Hi,

Everyone's situation is different so you will have to find out what works for you.

I would start with your insurance first.  Check with medicare to see if bariatric surgery is  covered and what their guidelines are.  You may need to have six month of recorded dieting with your PCP.  If that's the case you will need to make an appt. with your PCP to get the ball rolling.  Medicare may also require a letter from your PCP showing that the surgery is medically necessary.

Next I would find a qualified surgeon, talk to freinds and family for a recommendation or check with your PCP for a referral.  When you locate a surgeon see if their office offers a free seminar.  If so go and listen to the surgeon, they will explain all the different surgeries that they perform(also ask if they take medicare).  This way you can make an informative decision as to which surgery you will want to have done.  Once you have gotten to this point the surgeons office will tell you what the next steps are.

I hope that this may have helped you.  Good Luck on the begining of your journey.  I can honestly say that this is one of the best decision that I have ever made.

Keep me posted.

Donna

hi there Karen you are a hop and a skip as well :)

 I am in Englewood.
Karen

Hey I know where that is :) I'd have known if you just said 'Gorda' lol. I'm actually in NFM. :)

Hello,

I had surgery mid august and got a bad infection and now have two open wounds and a wound vac still to this date. I had called for a refill on pain medication (since im still in a good amount of pain. The wound keeps getting infected causing swelling and pain. Even though my doctor knows i have 2 open wounds they "have a hard time believing i'm in enough pain to need anything stronger than Motrin" and was told to take that.

I am very upset at this doctors office for even telling me to take an NSAID since im barely 3 months out of RNY surgery. Tylenol does nothing i take 4,000mg of that a day and 2,000mg of Motrin (neither help a lot but its worse with out it) a day and im still in pain. If i go to the er they just tell the er people to give me Tylenol. I don't want drugs (not that they will even give me any) but i can't sleep at night and im very worried about ulcers. I would rate the pain around a 5 constantly and up to an 8 if i do simple things like take a shower.

I put ice on it and walk around as much as i can and wound care cleans out the wounds 3x a week. I have gone to the primary dr but they just tell me to follow up with my surgeon and that if i wasn't supposed to take Motrin he wouldn't have told me too. Im sick and tired of getting the run around to go to a dr that wont listen to me.

This has been going on for the past 3 weeks.