One month from surgery - couple questions

Hi All-

Only a month to go and wi**** was over already!  I am working with a medical tourism company

(Ready4aChange) and have so far been very happy but my original coordinator has gone on a 

medical leave.  The gal she turned me over to is extremely busy and hasn't replied to multiple 

emails.  Now I see on the boards that I should have just arranged with the Dr. himself.  Is it

frowned upon to just call the VIDA hospital and take over for myself??  

Second, I have some problems with my feet swelling from lack of activity probably because

my stupid knees hurt from arthritis.  How can bacon (with all the salt!) still be the battle cry??!!

I love bacon.....

Thanks for any info!

I hope you haven't sent the medical tourism company any money yet.  By all means, call the surgeon's staff yourself, and I'll bet you a dollar that they have someone who can piece everything together for you for free.  I'm not sure which surgeon works at VIDA, but I know that Dr. Unsgon and Marchanesi both had wonderful staff to help coordinate everything for their patients.

It isn't a question of whether or not someone "frowns upon" you working wiht a medical tourism company, it's just that it's

1) a complete waste of your money when you can easily arrange everything yourself with the help of the surgeon's staff (they do this all the time) and

2) assuming you have chosen the DS because you are on this forum, these companies don't send you to the best DS surgeon, they send you to whoever they contract with. I looked up VIDA hospital. The one I found is in Tijuana. This is NOT somewhere known for DS surgeons!! the surgeons they have listed on their website are surgeons I have never heard of after 10 years on this forum and time on other forums devoted to the DS as well. This is not a good sign. they may be fine surgeons, but that doesn't mean they are DS surgeons. This is simply a hospital or surgeon group that your medical tourism company works with and so that's where they are going to send you. The fact that this isn't in your best interest is irrelevant; it's a for profit business.

For years we have recommended Dr. Ungson. However, he recently accepted a job with the Mexican government, and now the DS practice has been taken over by Dr. Esquerra, who (according to the staff that works with him) has been working with Dr. Ungson for a few years and has a lot of DS experience. This is the person in Mexico you should be working with and again, the staff there has lots of experience working with people from the USA and will gladly help you with arrangements.

Please don't go to a surgeon who is not experienced with the DS. It's a complex operation. Not all bariatric operations are the same, and most bariatric surgeons are NOT experienced with this operation. It's not too late to change your plans.

Larra

Thanks for the info Larra.  I had talked to Dr. Ungson's clinic several months ago.  They were absolutely terrible to try to get information out of.  I don't know if he was already transitioning out of the practice or what, but they didn't care whether I came there whatsoever.  The reviews I've found for Dr. Lopez have been very good at VIDA for DS surgery.  

My first coordinator was super and recommended Dr. Lopez over the first surgeon she originally had as he had much more DS experience.  I'll chat with VIDA and see what info I can get out of them directly.

I'm sorry - and surprised - that you had such a bad experience with Dr. Ungson's office. I'm surprised because so many other people have reported excellent experience with them. I have no personal axe to grind here, I'm not associated with any of the Mexican surgeons, and can only suggest that you try again.

If/when you get more info about the surgeon in TJ, be sure to ask not just about his bariatric surgery experience, but specifically about experience with the DS. I would also recommend that you start a thread asking people here for any personal experience with him for the DS. And make very sure he's doing the real DS and not the SADI/aka SIPS/ aka loop DS unless that's what you want. And if you don't know the difference, keep on doing your research, because they are not the same and you need to know what you want and what you are going to get. And get specifics - something like "oh he's a great surgeon!" or "oh yes he does the DS all the time" is not specific. Get numbers. The more vague the answers, the more worried I would be.

Larra

I was able to speak to the nutritionist at Vida today.  She was very nice.  Confirmed that I am scheduled with Dr. Lopez for an actual DS revision from a lap band.  She said that he has done over 500 of the DS surgeries and is very skilled.  I will be sure to chat with him specifically when I see him about a real DS as well.  He had already responded, through my coordinator, that he will have to see what's what when I get down there.  I have a very large abdominal hernia and my surgeon up here doesn't want to repair until I lose weight.  He said the likelihood of recurrence would be 95% if I don't get my weight down.  He also said it is so large he'll have to do an open procedure so even more incentive to get rid of the weight.  Dr. Lopez thinks he can do the DS laproscopically around the hernia but if he has to do it open (very rare), he said he will fix the hernia at the same time with the same method they would do up here.

odd that you had a bad experience. I used dr unison 6 months ago and my experience was great. I had no trouble getting info whatsoever.