New to the Forums

Hello all,

I have been lurking for a while now, and I decided it was time to post.  These boards have been very helpful for me in making decisions about WLS. You all seem like such a wonderful community!

I am 32 years old, and am over 500 lbs.  After a lot of research, I have decided to get the DS procedure.  I am waiting for my first appointment at Cleveland Clinic.  I am hoping to get my surgery in the next few months.  I have been overweight pretty much my entire life, and my mobility is awful now.  I finally feel like there is some hope that I can be healthy and active again, and that is a wonderful feeling. 

I have lymphedema in my legs and feet, and I was wondering if others have found relief from this after losing weight. 

p.s. That's my kitty Moses in my avatar.  Isn't he the cutest?

Welcome and congrats on the beginning of your journey.  You will find lots of support here and many people who have the same experiences.  I don't have lymphedema so I can't comment on the results after surgery.  However I'm sure once you lose a significant amount of weight it will relieve a lot of your lymphatic issues, there won't be as much stress on your body.  Good luck getting all of your pre-op testing done and before you know it your surgery date will be here!  And yes Moses is very cute!

Thank you for the reply! :)  Yes, I agree that my lymphatic channels should have considerably less pressure so they should circulate better.

Welcome...be aware that unless something has changed, the Cleveland Clinic does NOT do the DS. There is a DS surgeon in Ohio, however, or you could go up to MI...make sure you check with DSFacts for the list of vetted surgeons. Unless a surgeon is a DS surgeon, he will try his best to steer you away from the DS.

Thank you for the notice on this!  I am not sure that this is true because I've seen two people on here who have had DS with Dr. Schauer at the Cleveland Clinic in the past few months.  Perhaps it's a recent change.

Welcome!

It is possible that Dr. Schauer at the Cleveland Clinic MIGHT be doing the DS...there is one patient who posts here who I think had the DS with him. However, I have no idea what criteria he might use, how many he has done, etc etc.  So have a Plan B in your back pocket. You can find a list of experienced DS surgeons at dsfacts.com, and at your weight, an experienced Ds surgeon is a must.

    I think you've made a great decision, and while no one can give you any guarantees, I would hope that a massive weight loss would improve your legs.

Larra

Hi Larra,

Thanks for the reply! I hope that he's doing it, but you make a great point about having a Plan B!  I should start doing some research to see about other surgeons.  I agree that at my weight I need someone who is very experienced in high risk patients.  That's why I wanted to go to the Cleveland Clinic.  My understanding is that they are the best of the best.  I don't want to play around with such a life changing procedure.  I will look at my insurer's website to see who else they approve.  I know I have to go to a Center of Excellence.

The Clinic does do the DS. However, the only Doctor I know that does it is Dr. Phillip Schauer. I had mine done on 4/15/13. I haven't had any problems. He seems to have done a great job.  I'm told he doesn't do many in a year. Per our pre-op conversations he recommended the DS based on my then weight and how much I had to lose. He talked a little about doing it in two stages - first the sleeve then later the bypass but I rocked the pre-op diet (hi-protein - Modified Sparing Fast it was called) I lost about 90 pounds from 550 to 460. That convinced him he could do everything at once. They mostly worry about fat around the belly messing around with doing the surgery laporscopically.

I'm less impressed with the follow up. Since they don't do many DS, they are mostly a sleeve and gastric bypass shop,  that is how the follow up is oriented. I have my three month follow ups next week so I'll know more by then.

Keep after it. This was the best decision I ever made. Go wherever your comfortable for the procedure.

PS - The forums are the best places to help make informed decisions. Get all the information you can. 

Hi PeteA,

I am glad you responded! I was going to reach out to you because you had the surgery in a very similar situation to my own.  How much time passed between your first appointment and your surgery?  I have met all the insurance requirements like 6-months supervised diet.  I hope I can get it all done at once because who wants to go through surgery again?

Hi, I'm glad to help all I can. I'm with you on not wanting to go through the surgery twice.

The process took me almost 4 months. I started just before Christmas 2012 and got to the surgery 4/15/13. Most of that was that Dr. Schauer gave me a weight to hit on the pre-op diet.

If I hadn't had to do that I would think one to two months should take you through all the hoops. A lot of it is dependent on scheduling. You do a psych eval, nutrition eval,  Doctor work up. If they think you may have sleep apnea you will end up getting tested, and if positive, they want you on the cpap for a couple of weeks before surgery. It is all about shaving some percentage points off surgery complications.

Then there is a second round of pre-op visits with Schauer,  the work up doctor, and the nutritionist. Once everyone signs off you get scheduled and do pre-op blood work

I agree with the plan B model already discussed but don't give up too quickly on the Clinic. I wasn't ready with a plan B so I was going to do what ever they came up with. You should also check if your insurance will cover two surgeries. That may have some influence on Schauers decision. Not medically, if he thinks it is unsound he won't do it but if it is a tossup always good to throw it into the mix. A lot of insurance companies seem to do one WLS per lifetime.

Having said that I have seen people on the board successful with a stage 1 sleeve and a stage 2 bypass. Not the optimum solution but whatever works.

I'm glad your here. If you have any other questions let me know on the board or private message.

Pete