Hi from Ireland!

[Coco 0]

omg...that article is a worry would feel better if i knew why she died and as for the way they treated bettyboop they showing themselves to be very unproffesional and really need a wake up call this is peoples lives they messing with !!!!!!

Hi Girls,

About that article, I know someone who was in hospital having the band done at the same time as that poor woman. Apparently, Dr Jerome opened her up, saw some cancer in her digestive tract and closed her up immediately, she did not have the band done. She was awake afterwards and was up and about talking to other patients. She also suffered from sleep apnea and died in her sleep. From what I can gather in the Mail on Sunday it was nothing to do with Dr Jerome. He has had his licence suspended by the medical council while they investigate if major surgery on obese people was being carried out by him in a cosmetic clinic rather than a large hospital with more facilities. Dr Jerome is disputing the fact that it is major surgery and that's essentially what the court case is about. For me I had and still have every faith in Dr Jerome he performed 300 of these band surgeries last year in Ireland and just 3 of his patients suffered with problems which meant they had to be transferred to a larger hospital.

[bettyboop 0]

Hi all ,

Going to get it looked at today and will let ye know the outcome,thanks so much for all the advice and help ,it's great to have some others to talk to that are in the same boat and also fantastic to see all the weight loss, i've not had any fills yet so i'm mad to get started,

Thank's again ,talk soon .

[Coco 0]

Hi all ,

Going to get it looked at today and will let ye know the outcome,thanks so much for all the advice and help ,it's great to have some others to talk to that are in the same boat and also fantastic to see all the weight loss, i've not had any fills yet so i'm mad to get started,

Thank's again ,talk soon .

Hi BB, great to hear your having it sorted. Good luck with the visit hope it goes well.

[terry777 0]

hi ...terry here

went in to get a fill last saturday and met lou for the first time. I wasnt very impressed. Because we never met she had to look over my file . I got 2ml in operation and i had 3 1ml fills with Tara after that . But she said I only have 4ml in my band and she was very reluctant to even give me a half ml ...but she did because she only thought i had 4ml in my band but i know i have 5 .So what do I do now? Do i ring and complain or do I leave it ?

[penny2 0]

<p>Well,I finally got up courage to move ahead with this banding thing instead of being a negative wimp and putting my life on hold-rang and was given an appt to see the new Surgeon in ACS TOMORROW!!! had banked on it being Dec(dont want band til March)so in a bit of a flap.However have list that someone kindly posted of relevant questions so will swot up on that tonight.Cant make up my mind if I will let hubby come in with me or not-ADVICE?as he doesnt know my weight. Havent told anyone else.......</p

[penny2 0]

Hello! am I alone here?!!

Well.......decided to have hubby along to the consultation as he will have to be my support when the time comes.Dr Jan(Polish)was really nice.Very anxious to explain everything properly and made me sign a form b4 I left saying I understood it all(!)

Hubby and I had sat down with the list of questions which I got here and tweaked it a bit here and there to have our own list of questions.He answered all of them comprehensively and showed us the actual band(which HE invented apparently-made in Switzerland)he says he has had NO cases of slippage and problems all depends on how the band is fitted and HOW WELL THE PATIENT BEHAVES! He kept coming back to the fact that its not a miracle(shucks)but a tool.diet and exercise being the most important thing. He was mad to talk and very patient with my hubby who wanted to know the EXACT workings of everything.

As far as ACS is concerned,they seem to be halting ops at the moment and looking for an operating theater to hire.The receptionist told us that Dr Jan has ideas that he wants a bigger area with more back up staff and that hes made quite a lot of changes since Dr Jerome "resigned"

He told me that he alone does the fills and that he does not like other people doing them on his patients.

The upshot of all this is that he seems to be putting everything on the long finger at the moment and waiting til they get the go ahead for an operating theater,He has put me down for March and I must go for tests in Feb-no talk of a pre op diet but smartass hubby asked him would it be an advantage and he brightened up and said indeed it would be a great advantage!

The nice receptionist has promised to put me in touch with a few other people in my area.TG for this site as I was so informed going in to the appt.Thanks everyone for sharing your ups and downs with us!

[twinkle-toes 0]

hi ladies, well holidays over and it was great. had visit with lou before i went . no fill. she thought i wasnt eating enough to lose weight. told me to up calories by 200 a day and see how i got on. well i did that over last two weeks and bingo she was right im down 7lb and one week of that was in lanzarote so im happy with that result.

