Hi from Ireland!

[Debb 0]

Hi everyone

I am posting on here for the first time since just after I had my op in Oct 07 with the notorius ACS. I have been so depressed and having so many mixed emotions about this whole procedure, that I haven't felt able to even participate. Iniatially Coco responded to my first couple of posts and gave me some great tips (thank you, and all of your posts are inspiring), I have been logging in every now and again over the months and reading how you are all doing but just feeling I had nothing to contribute as I felt so deflated.

When I was operated on (Saturday, 13th Ooctober 07), the following Monday the news broke about the incident with Jerome 's patient. I didn't buy into it all as I knew that poor woman did not die as a result of the band procedure.

However, ACS proved to be less than satisfactory in my dealings with them. I had two appointments in Fitzwilliam where I saw the nurse Lou, who gave me no fill but two lovely, what can only be described as lectures, on how to eat healthily - I felt like I was at WeightWatchers again for the umpteenth time! (except that costs €10 a week as opposed to €10k!) Then I saw Jan, my surgeon, who gave me 1 ml, and he had difficulty getting the needle into my port.

Then came all the too-ing and fro-ing with ACS, the letter to say ACS Europe had taken over as ACS had gone into liquidation but don't worry, they were taking over our aftercare - yaay. I had an appointment in May in the new premises in Pembroke St with Chris de Bruyne's bariatric nurse. He had trouble getting the fill in (another 1 ml - wihoo - €10,000 lighter, 7 months later, and still only 2mls in my band) and said that my port had flipped, he had to manipulate it which involved lots of pressing down to get it to flip back around so he could get the fill in - not pleasant.

Then - lo and behold - ACS Europe were no more and The Hospital Group had taken over. Okay, I'd researched them previously, and had considered going to London to Harley St for a consult with them before I decided to go with ACS as I liked the idea of them being on home turf, in case you needed them fast...... ha ha.

And then began the humming and haawing about the registration of their surgeons to practice in Ireland. A Belfast appointment was offered -midweek, of course, so I figured I would hold off, surely it couldn't take too long for the registration process, and I don't have much annual leave to play around with spending a day up and down to the north... They said they did not do Saturday appointments, and yet I subsequently found out the last one was on a Saturday. I rang them two weeks ago to find out what the eff was going on - Lydia had left a couple of days before and I was talking to the lovely Kim (not) who informed me that The Hospital Group would do a review and give a fill, if necessary and then subsequently I would pay €150 per fill after that - still no info on when they would be up and running in Dublin. I expressed my concern as I had been informed by both Lydia and Leanne that The Hospital Group would take on the aftercare and that mine would be extended by a few months due to the upheaval just after my surgery... I knew this was not worth anything as they would not/did not put it in writing. Now we are all left high and dry.

I have researched a couple of places, Chris De Bruyne is apparantly away on holiday til 1st Sept so will await contact from him, rang the crowd Obesity Solutions who are based in London and have a monthly clinic on Dame St. I thought the Polish surgeon Jan was working with them, but evidently not... they charge €210 for first consultation and €150 per fill after that, but I was less than impressed when I rang their London number. The person who answered the phone... Me: ring, ring - Her: Yes? !!! Not the way I would expect someone in a professional organisation to answer!! I contacted the Beacon and although they don't normally do aftercare if you've had surgery elsewhere they will for ACS patients - aaaaww, bless, a warm fuzzy glow began to envelope me... until finding out that the initial consultation is €400 and the fills after that €300 a pop...!!!

I am now looking into the feasability of approaching the liquidators for ACS... even if we got some of our money back it would pay for what we'll have to shell out for continued aftercare... but I won't hold my breath.

The bit that gets to me really is that ACS went to the wall in light of all the adverse publicity, people stopped going to them for all the other procedures as well due to the media-frenzy witch-hunt... at the end of the day the results of the post-mortem were that the woman died of natural causes. And where are the media now, when we've all been left high and dry. It really does leave a sour taste.... how I long for pb and slime instead, but as I have no restriction at the moment, not likely :-) I have a €10,000 band thats not working and it will probaly cost another few €k to get it back in action. In the words of the Sex Pistols: "Ever feel like you've been cheated" (I'm an old punk at heart!)

Anyway, I just wanted to say a belated thanks to all of you, I've been popping in every few months just to read how yis are doing but just felt too pissed off and negative to contribute.

