Dr. Sudan at Duke
Hi all, I have my first appointment with Dr. Sudan on Monday 6/28 and would love to hear anyone's experiences with him, especially with D/S surgery. How long was it from your first appt until your surgery date? What did you most like/dislike about him and/or the Duke Center? Any other info you would like to share would be most appreciated.
P
P
Hi!! My first appointment was sometime in the beginning of April and my surgery was June 10. I have been so impressed with my recovery. He used the robot to do my surgery and it went off really, really well.. I have 5 small incisions that are dermabonded (glued)-no stitches! and they have barely bruised. After surgery, I had a drain in place and they took that out right before I was discharged. It drained for a couple days afterwards (I just changed the dressing whenever it needed it) and now (12 days postop) it's all closed up. That's really the only area I have a bruise in. Dr Sudan is really nice, a little shy or not real talkative but he will answer any question you have and make sure you understand. My gut didn't wake up right away and he was fine with me staying an extra day just to make sure I was tolerating everything well. I never had any nausea or vomiting; I did have terrible reflux the night of the surgery and that was fixed right up with Protonix. The only other thing that was not great was the night after I started eating I had terrible, terrible gas pains. It's never been that bad since, just that first night.
My pain has been really good-I never even filled the prescription for pain medicine I got when I was discharged. The worst things are going from sitting-lying and stuff like that. And now it's really just a little sore where the drain was.
I felt like everyone at Duke WLS was really helpful and great, and very understanding. Cathy, his assistant (though it might be Megan now, I'm not sure) was totally great and was even calling me on Sundays to make sure I had all my appointments in place and questions answered. She was really patient with me, and really went out of her way to make sure I got my surgery done before my insurance rolled over (so I didn't have to start again with deductibles etc). Even the front desk staff have been great, really nice.
Everyone at Durham Regional was nice too, all the preop people I dealt with and everyone right up through the OR holding area were all great. I had some really excellent nurses and good aides and I felt like anything I needed or any question I had was taken care of right away. The only thing I can say even remotely negative was that my room was tiny. I did get to see the new bariatric rooms and they are GORGEOUS. But they fill their rooms using whatever system they do, there's no guarantee you'll get one.
Patrick and Lisa (the nurse educator) were also really thorough with all the preop classes; any question you have will be answered. Honestly everyone was great.
One thing I thought was funny: everyone seemed to be asking me why I chose a DS over a RNY. So you might get that question too.
Anyway, my whole experience with them has been great. I'll be so glad when I get off liquids though!!
Congrats on getting started!
Satyavati
My pain has been really good-I never even filled the prescription for pain medicine I got when I was discharged. The worst things are going from sitting-lying and stuff like that. And now it's really just a little sore where the drain was.
I felt like everyone at Duke WLS was really helpful and great, and very understanding. Cathy, his assistant (though it might be Megan now, I'm not sure) was totally great and was even calling me on Sundays to make sure I had all my appointments in place and questions answered. She was really patient with me, and really went out of her way to make sure I got my surgery done before my insurance rolled over (so I didn't have to start again with deductibles etc). Even the front desk staff have been great, really nice.
Everyone at Durham Regional was nice too, all the preop people I dealt with and everyone right up through the OR holding area were all great. I had some really excellent nurses and good aides and I felt like anything I needed or any question I had was taken care of right away. The only thing I can say even remotely negative was that my room was tiny. I did get to see the new bariatric rooms and they are GORGEOUS. But they fill their rooms using whatever system they do, there's no guarantee you'll get one.
Patrick and Lisa (the nurse educator) were also really thorough with all the preop classes; any question you have will be answered. Honestly everyone was great.
One thing I thought was funny: everyone seemed to be asking me why I chose a DS over a RNY. So you might get that question too.
Anyway, my whole experience with them has been great. I'll be so glad when I get off liquids though!!
Congrats on getting started!
Satyavati
I, too am having my first appointment with Dr. Sudan on Monday to discuss the DS. I had the Lapband for almost 6 years, but had it removed last October because I was having trouble eating anything. I will be interested in what others who have had Dr. Sudan also say. I have so far only heard good things.
Wow, you are the second person who has contacted me who has their appt. with Dr.Sudan on Monday to talk about D/S. The other person starts her appt at 11 and I start mine at 12. What time does yours start? I wonder if we should try to get together either before or after our appointments?
OH will definitely be representing on Monday at Duke!
Pamela
OH will definitely be representing on Monday at Duke!
Pamela
Well, I just double checked my email from Duke and my appt. is at 11:00 on Monday with Dr. Sudan. So, either they double book him by accident or intentionally! I don't know how long the appt. will be, but I will come back out to the waiting room and see if you are there yet, and we can chat. Good luck to us both or all 3 of us!!