[Debb 0]

<p><p>Hi everyone</p> <p> </p> <p>Well its 3 weeks today since I had my op. Have had a few ups and downs, and it really took a lot more out of me than I expected. For starters I was off work for 2 weeks instead of the one week I'd planned. Mainly due to the fact that when I went back to get the stitches out a week post-op, 2 of the 5 wounds weren't really healing too well. I'm still bandaged on 2 of the wounds but I'm getting there slowly. </p> <p> </p> <p>BettyBoop, I think the probs you had with your wounds are terrible - I can relate. I personally think that they shouldn't have taken the stitches out of the 2 that weren't healing properly, should have left them another few days to see if they healed a bit more. However, I think the main problem at Owenstown is that they seem to use a lot of agency nurses, and maybe that means that a lot of the time they aren't fully tuned into whats what. Luckily, on my third visit to have my wounds dressed (yes, I've been back 5 times so far and back again tomorrow!) I met this Filipino nurse Rudy, and I have just arranged to go back when he's on shift so I don't see lots of different nurses. He's really great and I really feel the healing has progressed a lot since he took over my dressings. 2 of my wounds were gaping - yeeeeuw, was totally freaked out and not able to even look at them, I'm such a scaredy-cat when it comes to anything like that!! </p> <p> </p> <p>Penny2, Best of luck with your plans, you've a few months to really get your head around it. I had my consult in August and didn't get banded til October cos I knew I was going on hols in between, but I'm glad I had all that time to plan, and I found this site so helpful.</p> <p></p> <p> </p> <p>Went back to work last week but could only manage 3 days, am totally wiped out and I think its cos my body is putting all my energy into healing these last 2 wounds. Feeling much improved now. On the plus side, I've lost just over a stone, tho I don't feel all THAT restricted!</p> <p> </p> <p>Re. the whole Jerome thing, I think its disgraceful the way the media have gone on a witch hunt... The issue is that the RCSI are saying that surgeons are flying in for a couple of days and therefore not available to provide adequate aftercare. At least ACS have made the op available in Ireland. Think about all the people who have flown to England or Belgium for their ops and the zero aftercare that would be available to those people? When the item was on the RTE news, they had the bloke from St Colmcilles in Loughlinstown on spouting off about it - Coco, I think you said you waited 3 YEARS just to get an appointment for that place?! Then they had Mary Harney urging people not to undergo 'unecessary surgery'....!!! As long as the HSE fail to recognise that medical interventions like the band are a proactive way to deal with rising rates of obesity in this country we're doomed! It looks like they may try to make an example of ACS. I hope they can continue to provide this surgery. No, its not ideal that it takes place in a plastic surgery clinic, cos its not a cosmetic procedure, its gastric surgery. And when Halina Ashdown-Shiels was bringing the op to Ireland she approached various hospitals to try and get the go-ahead to use their facilities (post-op intensive care etc), to no avail. Its terrible for that poor woman and her family that she died, but had she needed to go under a GA for any other reason whilst not knowing she had cancer, who knows that the outcome would not have been the same? She didn't have the op, as Coco says, she was opened up and then closed again. SHocking that the knives are out for Jerome, he is a leading surgeon in his field. Hope it all works out and that they continue to provide this procedure. Anyway, enough ranting from me, must go to bed.</p> <p> </p> <p>Hope yis are all well and feeling positive and motivated!</p> <p> </p> <p>Take care</p> <p> </p> <p>Debb</p> <p>xx</p></p>

[Coco 0]

hi ...terry here

went in to get a fill last saturday and met lou for the first time. I wasnt very impressed. Because we never met she had to look over my file . I got 2ml in operation and i had 3 1ml fills with Tara after that . But she said I only have 4ml in my band and she was very reluctant to even give me a half ml ...but she did because she only thought i had 4ml in my band but i know i have 5 .So what do I do now? Do i ring and complain or do I leave it ?

Hi Terry,

I'm sure you're right about the amount in your band, I don't think records are kept as well as they could be in ACS. What I'm surprised about is why Lu didn't check what was in your band. When I was unsure about the amount in my band I had the nurse remove all the Fluid to check how much was in there and then put it all back with more or less as necessary. If your happy with your restriction I would leave it till next time you go for a fill but if you're unhappy phone them and get another appointment to have it sorted.

[Coco 0]

Hi Debb,

You are so right about the witch hunt, to be honest I think reading between the lines that the media are out to get ACS and by the Medical Council retracting Jerome's licence is the only way to get at them and expose their other surgeons who if we are to believe what we are reading, are a bunch of butchers. I don't know whether ACS got lucky with Jerome and choose their plastic surgeons with not much research/references etc. but I have every faith in Jerome and support him 100%. It really riles me when I hear the likes of Mary Harney spout on about something they've obviously only been breifed about and don't have any real understanding of. That Dr in Loughinstown has been on more tv and raido programmes begging for more facilities to help obese people. How understaffed they are and how short on facilities they are. If anything he should be supporting gastric banding which is the least envasive weight loss surgery people can have. Anyway I think this story will run for another while yet. It was nice to see Jerome's letter in the paper this week. We can see from that, if we didn't know already, that he only has the patients interest at heart.

