A Tale Of Two Sleeves.(with pictures)

The bright white part near the top (white due to contrast) is the proximal stomach.  Then it goes down to a narrow area that looks sort of tubular (the stricture) and then it gets bigger again and that's the distal stomach.  It's a pretty focused view and doesn't include the rest of the bowel.

 Thanks Jesse, I was going to ask my sister (the nurse) to explain it to me.  I appreciate the help.  Now I can clearly see that that is not a sleeve.

What a crock!!! That's just plain wrong on that surgeon's part. So sorry you've had to deal with this!!!

It's a good thing your tough! You may not have lost anything at all if you weren't so determined. Way to go! 94lbs!!!

Hope you get some answers!

The Mexican doctors are virtually 100% reliant on foreigners paying cash.  Their biggest fear (and a reasonable one at that) is that some bad story about them gets all over the Internet since they know EVERYONE checks the Internet before going to them. In fact, she advertises on OH so I'm sure Dr. Pompa will not blow you off if you ask for some compensation to cover the costs of repairing this.  One bad story could ruin her whole day...  As my Yiddish grandma used to say, "What could it hurt to ask?"

 Yep... that's exactly what I'm doing!  I'm making sure this is OUT THERE and that people can see what happened.  If she compensates me in some way, or fixes the problem, I'll make sure that is well known, too.

I have to make one observation though:  You said that you have not lost ALL of your EW.  As you probably know, it is very rare for any WLS patient to lose all of their EW.  On average we lose about 60%.  At 94 pounds it looks like you've lost about 60%.  I'm not saying what she did is correct or not because I have no idea.  I'm not a doctor and have never played on TV.  I just wouldn't say that amount of weight you've lost, or haven't lost, is necessarily any indication of malpractice. Good luck.  Hope everything works out!

I don't know where you got that 60% figure from.  It does not seem to be the norm here.  It certainly isn't with me and I'm an OLD loser.  I've already almost 100 pounds gone (24 pre op diet) in just seven months.  The extra 20 is really an ego thing for me.  Five more would be in the norm range and I'm sure I'm going to get there.

Well, it's just an AVERAGE, of course.  Some people, like you (congratulations, btw), lose more than others.  Anyway, it's actually 59% +/- 19% variation after three years.  But 72% in the first year.  Here's the study:

http://www.ssat.com/cgi-bin/abstracts/08ddw/O4.cgi

Of course, with determination and hard work, people can beat statistics. I would also imagine that the people who do well are more likely to post on these boards.  Kind of like showing up at your high school reunion if you're happy and proud, or not if you're not.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the bougies have gotten smaller (mine is a 36F, for example whereas a few years ago some doctors were still using up to 60F) so going forward I would expect the weigh loss average % to increase.

As a Dr. Pompa patient I am officiall y freaked the F... out. I saw my x-ray and it looked like a ink mark. Not sure what the hell I was looking at but now that I see yours and your husband  I undertand what the hell I should have been looking for.

I am so sorry that you are going through this. Another Dr. Pompa patient had mentioned to me what happend to you. I could not find your post though so I did not really know what was going on.  I just emailed them to see if I can get a copy of my x-rays.

Is she willing to even look at you? Is there anything you can do? I am sorry to ask so many questions I know that you ar going thorugh a lot.

Keep up the excellent work you are doing.

 Yes, you definitely should get a copy of your xrays.  Your stomach should look like my husband's, not like mine.  I haven't heard back from her after emailing these pictures of the 2 xrays.  

I can't really do anything, but these doctors survive on word of mouth and what people say about them.  They are dependent on american bucks.  

I work my butt off at the gym almost every day for 1.5 hours.  I turn down sweets, don't eat fast food, and basically am very, very careful.  I am hungry frequently.  I never get full, or feel full.  It really sucks.  Yes, I'm proud of the weight I have lost, but the surgery helped only minimally.