wife had an awful experience with a "well liked" Dr. ....

My wife was unfortunately under the care of the well known lap band surgeon Dr. Trace Curry ... She is now left with a $13000 dollar useless lap band and between Allergan and Dr. Curry she has been shut out and basically left to pick up these emotional pieces.. has anyone had a poor experience with Dr. Curry or another Dr.  For all of you that love him and the band - we are happy for you - wish my wife was inthat boat - she wanted this more than anyhting ..she has been through 2 surgeries and they have not fixed the problem - they don't have a clue what the problem is and want us to pay another $60000 for a surgery to figure it out... we are searching for others that have had issues and others to share our story with .

I'm sorry to hear this.  I have no opinion on Dr. Curry, but I did have a very bad experience with another doctor.

My only advice would be to find a different doctor at this point. When the trust level is broken down between patient and doctor, there's really not much left. And sometimes doctors don't see their own mistakes. Another doctor might.

The lapband doesn't work for a lot of people, so it could be that your wife is having an adverse reaction to it if she's in pain. She might want to consider a different approach.

Please consider joining us over on the failed band groupboard. Link is in my signature line. You might find more information there.

Can you explain to us the problems that she is experiencing with her band ? There are cheaper and safer ways for her to revise to another surgery.

Thanks for the responses !   She is not having any pain..although sometimes food hurts going down..her issue is there is no restriction ..Dr. Curry "thinks" there is a leak in the band and they lost her first port during port revision surgery - which she did under local only to save money . so we don't think a port revision was neccessary. We asked him to run dye through the band to find the leak .. he refuses . He said it would break the warranty??? so he wants to do another surgery to "find the leak" on our dime.   He said he "thinks" the actual band has a small leak that he won't be able to find with the dye.  Now he refuses to talk with us and the Practive Manager that was handling our case is no longer there - thankfully we have his home number and he filled us in on some valuable information.  Bottom line I want her to be happy, I want her to like herself again and not feel so guilty with the money we spent on this , I want to see her lose weight like so many others on here have ..she followed every rule and wanted this so badly !
 

Can you have her tell us her definition of what she feels restriction should feel like ? You can PM me if you want to. I'm just trying to get an accurate feel for what her expectations were for this band prior to being banded.

Restriction is a funny little word that means different things to different people.

She feels nothing!  she can eat what she wants.  It is a leak for sure.  They would take her fluid out and compare it to the records.  It was always over half of the fluid lost.  When she first got the lap band it did work for a few months.  She actually lost a little weight.  She went back in for a final tweak and all was lost.  That was three year and a port revision ago.  No one knows whats wrong with the band!  Would be happy to pm with you just dont know how??

I'm taking a wild guess here that the reason she is leaking is because whom ever was doing her fills accidentally punctured the tubing during one of her fills. That would definitely cause her to fill no restriction and her surgeon should be footing the bill for that repair job.

They lost her first port?!?

To me, that's an unforgiveable screw-up. The only way Allergan can evaluate a claim is to examine the port and/or band in question. So for Dr. Curry and/or his staff and/or the hospital/surgery center to lose the evidence (so to speak) is beyond the pale. If it were me, I'd be talking to an attorney now.

Good luck!

Jean

Her definition of restriction is having the feelingof being full after a cup to cup and a half of food...she does not think the band is the answer to weight, she knows it is a tool to help her consume the calories needed and not excessive calories causing her to gain weight ..she does not have that sensation at all.. and obviously so because her fluid levels were continuously less and less by 3 and 4 cc's..

also ...she has been poked as many as 8 times and I have witnessed 4 times and one NP stuck herself and bled all over then asked my wife if she had any diseases she should be aware of...UNREAL ...this was all just  to find her por & get a fill t .. we asked to have her filled only under fluoro and they only did it when they thought there "may" be a leak.. it is insane ... it is truly criminal what is happening