Mexico Surgery for self pays

I just got on the website for the first time in over a month and found an email from Jan who said someone was looking into the possibility of going to Mexico for surgery and would I answer some questions for her. In case anyone out there is looking into going to Mexico for surgery, I'll make this generic posting about my experience. the reason I went to mexico was strictly financial. being a self pay with limited resources, I would have had to wait two years to save up enough money to have gastric bypass in the US. The cost of gastric bypass surgery with Dr. Joya in Puerto Vallarta was $12,500 US dollars. This included my round trip airfare, four days in the hospital, and my hotel for seven days following my discharge from the hospital. I took two nurse friends with me and had to pay extra for their airfare and their hotel while I was in the hospital. When I had my surgery, Dr. Joya required that you stay seven days after your discharge from the hospital (for a total of 11 days) for after care. However, I have a friend that just went down there about 8 weeks ago and she said that Dr. Joya is now letting his patients leave sooner. He said that he had studied the post op complication rate and no longer felt that clients needed to stay that long. The hospital was nice. The "nurses" were extremely pleasant and kind. some of them don't speak english, but all are used to catering to US and Canadian clients and are very good at guessing guestures and one word requests. I put "nurses" into italics because my impression was that they are very different from nurses in the US. I am a registered nurse and work in ICU. I judged these nurses by american standards and found them to be more like nurse's aides that can pass medicines. No nurse ever listened to my lungs or my heart. I don't think their training is as professional as ours is. That said, I didn't need as much assessing from nurses because the doctors rounded on me at least twice a day! I felt the surgical technique and equipment was at a minimum the same I could have gotten in the US. The OR looked like our OR and most of the equipment was identical to that at our local hospitals. The hospital was very clean. The service was much better than in the US. My call light never went off for more than 60 seconds. I received pain medication and sleeping medication each time I asked for it. One of my doctors took me to my hotel(in his private vehicle) and CARRIED MY FREAKING LUGGAGE when I was discharged from the hospital......run that one up the flag pole next time you are hospitalized in the US! My results have been awesome! I am 11 months out and down 96 pounds. My BMI has gone from 43 to 26. I was wearing a size 22 and now I am a size 10. The only "side effect" of my surgery is that I had to have my gallbladder taken out a couple of months ago. When you have rapid weight loss, the body forms more gallstones. Gallbladder problems are a common side effect of rapid weight loss. I should add that I asked my US surgeon who did my gallbladder to take a peek around while he was inside and see if he saw any problems. He did look around and said everything looked great. He even documented in his notes that I had surgery in Mexico and asked him to check things out while he was in there and that everything was fine. Another great thing about my experience was recovering on the beach. Wow! That was awesome. It was 25 degrees the morning that I flew out of KC and it was in the mid 80's to low 90s every day in Puerto Vallarta. After getting out of the hospital, I went downtown shopping for 4 hours! Every day after my discharge from the hospital, I started by lying on the beach and tanning for several hours. I shopped every afternoon and went to some awesome shows in the evenings. I felt great! I was a little sore, but found that I felt better if I kept moving. Another bonus is none of that presurgery bull of seeing a nutritionist, going to a psychiatrist, etc. If you want the surgery, You pay your money and you have it.....none of the BS! Now, if that offends anyone let me say that surgery should not be taken lightly and some people really need those ancillary service preoperatively. However, I am a medical professional and had spent two years educating myself on the pros and cons of surgery and was a little irritated with some of the hoops that some surgeons make you go through. I think that part of it is to satisfy third party payers (insurance companies etc.). Anyway, none of that if you go to Mexico. After care could be a problem for some people but I found that my PCP doctor was more than happy to follow me post operatively. When I discussed the surgery with him, I found out that he has 5 other patients that have had WLS. He draws my labs routinely to monitor for nutritional defecits and put me on B12 injections when my B12 levels got low. My protein, iron, calcium and hemoglobin levels have remained at text book levels. Dr. Joya has done THOUSANDS of WLS's including gastric bypass and lap banding. He doesn't make the lap banders stay in the hospital or in Mexico as long. While I was there, I met a lot of his other patients. A girl from Syracuse New York had surgery the same day as I did and a woman from Phoenix had surgery the day before me. We all recovered together and got to be good friends. There were at least 5 people that came in and out for lap banding during the four days I was in the hospital. As I mentioned before, one of the girls I work with (she's a respiratory therapist) went down a couple of months ago and also had gastric bypass. I think she had a good experience as well and she's dropping weight at an astonishing rate also. I'm not sure what else to say. I'd recommend Dr. Joya to anyone who can't afford the procedure here. I found his technique and ability to be as good or better as in the US. The service was far better than in the US and Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful beach town that looks much like old Mexico. I would highly recommend taking someone with you and if that person had some medical background, that would be even better. Feel free to email me if there's anything further I can do for you. Good Luck! Victoria

Thanks Victoria for answering most any question that anyone could possible have about the surgery in Mexico. Glad you are doing so well. You should come on and post some once in awhile. Jan