Looking for other BPD patients

[CNelson 0]

Hello,

I had Biliopancreatic Diversion surgery back in June of 1983 - in fact I was #86 to have that surgery by my doctor. Since then I have kept the weight off, but have had continual digestion and intestinal issues. I cannot find any doctor (medical or naturopathic) that can honestly address my issues and I am looking for other patients that I might be able to discuss their life after surgery and how they found good competent medical care. I would like to find others that have led a long term "after weight loss surgery" life.

[I♡BypassedMyPhatAss♡ 806]

Sorry to hear that you're having issues with your procedure. You may want to search the DS forum.

https://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/1018-duodenal-switch-surgery-forum/

Best wishes.

[RickM 1,753]

My wife is about 17 years out on her BPD/DS, and at least until COVID changed things, we were in a local support group of primarily long term veterans, legacy of her surgeon who had moved out of town, so we got a lot of feedback over years on various issues people had. Since COVID, most practices went online with their patient support, and that is often available to anyone interested.

A couple of suggestions. One is to look up Dr. Ara Keshishian - dssurgery.com - who is well regarded about all things DS and BPD. There is an extensive blog library on his site that you can look over and will probably find much of what you are looking for, though it may not be that well indexed. Another is paclap.com, from Pacific Laparoscopy, who is another BPD/DS specialist; they now have a monthly zoom meeting, IIRC on the second Tuesday evening of the month, and that usually has a number of veteran patients along with the doc who can offer suggestions on whatever problems you are having.

With your early 80's date, did you have a DS with BPD, or the original Scopanaro BPD? The Scopanaro did seem to be more troublesome, primarily from its shorter common channel leading to sometimes excessive malabsorption.

There are people and doctors out there who can help, though not necessarily in CO, which is one of the drawbacks of the procedure. Fortunately, most who are skilled with it know of the geographic problems and are used to dealing with patients remotely.

Good luck,

[CNelson 0]

Wow - thank you so much for replying to my post! I had the Scopanaro BPD surgery at Goleta Valley Hospital in CALIF - done by Dr Holian, and was actually #86 to have that surgery! Dr Holian and his nurse, Trish, were life savers in those early days as it was a guessing game on much of what we were supposed to do post surgery. Much of what is done today was gleaned from those days of hit and miss post op care. I even was the 2nd (or 3rd?) person to get pregnant have give birth after having BPD surgery. After both Dr. Holian & Trish passed away I lost the much needed support and tried time and time again to find medical, or naturopathic doctors that could help me. I did see Dr. Ara Keshishian and ironically just reached out via email again to him today (we no longer live in CA). He no longer takes insurance, so I may try some of your other great suggestions. It would be so awesome to have a support group to toss ideas around. I don't have to have someone that lives in CO -- but that would be an extra perk! I appreciate you taking the time to answer my post. Right now I have an immediate need to find someone to address my painful issues - so will reach out to those you have suggested and always have Dr. K to fall back on if no one else can take me or takes my insurance.

Hope this wasn't too much TMI.

thanks again.....

[Guest]

4 hours ago, RickM said:

local support group of primarily long term veterans

Do you think doing it via Zoom so that @CNelson could join in, would be something good to suggest?

[RickM 1,753]

11 hours ago, Pollito said:

Do you think doing it via Zoom so that @CNelson could join in, would be something good to suggest?

That's basically what has already happened - most migrated over to Paclap's zoom meetings. The group was a legacy of when Paclap was in the Los Angeles area before they moved to San Francisco some twenty years ago, Over time, Keshishian adopted it and then it closed up around COVID time and most moved online to Dr. K or the Rabkins' Paclap group.

There are probably other DS affiliated groups one can find, but those are the ones that I'm familiar with, being in CA. Off the top of my head, there are several DS docs in the NYC area - Roslin, Pomp, Herrin that I can think of that probably have groups that one can access.