Hi Everyone, I'm...

To Laura Turner Hi, I called the office in Denver about the 3rd week in January. They wanted to book surgery for february, then we decided to wait until April 3 for my daughter to turn 18 at the end of march. It went very fast and was very uncomplicated. We had no serious health issues that reguired further testing so we had a teleconfernce with the Dr. and then we met at his office the day before surgery. I was in the hospital for 3 hours total. My daughter had hers the following day and she was a little more sleepy so she was in about 4 hours. We are 6.5 weeks out. Most of our weightloss has been the first 4 weeks while we still had restriction from our surgery. My daughter has lost 24lbs and I have lost 19lbs. We are having our fills done in radiology in the Grand Prarie hospital . We had to have a referal from our family Dr. to have it done in the hospital with flouroscopy. I am so glad we are going there . We are getting a fill once a wee****il we have good restiction. I have a 14cc ap band with 7cc in it. I have a bit of resriction but I can still eat bread no problem . We go back on wedensday for our next fill. We are lucky to get fills so often. The reason for the band is to get restriction for weightloss, its not fair to have to wait for months for decent restriction. Afterall most of us have paid a lot for the band and we want it to work for us. Going to the US was a great decisionfor us. The price was right and he is a longtime surgon. The hospital was new and the care was awsome. You get your own nurse the whole time your in there.Hope this answers some of your questions. Lizzie ann

hi laura - i've totally screwed this up - i posted this by mistake to tracie. hi tracie, i am scheduled for surgery on june 3 at the swlc in mississauga. one thing i thought i'd share with you is that although alberta health care will not cover the cost of surgery, they will cover the cost of complications i.e. if you need scopes, surgery, etc. if the surgery is done in canada. it will not cover you for surgery done outside of canada. if you had to go back to mexico/denver/wherever following surgery due to complications, i doubt you find any insurance to cover you because it is now a pre existing condition. dr. farries in red deer is a good one to look into, i didn't want to wait so i am self-pay. his clinic is new so doesn't have the waitlist there is in edmonton. i went to the edmonton clinic, they would take me on because i am "too healthy" i.e. no co morbidities. hope this helps, good luck

Hi Judy, I also am "too healthy" so I have decided to self pay.....and yes when i called our insurance ,the said no before i even finished the sentence. I would love to hear more on your trip to swlc, how long from your first call till you recieved a surgery date? Who will be your Dr. in alberta when you get back??Thanks

Hi Laura, when i spoke to my doctor at the swlc on the phone, he said he was booking about 4 weeks in advance. i wanted to wait an extra week for scheduling reasons but other than that, it was pretty quick. and it is coming up fast! i started optifast this week-yuck. it is going to be really hard to stick to this optifast, but fortunately i only have to do it for 2 instead of 3 of 4 weeks which some patients have to do. as far as my doctor here in edmonton, i don't know yet. i know they will give me the names of doctors that do fills, i'm not sure if they actually make a referral or how it is done. i have heard that there is a swlc opening in calgary - which would be handy. maybe they will do fills for free, i dunno. a girl i talked to who had her lap-band done in mexico goes to calgary for her fills. i know my own GP will not be doing them. when i asked her if she could do my fills, she said "what's a fill?". lizzie gets her fills for free in GP. but i haven't heard of anyone getting them done for free here. she's lucky i guess. feel free to email me or we can meet in a chat room if you like. i'm not sure if we can private message on this forum or not, but feel free to do that too if you want.

To Judy Davidson, All followup care in alberta is free to anyone with alberta health care coverage. This includes any band or port problems. It is because it is a procedure covered by alberta health that any albertan is covered. I have been told this by alberta health themselves. In fact my fills are free at the Grande Prairie hospital. It makes no difference to them if my surgery was in Ontario or the US. This a scare tactic that Ontario clinics use to get you to use their clinic. We do not have a self pay option in Alberta which is why in part the waits are long. In fact Alberta Health figured that all fills should be covered because it is a procedure done in the province paid for by the province, Makes me wonder if some may be double dipping, Not sure just a thought. I have a fill every week with flouroscopy at the hospital . It is absolutly free. Lizzie ann