Wishing you all comfortable restriction and loads of weight loss.

[Coco 0]

Hello! am I alone here?!!

Well.......decided to have hubby along to the consultation as he will have to be my support when the time comes.Dr Jan(Polish)was really nice.Very anxious to explain everything properly and made me sign a form b4 I left saying I understood it all(!)

Hubby and I had sat down with the list of questions which I got here and tweaked it a bit here and there to have our own list of questions.He answered all of them comprehensively and showed us the actual band(which HE invented apparently-made in Switzerland)he says he has had NO cases of slippage and problems all depends on how the band is fitted and HOW WELL THE PATIENT BEHAVES! He kept coming back to the fact that its not a miracle(shucks)but a tool.diet and exercise being the most important thing. He was mad to talk and very patient with my hubby who wanted to know the EXACT workings of everything.

As far as ACS is concerned,they seem to be halting ops at the moment and looking for an operating theater to hire.The receptionist told us that Dr Jan has ideas that he wants a bigger area with more back up staff and that hes made quite a lot of changes since Dr Jerome "resigned"

He told me that he alone does the fills and that he does not like other people doing them on his patients.

The upshot of all this is that he seems to be putting everything on the long finger at the moment and waiting til they get the go ahead for an operating theater,He has put me down for March and I must go for tests in Feb-no talk of a pre op diet but smartass hubby asked him would it be an advantage and he brightened up and said indeed it would be a great advantage!

The nice receptionist has promised to put me in touch with a few other people in my area.TG for this site as I was so informed going in to the appt.Thanks everyone for sharing your ups and downs with us!

Hi Penny,

You are I'm sure aware that Jerome didn't resign we all know that now. I have seen Dr Jan and was impressed with him but as I don't know anything about him and really don't know how to check him out we will just have to rely on the feed back we get from his patients. I have to say though, that he is doing the ops at the moment in Owenstown House, well he was when I saw him two weeks ago. In fact he said he didn't like to see outpatients while he was between ops as there was a risk of cross infection. :faint::faint::faint: Now I thought that each time a surgeon went to do an operation he scrubbed up. So where's the cross infection comes from I don't understand. I am also amazed that ACS managed to get another surgeon who invented his own band as ACS told me that Jerome was involved in the invention of the band he used. From the paper this Sunday it appears that both Dr's are using different bands. Also as you can see from this site Dr Jan is not the only person giving fills Lu is giving them also although I'm worried that Dr Jan is going to distance himself from Prof. Jerome's patients and concentrate on his own. :eek:

One more thing, I would imagine that ACS don't want any more of their surgeons licences revoked so they will have to arrange a safer place for all their surgeries so although you had this conversation with Jan it might be wise to read between the lines a bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a bad thing but I do think its the only way forward for ACS to continue their very lucrative gastric banding ops.

As for the pre-op diet :) well Jerome didn't see it as necessary, whether thats because of his experience doing the op or not I don't know but some Dr's reccommend it as it shinks the liver and makes the surgery easier for them. There are lots of pre op diets to be found around this web site if you really want to do one:). Well done on taking the plunge and bringing hubby along too. I brought my sister along with me and told her to ask anything that she wanted to about the op and believe me she did. :rolleyes

[penny2 0]

You are absoloutely right about a witch hunt-its scandalous the way the media get hold of a story-it suits the medical profession to rubbish ACS of course and I agree with all you say-at least they are doing the op(even if it IS 10,000 euro)its hard to know whats going on.

What Kim(in Cork)said to me was that he had been doing consultations for the past 2 weeks and was building up a waiting list.Maybe the fills being done by him alone only related to Cork.

Thx for the encouragement, Coco-you're doing pretty brilliantly yourself-my bmi(i was horrified to discover)is 42 near enough what you started at-has it been really hard,

I'm a bit concerned that he told me you have to eat 6 tiny meals a day and in work I generally have 15 minutes to STUFF a sandwich down AT SPEED-no way would I be able to eat 6 meals at 30 minutes each.However I only work 2 days a week so I suppose i can starve..................:rolleyes:hungry:

[kermit 0]

hi babes - sorry have been off the radar for the mid term hols.

I was so sad to hear about the death of a person who had braved the decision to make a positive new start in life.

