moving right on down.

[akindofmagick2 0]

I checked around and found out that Dr. Jossart & Cirrangle have a 1% leak rate. That is a very low leak rate. Dr. Aceves though has never had one single leak.

I am very much leaning towards Dr. Aceves, but I still have to question a 0% leak rate in over 600 VSG surgeries. Where did you obtain this statistic? Presumably this is self-reported by the physician?

Thanks in advance!

Sheri

[Ruthi 60]

I used Dr Aceves also. I didnt find anything about his leak rate online, I also did not hear or read anything negative from any of his patients online either at this site or OH and I am sure that if someone had a complication or bad experience, they wouldnt hesitate stating it everywhere that they could. All I saw online was positive. Both forums are large enough to cover alot of people. 0% complications is what I was looking for.

[MacMadame 81]

I am very much leaning towards Dr. Aceves, but I still have to question a 0% leak rate in over 600 VSG surgeries. Where did you obtain this statistic? Presumably this is self-reported by the physician?

They are all self-reported for all surgeons. It's kind of frustrating because you see people saying things like "My surgeon has done over 5000 sleeves" and you just know that's ridiculous (the math doesn't work out), but what can you say? If you know of someone who had a leak and someone says their surgeon hasn't had a leak, you can give the name of the person and say "so-and-so had that surgeon and had a leak" but you can't prove how many surgeries anyone has done one way or another.

[DownInSocal 12]

Glad you are are home! 8 lbs is great. Keep sipping.

[cajun 46]

Ruthi,

I'm with you. I'll be having mine done by Dr Aceves for several reasons...no leaks from what I hear, full service hospital, 4 day hospital stay, number of years experience, number of VSG's performed, free transportation to and from airport, and the price is right. A 1% leak rate would not have swayed me even if he had one either. That's below the researched average and after doing so many, someone is bound to have a leak. Since he does revisions, which are the hardest and probably most prone to leaks, I would be surprised if he does not have one to report eventually. So far, I'm hearing zero.