Hi Lizzie, follow up care may be free here in alberta but the dr's in edmonton that are doing this (davey and birch) will not touch you if they themselves did not do the band. they expose themselves to liability when they start trying to fix someone else's work. so you are faced with having to use a surgeon who is possibly not entirely familiar with these lap-bands. also in edmonton, they use a different band than what is used in some other hospitals. swlc, where i am going uses lap-band and edmonton uses swedish. i agree, if you show up in emerg with a serious problem, they are not going to turn you away. but for something like a slippage or erosion, which is not an emergency, it's not going to be as easy. you're lucky that you get your fill for free in GP. as far as i know, everyone here in edmonton is paying about 100$ per fill. the wait list in edmonton clinic is soooooo long because it is publicly funded and they are only funded to do 100 bands/year. the program in edmonton is ideal though - very thorough, very educational, etc. You are not getting surgery just because you want it-you have to prove you are going to succeed, etc. but you also have to have comorbidities-something which i am not willing to wait for. when they can only do 100/year - you can pretty much guarantee they're doing the sickest of the sick pt's that literally will not live without it. that's not me, yet. just out of curiosity, why are you getting fills every week? i thought you only needed to get them every month or so? started optifast yesterday, gross!!

Judy, As far as the fills go you never get restriction at the low levels, thats why they call it bandsterhell because you have to wait out the time it takes to get good restriction. I had very good restriction for 3 weeks due to swelling. everyone is different and it can take many fills to get restricted. Read Dr.Currys posts, he says to get resriction as soon as possible. I have a 14cc ap band with 9cc in it. This took 3 fills . My daughter has a 10cc she was filled to 7cc and no fluid went down so he took out 1cc. Dr. Farries in Reddeer said they would be happy to do any followup care with us. My friend from Calgary who also went to Denver is going to get fills and followups with Dr. Mitchell in Calgary and I understand he is a band surgeon. So there is no reason not to deal with our bands just because they were done in the US. I know about the Drs. in Edmonton and there position on it. I asume its because the are not using Inamid lapband. They have all taken an oath, and to refuse care is rediculous. If I had hip replacement in BC you think an orthopedic surgeon from Alberta would refuse you follow up care? 10 years ago my Dad had angioplasty done in Palmsprings California, after he came home it failed and had to be redone. It was done in Calgary. Just some thoughts . Where will you get your fills? I know that there are people in the Us who are ot getting very large fills becauce the fills have become big business for so Dr.s. Ive been very happy with my healthcare providers frome the Dr. in Denver to Dr. Jim in flouroscopy who does it primarily as a favour for those who Need fill. We first went to see a Dr. in Sexsmith who is doind fills for the guy in toronto. He said the reason he did not want to do fills for anyone else was because he thought if he punctured my band he was on the hook for it if he punctured it. What he did not even know was that lapband surgery is covered in Alberta. He thought it was selfpay as in Ontario and any follow up care there you pay. This is why toronto docs will not fill other bands. In Alberta the band is free so if it has a leek lets say ,Alberta heaith will cover all of it. Its been posted on some of the Alberta sites they have had no problems getting aftercare. Hope this clears up some of the confusion. Lizzieann

I waited 1 1/2 years for surgery with Dr.Birch and that is with being re-scheduled 2 times once by my own choice and once because the OR was closed. I have been attending the WW clinic for the whole time. I will have to disagree about the criteria they use for patients being banded. I am considered a light weight ( silly thought)and do not have any issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes etc..I believe they take who has proven that they are in the right mind set and can have success. I have also noticed thru talking to all kinds of people at the clinci that if they are at the top range and surgery could be a life or death opition they seem to be getting the bypass. 50% of Dr. D and Dr. B work is bands I was told from the dietican. I would agree that the pre and post care is comparable to none as the resources are endless. Just my thoughts....

interesting - i would also be considered a "lightweight" but my first visit at the clinic, the nurse told me to go back to weigh****chers and exercise more. she offered meridia, and other options but as far as the program went, i was too healthy. i belive i would have qualified for the weight management program but not the bariatric surgery program. maybe they have cracked down a bit since the program opened - which wasn't that long ago, 3-4 years ago maybe?. a bmi over 40 without comorbids qualifies you but when you're talking about the low end of the high bmi's (which i thought was what you meant by lightweight) you need the co morbids. i know regardless of how many people are getting banded vs. rny vs. bypass, the fact still remains that they have a limited number they can do. when i got in, there were over 1000 people on the waiting list waiting for their first call!! pretty discouraging, plus no guarantee that you will get surgery after waiting the 2+ years, jumping through all the hoops, etc. But the resources are second to none.

I would be happy to pay the $100 fee I was quoted $5,000 for 5 years in Calgary if I go out of country.  I live in Edmonton.  I would even be willing to drive to GP as it isn't that much farther, I'm glad I found this site so I could at least drive there if that is all I can get.