Will keep you all posted if there's any progress, but right now it feels like everything's come to a grinding halt.

Have a good weekend y'all xx

[skinnyirishbabe 0]

well my daughter got her band done in acs. had similar problems to u but she found out about a crowd from belguim who have a monthly clinic in dublin. they will take u for fills. they charge 120 and they will put in up to 4 mils at a time if needed. they are very nice. i think it would be worth checking them out. my daughter is very happy now

Hi everyone

I am posting on here for the first time since just after I had my op in Oct 07 with the notorius ACS. I have been so depressed and having so many mixed emotions about this whole procedure, that I haven't felt able to even participate. Iniatially Coco responded to my first couple of posts and gave me some great tips (thank you, and all of your posts are inspiring), I have been logging in every now and again over the months and reading how you are all doing but just feeling I had nothing to contribute as I felt so deflated.

When I was operated on (Saturday, 13th Ooctober 07), the following Monday the news broke about the incident with Jerome 's patient. I didn't buy into it all as I knew that poor woman did not die as a result of the band procedure.

However, ACS proved to be less than satisfactory in my dealings with them. I had two appointments in Fitzwilliam where I saw the nurse Lou, who gave me no fill but two lovely, what can only be described as lectures, on how to eat healthily - I felt like I was at WeightWatchers again for the umpteenth time! (except that costs €10 a week as opposed to €10k!) Then I saw Jan, my surgeon, who gave me 1 ml, and he had difficulty getting the needle into my port.

Then came all the too-ing and fro-ing with ACS, the letter to say ACS Europe had taken over as ACS had gone into liquidation but don't worry, they were taking over our aftercare - yaay. I had an appointment in May in the new premises in Pembroke St with Chris de Bruyne's bariatric nurse. He had trouble getting the fill in (another 1 ml - wihoo - €10,000 lighter, 7 months later, and still only 2mls in my band) and said that my port had flipped, he had to manipulate it which involved lots of pressing down to get it to flip back around so he could get the fill in - not pleasant.

Then - lo and behold - ACS Europe were no more and The Hospital Group had taken over. Okay, I'd researched them previously, and had considered going to London to Harley St for a consult with them before I decided to go with ACS as I liked the idea of them being on home turf, in case you needed them fast...... ha ha.

And then began the humming and haawing about the registration of their surgeons to practice in Ireland. A Belfast appointment was offered -midweek, of course, so I figured I would hold off, surely it couldn't take too long for the registration process, and I don't have much annual leave to play around with spending a day up and down to the north... They said they did not do Saturday appointments, and yet I subsequently found out the last one was on a Saturday. I rang them two weeks ago to find out what the eff was going on - Lydia had left a couple of days before and I was talking to the lovely Kim (not) who informed me that The Hospital Group would do a review and give a fill, if necessary and then subsequently I would pay €150 per fill after that - still no info on when they would be up and running in Dublin. I expressed my concern as I had been informed by both Lydia and Leanne that The Hospital Group would take on the aftercare and that mine would be extended by a few months due to the upheaval just after my surgery... I knew this was not worth anything as they would not/did not put it in writing. Now we are all left high and dry.

I have researched a couple of places, Chris De Bruyne is apparantly away on holiday til 1st Sept so will await contact from him, rang the crowd Obesity Solutions who are based in London and have a monthly clinic on Dame St. I thought the Polish surgeon Jan was working with them, but evidently not... they charge €210 for first consultation and €150 per fill after that, but I was less than impressed when I rang their London number. The person who answered the phone... Me: ring, ring - Her: Yes? !!! Not the way I would expect someone in a professional organisation to answer!! I contacted the Beacon and although they don't normally do aftercare if you've had surgery elsewhere they will for ACS patients - aaaaww, bless, a warm fuzzy glow began to envelope me... until finding out that the initial consultation is €400 and the fills after that €300 a pop...!!!

I am now looking into the feasability of approaching the liquidators for ACS... even if we got some of our money back it would pay for what we'll have to shell out for continued aftercare... but I won't hold my breath.

The bit that gets to me really is that ACS went to the wall in light of all the adverse publicity, people stopped going to them for all the other procedures as well due to the media-frenzy witch-hunt... at the end of the day the results of the post-mortem were that the woman died of natural causes. And where are the media now, when we've all been left high and dry. It really does leave a sour taste.... how I long for pb and slime instead, but as I have no restriction at the moment, not likely :-) I have a €10,000 band thats not working and it will probaly cost another few €k to get it back in action. In the words of the Sex Pistols: "Ever feel like you've been cheated" (I'm an old punk at heart!)

