my sclerotherapy experience

Can you post contact information for Dr. Baker?  Meaning his phone number and website.  Also, if you don't mind saying did insurance pay or was it self pay?  Thanks for your help.

Hi Darnell, This was posted in another mesage in regards to Dr. Baker. "If you are interested, do a search on line for Michigan Weight Loss Specialists, or call them at 616-974-4400.  ................ .........The procedure will cost ~$700-800.00 w/o using my insurance (has a weight loss exclusion), so it isn't very pricy, either."

any updates with your revision Darnell.  People during the time of this post in your situation have moved on the the DS.

Dazzling Eyes, Thanks alot for providing contact info.

I keep going back and forth in my head as to wha to do. Should I get the lap band in Mexico or try the sclerotherapy or have the stoma sutured???  Gosh I need to pray for the right decision.  The insurance company does cover the sclerotherapy, but I heard you need 2 or 3 treatments and insurance may cover or not.  Im not sure about the suturing procedure. One good thing is that Columbia Univ (Dr. Bessler) is in my state. So no plane ride to Mexico!  Im just venting for a moment.   I would love to hear about more expereinces with the two procedures. But they are so new, not many people has had them yet. And the Drs. cant give you results because either the patients have not been compliant with follow up or the procedure was done recently.  I was wondering if one can do the treatment and hten decide later to do a Lap Band. Thats a question I am definitely going to ask. I have an appt. with Columbia Univ Med. Dr. Bessler wil not be there. I am going to see the nutritionist, and do the barium swallow test. I will keep everyone posted.

Thank you for posting your experience. I recently read a study completed in 2006 following RNY post-ops for 10 or more years. ALL of the post-ops who had EGD in the first year had stomal enlargement , these were seen as early as 6 months out. The conclusion was that stomas all stretch around 6 months to a year after surgery. Supprising isn't it? For many people it doesn't seem to matter much because they keep off 80% or so of their initial weight loss after 10 years. For some it seems to lead to a weight regain. The study also concluded that those who were obese, or morbidly obese regained the least, and those who were super morbidly obese regained the biggest percentage of their initial loss. ( By the way, the same study looked at DS results over the same 10 years and found the EXACT SAME REGAIN as those who had Distal RNY or Proximal RNY ! ) I have never reached my goal, but I reached my surgeon's goal of 100 pounds lost, as I lost 107 over 16 months time. I have watched this board for the solutions to the stoma stretching for a while now and was grateful to see your postings. We never know if we will need that extra help that sclerotherapy may give us. How much have you regained since your original losses?

I wish you the best of luck and a safe and suscessful loss!

Hi Kahiah I believe that my stoma stretched very early, or was never really small enough to begin with .  I started out as a light weight heavy-weight, with a BMI of ~40-41.  I have gained approximately 5-10 pounds from my lowest maintained weight, but I never achieved "goal".  I did lose around 80 pounds or so, so I was considered successful.  But, I am still overweight, still a size 16-18, and I feared for my future more than anything. It's so reassuring to see that I'm not alone in this whole stoma restretching thing.  For a while, I blamed myself--thought I had screwed it up somehow.  Posts like yours make me feel better, and help me to not be so hard on myself. Thanks! Deeno

Hi Deeno,  Your information has been very helpful.  I was kinda in your same situation, light heavy weight and I'm tall.  I originally lost 40lbs, but never had the feeling of fullness.  I had a EGD a couple of weeks ago to see if I qualify for a research study for sclerotherapy.  They said that my stoma was definatley too large (I already knew this because of a barium swallow I had last year that said I didn't not retain any barium).  Also on the EGD they said that my stomach is too small to qualify for the research study.  Something about the equipment they needed to use would not fit in my pouch.  Do you know anything about what size your pouch was?  It seems like it would be easy to fix, small pouch, stoma too large, but noone here seems to want to help.  My main issue other than my weight is that I get severe pains from dumping no matter what I eat. Thanks again for speaking out.  I now know I'm not the only one.