Glory
Glory
It seems like when they called to schedule my appt, they said there would be two separate appts - one with Dr. Sudan and the nutritionist, and one with the psych. So maybe they schedule two appts at the same time, and one of you will meet tiwh Sudan while the other meets with the nutritionist and then vice versa?
In any case, I'll be the one in the waiting room with bright red hair! Can't wait to meet you both.
Pamela
P.S. Only two more days until the appt.!
In any case, I'll be the one in the waiting room with bright red hair! Can't wait to meet you both.
Pamela
P.S. Only two more days until the appt.!
Well, I had my band done there so mine will be a revision, although at this point I don't know if I will have to go through the entire evaluation process again or not. I will find out soon. I want this surgery, yesterday!!! See you on Monday. I will look for you with the bright red hair.
Thanks,
Glory
Thanks,
Glory
I am over 3 months into my 6 months of Dr visits for diet/exercise etc. I plan to make my appt with Dr Sudan and talk to him about the D/S. I have been so impressed with them so far. Barbara Parker is the nurse handling my file and she has been fantastic!
Satyavati, thanks so much for sharing your story so far! I'm glad you're having a great recovery!
I'm very, very nervous about regaining the weight so that will be something that I talk to Dr Sudan about. Is this why most of you are wanting the D/S?
Satyavati, thanks so much for sharing your story so far! I'm glad you're having a great recovery!
I'm very, very nervous about regaining the weight so that will be something that I talk to Dr Sudan about. Is this why most of you are wanting the D/S?
Hi Sabrina,
There were lots of reasons I wanted a DS over a RNY. I researched this as thoroughly as I possibly could. As a nurse I looked at all kinds of statistics and every other thing I could think of and in the end it boiled down to that I felt like this was the best surgery for me both in the short term for weight loss and in the long term for quality of life.
A few things I considered:
No dumping syndrome
The pylorus remains intact
The malabsorptive portion of the surgery is reversible
The remaining stomach is larger than a RNY pouch (I hate that term, ew) and basically it will mean I'll be able to have a better quality of life and eat more normally in time
Better tolerance of a wider variety of foods
Weight regain, actually, never came on the list. I was basically looking at WLS being huge, really serious surgery with a lot of risks (in general) and wanting to get the absolute best, and safest, bang for my buck.
I also researched Dr. Sudan, saw where he's done surgeries all over the country, looked at articles he's written for clinical journals about bariatric surgery. And in the end, I just had a really strong gut feeling (ha, is that a pun??) that this was the right way for me to go.
Today's 23 days after surgery, my first day back to work, I feel fabulous, I'm tolerating everything, every single horror story I've heard about this surgery has so far not been true for me-I am having 1 BM a day and it's not diarrheal or stinky enough to kill anyone, I'm not lactose intolerant, my taste for things hasn't changed-everything has been just perfect for me. Now I know these things do happen to people, but for me, things have gone so perfectly that I was joking that they just scratched me up in the OR and then sat down and played poker for 6 hours. :)
I will be honest and say I hate taking my vitamins, though. :/
I could not be happier, even at this point where I'm just really beginning to lose weight, that I chose this surgery over any other. And I sincerely believe I am going to continue to be happy with this choice for the rest of my life.
Hope it all goes as well for you!!
There were lots of reasons I wanted a DS over a RNY. I researched this as thoroughly as I possibly could. As a nurse I looked at all kinds of statistics and every other thing I could think of and in the end it boiled down to that I felt like this was the best surgery for me both in the short term for weight loss and in the long term for quality of life.
A few things I considered:
No dumping syndrome
The pylorus remains intact
The malabsorptive portion of the surgery is reversible
The remaining stomach is larger than a RNY pouch (I hate that term, ew) and basically it will mean I'll be able to have a better quality of life and eat more normally in time
Better tolerance of a wider variety of foods
Weight regain, actually, never came on the list. I was basically looking at WLS being huge, really serious surgery with a lot of risks (in general) and wanting to get the absolute best, and safest, bang for my buck.
I also researched Dr. Sudan, saw where he's done surgeries all over the country, looked at articles he's written for clinical journals about bariatric surgery. And in the end, I just had a really strong gut feeling (ha, is that a pun??) that this was the right way for me to go.
Today's 23 days after surgery, my first day back to work, I feel fabulous, I'm tolerating everything, every single horror story I've heard about this surgery has so far not been true for me-I am having 1 BM a day and it's not diarrheal or stinky enough to kill anyone, I'm not lactose intolerant, my taste for things hasn't changed-everything has been just perfect for me. Now I know these things do happen to people, but for me, things have gone so perfectly that I was joking that they just scratched me up in the OR and then sat down and played poker for 6 hours. :)
I will be honest and say I hate taking my vitamins, though. :/
I could not be happier, even at this point where I'm just really beginning to lose weight, that I chose this surgery over any other. And I sincerely believe I am going to continue to be happy with this choice for the rest of my life.
Hope it all goes as well for you!!
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