Anyway, I just wanted to say a belated thanks to all of you, I've been popping in every few months just to read how yis are doing but just felt too pissed off and negative to contribute.

Will keep you all posted if there's any progress, but right now it feels like everything's come to a grinding halt.

Have a good weekend y'all xx

[Debb 0]

well my daughter got her band done in acs. had similar problems to u but she found out about a crowd from belguim who have a monthly clinic in dublin. they will take u for fills. they charge 120 and they will put in up to 4 mils at a time if needed. they are very nice. i think it would be worth checking them out. my daughter is very happy now

Thanks for that, do you have any details for these people please? I also read back through a few posts and found the info re wls group (thanks also for that) so I will give them a go too. Really need a fill soon! Have a good weekend everyone.

[wella123 0]

hi deb my name is wella 123 and i can help you. i also have the band and have had great aftercare and have come down from 14st 7lbs to 11st 7lbs in spite of having a lot of port problems.send me your personal e mail and i will reply to you. i can help you or point you in the right direction. talk soon x

[damienne 0]

Hi Everyone,

I haven't beeen on the forum for a while...my hubby has been sick and I have been doing fairly ok bandwise.

I got my first fill last week but didn't have time to meet up with anyone in Larry Murphy's.

I actually feel more hungry and have less restriction after the 2ml fill than I did before!!!! (I suppose I was just at the point of loosing all restriction anyway)

I was too hungry to stay on fluids for 3 days..bit dissappointing!

Anyway,I guess it's time for me to book the next fill in September.

I'll be VERY surprised if I loose any weight this month.

Good luck to everyone.

Skinnyirishbabe, sorry about your leak problem...hope its e2,000 not e4,000

[wella123 0]

hi debs call me on 0877863964 , wella 123

[wella123 0]

:laugh::laugh:sorry that phone number should be 0877863964 if you or anyone else is interested call me before tues as list is filling up. wella 123

[angie324 0]

Anyone booked in for a consultation with dr chris de bruyne in sept - dublin? Or been banded recently with him?

Would love to hear from anyone using same surgeon

angie (from co. Tyrone)

[angie324 0]

HI GERRY,

I'm Angie from Co. Tyrone.

I am going to see Dr Chris De Bruyne in 2 weeks and hope to have my surgery in Brussels within the next 6 weeks. I noticed that you got your fill in Belfast? do you mind telling me who did your surgeory?

many thanks!

angie x

[siepie 0]

Hi Angie

I am seeing Chris in Sept, I was banded by him in May of this year. If you have any questions feel free to send me a PM and Ill try to answer them for you.

Siepie

[ailbhe 1]

Hi all.

Hope you are all doing well. I think I'm still ok for now without another fill.

It only took 2. Yay!

I'm still losing the pounds slowly but steadily.

Some days I can eat quite a lot but mostly I fill up quite quickly.

I hit the 4 stone loss yesterday!!! I'm chuffed to bits. And in time for my 6 month band anniversary ( 26th of this month ). So my initial goal was to lose 5.5 stone. Only 1.5 off that. And then after that to get to an ideal weight for my height I'd need to lose another 2 stone. But I'd be happy with the next 1.5 gone. thrilled in fact. Anything after that is just amazing!

Things took a turn for the worse with the ex and we are no longer on speaking terms. I'm sad about that but I'm sure we'll both calm down and eventually be back on speaking terms.:thumbup:

[angie324 0]

HI!

for all of you who were banded by Dr Chris De Bruyne!! can you tell me what time you arrived in Belgium at the day before?? i have just booked flights with aer lingus and dont arrive in Brussels til 8.50 in the evening?? now worried this is too late cos i know i have to see Dr de bruyne the day before!

did anyone else take the evenin flight??

Angie xxx

[skinnyirishbabe 0]

next time the belguim crowd are coming to dublin is thursday 4th september. you can email them at frederik.serneels@ecfs.be. tell him your details and book an appointment for fill . hope that helps

[skinnyirishbabe 0]

we are going to with aerlingus . but got the 7 am flight in morning. maybe you should email frederik just to check is your arrival time okay for them. do you hve his address. and what day are you going

[Emerald 0]

Deb,

Any luck with organising a fill ?.........I'm in the same boat !!!

Dee