Lap Gastric Bypass in mexico or India, Dr Velencia, Dr Joya maybe??? Help I am a newbie.
Ok here goes. I am officially reaching out for guidance. Here is my story. My name is Stormy (no, really it is), mom and dad were late blooming hippies and wanted to leave some kind of legacy I guess. Anyway I am 31 y/o happily married to my middle school sweet heart (AWWWWW) and I have 2 beautiful children. I have been heavy all of my adult life. I always lingered at about 250. That is, until recently. I had my littlest girl in Oct. 06 and related to my diabetes I was on insulin throughout the pregnancy. After I had her I figured I wouldn't need the insulin anymore so I went off and didn’t think much about it. I was down to my pre-pregnancy weight (250 LBS, YIKES) with in a month. I was feeling pretty good. That is until I started having an unquenchable thirst and having to go pee every hr. Now I, being a registered nurse, knew these were the signs of high blood sugars. Well sure enough I checked my blood sugars and 360 NOOOOOOOOO! At this point I have no insurance (that is another story altogether) so I decided to manage my diabetes myself. By the way this is something I do not only at work but also when I was originally diagnosed w/ diabetes at age 18. So anyway, giving myself shots is no new thing. But in case you weren’t aware insulin does a great job of lowering your blood sugar by storing it as fat. So now I have ballooned to the heaviest have ever seen me, weighing in at a whopping 280# with a bmi of 42.6 give or take. WLS is no new concept to me. I remember when Rosanne had Dr. Mal Fobi on her show, which was the first I had ever heard of it. I immediately thought "this is for me". But I was young and uninsured and truly didn't know where to start. So I never pursued it. Then the Carnie Wilson thing happened and I thought "OMG I can get this laparoscopically, where do I sign up?" Again though, no insurance and no starting point my excitement soon waned. This type of scenario happened multiple times. I would talk to someone who had WLS or learn something new about it and I would become excited and then not know where to turn or what to do. The turning point in my life was when I was at work. I work as an ICU RN. I was caring for a 40 something year old patient. She had young kids and a loyal husband who sat by her bedside endlessly. She also had diabetes. Related to the disease she had had a kidney and pancreatic transplant. She didn't fare well. She lay in the bed barely able to speak much less move. She had bed sores and was in horrible pain. All because diabetes killed her kidneys. It was an awful, albeit, eye opening, experience. That was the night I said, “this could be me in 10 yrs, this could be my family suffering as I die a slow and cruel death." “I will not let this happen to me or my family." I have learned through my years of interest and researching that WLS and particularly RNY will cure type II diabetes. The only known cure. That is freaking amazing. So I began my WLS journey, or continued it. I was fortunate to finally have insurance through my husband that covered the surgery. All I had to do was prove that I qualify and jump through to six months worth of hurdles they have set up to make it is difficult as possible to qualify. So I researched and found the surgeon I was comfortable with. I attended a new patient orientation meeting as well as a support group. I learned more and more and it all just solidified that this is what I have to do to save my life. Most insurance requires six months of medically managed dieting, and mine was no exception. That really means that you have to wait six months before you can have surgery. During those six months you have to see a Dr who has to be very particular about what he writes in the chart about your medically managed diet. If after six months you have instructed your Dr correctly and he/she has written precisely the info that the insurance company wants to see then you can have your surgery. Well I was about 3 months into my 6 month process when I received notice that my husbands company was going to change insurance companies. So they did and when I called to verify my surgery would be covered by the new insurance company, I found to my disgust that all bariatric surgeries were excluded from the new plan. Medically necessary or not. I can remember that day. I cried. No, I sobbed. I had already invested quite a bit of $ and lots and lots of time to this process. I was devastated. Back at square one. One day I was a work and another nurse mentioned getting surgery outside the US. I was appalled initially and scoffed at the idea. “You are not going to send me so some dirt floored dingy hospital to get surgery done. No way!!!" I had never heard of such a thing. Considering though that my options were running rather slim I started to research WLS in India. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a whole industry that caters to medical tourism as it is called. In researching India, it was a natural progression to research Mexico as well. So here I am, living, breathing, eating, sleeping, dreaming, WLS. My whole life it seems, over the last couple of months has revolved around the surgery. Here is where I stand now. I have yet to choose a Dr. or a country for that matter. What I do know is this. I want to have a RNY gastric bypass done laparoscopicaly. I have to have the surgery outside the US because I can’t afford the $30,000 they have quoted me. I will have the surgery done sometime in June 08. The reason I will have the surgery done in June is because that is when my husband comes home on leave from Iraq. He will be meeting me where ever it is I am having the surgery. I also have to bring my two children with me they are 9 and 1 1/2. If they didn't come it would be many more months before they would have a chance to see their daddy. And to be honest it has been far too long already. These are the few things I know for sure. Here is what I am undecided on. I think India would be a wonderful place to have the surgery done. I feel like the care there far exceeds that of the US or Mexico. I would be having my surgery at a JCI accredited hospital. That is the same agency that accredits all the hospitals here in the US. I would have wonderful aftercare at a family owned bed and breakfast of sorts that is beautiful and who cater to bariatric patients. I would be provided a large room that would easily accommodate my family and three meals a day for me and my whole family. There are 2 cars with drivers available to me and my family at all times. And I would be visiting India. How cool would that be? They even include a tour of the Taj Mahal. But, (yup there is always a but.) I feel like my number one priority should be my surgeon. I want a very experienced Dr who has vast experience in laparoscopic bariatric, RNY surgery, what I have discovered is that WLS is rather new to Asia/India. As a matter of fact I read somewhere that there are only about 24 bariatric surgeons in all of Asia. So there are Dr's with experience in India but no one with vast amounts of it. Also I have watched gastric bypass surgery on youtube.com. They have a technique that is used here in the states where a circular stapler with tiny titanium staples is used to create to anastamosis (union) between the small bowel and the new small stomach pouch. This method as opposed to hand sewing the anastamosis has a very low risk of leaks, and a higher price tag (equipment, staples etc.). And leaks are BAD BAD BAD. A leak sounds so innocent. You know, like no big deal, just a little leak. Well it is the leaks that kill people. That is how you get a massive peritonitis (infection in the abdomen). Then your gut shuts down and you die. So I want a Dr who uses the circular stapler. I watched another surgery on YouTube that was filmed in India and the anastamosis was hand sewn. It can and usually does work. But obviously a hand sewn stitch done laparoscopicaly is more likely to leak than the staple method, ya know human error and all, and research has shown this. But again the stapler and staples are expensive and there isn't a booming bariatric business, as of yet, in India. And all of it is basically self pay so it just makes $en$E that the junction be hand sewn. So that is India, but wait, I have another option. Mexico. Here is what I have found so far about Mexico. There are a lot of Dr's doing Bariatric surgery in Mexico. Much more than in India. Also there are quite a few Dr's that have a lot of Experience. I even found one so far that I think uses the circular stapling method (Dr Martin Valencia) although I have not verified this with him personally, just with his coordinator and she may not know what I am even talking about. The cost is about the same either way. But the hospitals are, from what I can tell, much nicer in India. Care is much more thorough. Hospital stay in India is 7 days contrasting w/ Mexico’s 2-3 days. Also immediate post op follow up in India you are required to stay 10 days after surgery, with the dr's checking on you at least daily. (By the way this is all included in the price) In Mexico you only are required to stay 2-4 day after discharge from the hospital. There is my India/Mexico compare and contrast, at least so far. My information grows daily, constant emails from patient coordinators and medical tourism case managers. So far in Mexico I have been considering 2 surgeons, Dr Martin Valencia and Dr Joya. I would love to have any comments, suggestions, or guidance from anyone who has any. And I would be happy to share with anyone who could benefit from it the info I have gathered. Thanks for letting me ... well you know.
on 2/25/08 4:44 am - Ohio, OH
Just read your post. I am having RNY surgery with Dr. Joya on March 5th. Go to his websit and check him out. Everything that I have heard about it great.