I don't know all the facts of the case so I have nothing to offer except my experience which was mostly positive. The one thing I would say is that Dr. Jerome is not a maverick, merely someone who works within a bigger system and therefore shouldn't be made a scapegoat for the incessant rantings of 'health/ HSE/ political' interest and lobby groups, or indeed, fodder for journos with one beady eye on the career ladder while the other one is on the lookout for someone's pain to splash all over the front page (because it is in the 'human' interest).

I hope it does not put off any desperate people out there who are trying to battle their obesity every day. I am still battling and was on my way to the clinic on Thurs last (for a much needed second fill) when something told me to call and confirm my appointment again. Apparently it didn't exist. I am going up on Saturday. I don't know which is worse - the obesity, the lack of restriction or the dread of being told off again. Alesha - I have about 14 lbs gone as well and I'm happy we both have the same weight loss.... I was beginning to feel as though I should have spend the ten grand on (a) hypnosis to make me believe I am actually thin and ( cake.

Take care gals

[Coco 0]

You are absoloutely right about a witch hunt-its scandalous the way the media get hold of a story-it suits the medical profession to rubbish ACS of course and I agree with all you say-at least they are doing the op(even if it IS 10,000 euro)its hard to know whats going on.

What Kim(in Cork)said to me was that he had been doing consultations for the past 2 weeks and was building up a waiting list.Maybe the fills being done by him alone only related to Cork.

Thx for the encouragement, Coco-you're doing pretty brilliantly yourself-my bmi(i was horrified to discover)is 42 near enough what you started at-has it been really hard,

I'm a bit concerned that he told me you have to eat 6 tiny meals a day and in work I generally have 15 minutes to STUFF a sandwich down AT SPEED-no way would I be able to eat 6 meals at 30 minutes each.However I only work 2 days a week so I suppose i can starve..................:rolleyes:hungry:

Hi Penny, don't worry about eating 6 meals a day if you are eating for three hours a day after your banded GET A REFUND :lol:. Seriously, after you are banded you will be on liquids for a few days up to a week then soft food for another week or so and then on to normal foods. It takes about 6 weeks for all the swelling to go down (so don't wear your tightest pair to trousers to the clinic. ) and you will be crying out for a fill like the rest of us saying that you can eat just as much as you could before the op. Its important to eat Protein after the op as this aids the healing process so yogurt drinks and custart and rice puddings are a good choice for the first two weeks post op. I found that it wasn't until I had 5mls in that I saw regular 2lb drops in weight every week. And boy is that worth the wait. So expect to lose some weight usually quite a few lbs in the first week or two. For me it was 10lbs but then nothing untill I had my first two fills. So in my humble opinion its unrealistic to expect too much too soon. Jerome recommended starting to eat regular food as soon as we felt able. Once you have proper restriction where it will take you 20-30mins to finish a side plate of food, you will not be hungry for ages as it takes the pouch 2 hours to drip the food into the stomach. So its important to eat healthy foods because the volume of food you will be eating will be so reduced. Good luck on your journey and this time next year you'll be picking out that little black dress for your christmas party.

[penny2 0]

[/color]

Hi Penny, don't worry about eating 6 meals a day if you are eating for three hours a day after your banded GET A REFUND :lol:. Seriously, after you are banded you will be on liquids for a few days up to a week then soft food for another week or so and then on to normal foods. It takes about 6 weeks for all the swelling to go down (so don't wear your tightest pair to trousers to the clinic. ) and you will be crying out for a fill like the rest of us saying that you can eat just as much as you could before the op. Its important to eat Protein after the op as this aids the healing process so yogurt drinks and custart and rice puddings are a good choice for the first two weeks post op. I found that it wasn't until I had 5mls in that I saw regular 2lb drops in weight every week. And boy is that worth the wait. So expect to lose some weight usually quite a few lbs in the first week or two. For me it was 10lbs but then nothing untill I had my first two fills. So in my humble opinion its unrealistic to expect too much too soon. Jerome recommended starting to eat regular food as soon as we felt able. Once you have proper restriction where it will take you 20-30mins to finish a side plate of food, you will not be hungry for ages as it takes the pouch 2 hours to drip the food into the stomach. So its important to eat healthy foods because the volume of food you will be eating will be so reduced. Good luck on your journey and this time next year you'll be picking out that little black dress for your christmas party.

What a lovely thought Coco and it might even be scarlet!!!thanks also for the really helpful advice.Just had a call from husband to say theres an article in this months Phoenix about the financial affairs of ACS for the past few years-looks a bit shaky but Halina seems to be a survivor. x