Confused on Doctors....

I have been reading,watching, trying to study everything that I get, and all I do is get more confused. How do you pick your doctor? I had asked for pictures, the pictures I had seen were all very nice, the people looked very friendly, so thank you all for your help on that. Now I just need to figure out what doctor I am going to use. Location is important seeing I am in Nebraska and Cost, seeing this will be self pay from my 401 K I guess any advice I can get is still what I am looking for. I am so confused. Take care. LaDonna [email protected]

HI LADONNA I DONT REALLY HAVE ADVICE ON WHO YOU SHOULD CHOSE BECAUSE I DONT KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT. SUCH AS RNY, LAPBAND, OPEN OR LAPROSCOPIC, ECT. BUT I WILL LET YOU KNOW WHAT I CHOSE AND WHY. I HAD OPEN RNY WITH DR. AGUIRRE IN ENSENADA MEXICO. THE COST WAS AFFORDABLE FOR ME. HE ONLY DOES OPEN RNY. TO SOME THIS MAYBE A TURN OFF DUE TO THE SCAR THAT IS LEFT BEHIND FROM IT. BUT THAT DIDNT BOTHER ME. I DONT PLAN ON WEARING ANY 2 PEICE SWIMSUITS. MT SCAR IS HEALING UP PRETTY GOOD ANYWAY. I LIKED THE FACT THAT WITH OPEN RNY DR AGUIRRE WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE EVERTHING AND DO A GOOD JOB. I CHOSE RNY OVER LAPBAND BECAUSE I HAVE A STRONG SWEET TOOTH. AND WITH THE LAPBAND I COULD STILL EAT SWEETS. I WAS AFRAID THAT I WOULD SABOTAGE MYSELF BY GIVING INTO TEMPTATION. AT LEAST WITH RNY I WOULD EXPERIENCE DUMPING SYNDROME IF I EAT TO MUCH SUGAR AND FATTY FOODS. THIS APPEALED TO ME SINCE I WOULD BE "PUNISHED" IF I CHEAT. I ALSO READ MANY OF HIS PATIENTS PROFILES. AND MANY OF THEM WERE VERY POSITIVE. THIS HELPED BOOST MY CONFIDENCE IN HIM. LOCATION WAS GOOD FOR ME SINCE I LIVE IN ALASKA. I WAS ABLE TO FLY TO SAN DIEGO AND DR AGUIRRE HAD HIS FRIEND BAMBI PICK ME UP AT THE AIRPORT. FOR ME, DR AGUIRRE WAS THE RIGHT CHOSE. I WISH YOU THE BEST IN WHAT EVER YOU DECIDE. CINDY

It is confusing! I think the first thing to do is decide what operation you want - Lap Band, RNY laproscopic, or RNY open. Then there are certain doctors who seem to have more experience at certain things than others. I knew I wanted to have RNY since I'm a sweet eater and would have eaten through the Lap Band. I know several people who picked Lap Band since they were more bread eaters and the Lap prevents that. I knew I wanted to try laproscopic because I personally felt more comfortable with that (some feel more comfortable with open, it's personal). Then look for someone who has had your surgery and ask questions. There are several doctors who appear repeatedly on here who people have had good experiences with. Dr. Joya was my surgeon - I had my flight down, four days in the hospital, and several days at a resort (where the doctors checked on me daily) for $12,000. I'm not sure if the package changed or not, but I'm sure there is something similar. A girl I was down there with said it was $8000 for full package lap band. I picked him slightly because of the package - they take care of EVERYTHING, but mostly he had done lots of laproscopic RNYs and Lap Bands and everyone loved him. Myself included! Very competent, very well-trained, good beside manner, and excellent after care. Good luck and keep asking. It's a real process!

Hi LaDonna: I had the same problem. Which one? But you just have to talk to the people at the docs offices and get the feel for each doc and staff. That is what helped me. I asked every questions, good and bad, and found that I felt more confortable with one over the other. You just have to ask questions. Then you will get the feel for one over the other. You have to be comfortable with this decision and go with it!!! It is a big choice!!! If you would like to talk, just email me and we can talk. Good luck on your decision!! Jen

LaDonna - Very hard decision indeed! When I was checking into docs, Dr. Aguirre was pretty much *the* doc to go to in Mexico. Now there are many many who are becoming better known and just as well loved, so it would be a hard choice. I will say that I am very happy I had Dr. Aguirre as my surgeon. I do feel like the man has a vast amount of experience that I do believe supercedes the other surgeons. If I recall correctly, he has been doing this since 1988 and has essentially perfected his procedure. The thing is, Dr. Aguirre does only ONE procedure. If the one procedure is what you want, I would say that from my perspective there is a measure of comfort I take in that he knows this procedure backwards and forwards and has a very low complication rate. I have not asked lately, but I do believe he had 1 death about 10-11 years ago which caused him to change his method to ensure it didn't happen again. Again, going on memory here so I may not be 100% accurate, but I think what he changed was that he stitches over the staples rather than just relying on the staples to do all the work. That's something I've not heard anyone else does. Anyway, he does have the long term experience and a large patient base on this site. Having seen so many people in my own support group who have been to local "expert" surgeons who almost died, I have come to appreciate Dr. Aguirre's expertisse more and more each day. I never hear of anyone having the complications with Dr. Aguirre that they do here locally in the US. This is not to discount the other Mexico surgeons who I'm sure do a fine job....just that this is who I went with and who I have a strong devotion to because of my experiences. Dina

Read some profiles. I, and many others, put a lot of information about our experiences having surgery in Mexico in our profiles. I talk about the surgeon, the hospital, the procedure and the cost. A number of other folks did the same. It helped me decide who was the right doctor for me. Also helpful are the testimonials. Here is the link at the OH website: http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/show_nonus_docs.phtml?Country=Mexico If you click the name of the person who wrote the testimonial, you can view their profile (if they submitted one). By the way, Dr. Rumbaut was absolutely wonderful. Had a lap RNY in July. -Pam

Thank you all for responding to my questions... I do not know if this is true or not but when I asked the Doctor here in Lincoln as to why he was not a member of this web site, he said that if you pay the premium to be a member that they will remove any bad reports for you So for every 10 good reports you get from patents you may get one bad one but that one bad one never posts So if this is true, I feel it is better to talk to the people themselves... So again Thank you all Take care. LaDonna

Well, I think that is not true or misconstrued. I think there would be some major issues if someone had a negative opinion and it was deleted just because the doctor paid to belong to the site. Not all the surgeons pay to belong either. You will note that some docs are listed in the directory while others are not, but they have a patient page either because it was before they started hitting them up for money or because they still allow it but just don't advertise it. Either way, I can assure you that if I had a beef that I made known and had it deleted, I would be pitching quite the fit. That would also bring liability upon the owners of the website because if they were deleting out negative responses and the surgeon was a quack, it was essentially be endorsing someone who is guilty of malpractice and it could ruin the owners of this site. So while I think it may be a good sound-bite, I don't think it's true. Many surgeons just don't want to pay the $400 or whatever it is to belong to the site and be searchable per year. Dina