"Mexican" Surgeons

Ha, got your attention!!! I am not a patient of Dr. S, but I would like to point out the following:

Unfortunately for Dr. S, when he sees the emailed photos of potential patients, he is deprived of the opportunity to evaluate their personalities or the presence of a Psychological problem.  So he might end up with an unstable personality with unrealistic expectations combined with a mental disorder getting off the plane and expecting him to work a miracle (at half price of course)

NO doctor is a mind reader!! Plastic Surgeons in the US routinely turn away clients who present as possibly "unstable", precisely because you will never make these people happy, no matter what. I think the lesson today is that you must communicate with your Dr. no matter if he is 5 min from your house or 5,000 miles away.  Also, no matter who your Dr. is, if you were MO and are over 35 and think you will come out of surgery looking like a beauty queen, then you might have the above mentioned disorders.

Thank you for your time,

Heather

You make some very valid points, Heather. I think another thing that should be kept in mind (especially by people who have spent many years obese) is that revisions are not uncommon. In fact, I think they are more the norm rather than the exception. We present a whole different set of challenges and I think it's unrealistic to think that you'll have your procedures done and everything will be perfect. The perfect is the enemy of the good!

Great point about the revisions! With these kind of overhauls, revisions should be expected and negotiated prior to the surgery.

 BRAVO BRAVO!!!! 

And along with those points, many of us have a hard time eating enough to recover as fast as we should and because of the huge amount of tissue disruption have a higher percentage of complications compared to a population that was neither MO or who had WLS.  We need an excellent plan in place to handle those things should they happen.  Most complications do not occur in the first 10 - 12 days when you are still in country, but several weeks out when it looks like healing should be more than complete.  If there isn't a provision in your insurance to handle medical care for an unauthorized procedure, and you are facing a stack of medical bills, that cost also has to be counted.

Just as no surgeon can tell without examinaing you and meeting you if you are unstable, they cannot predict who will or will not have catastrophic infections or complications that might be hard to heal.

Yes, yes, yes!!!!!  Me and you, me and you...let's sing together....me and you and you and me, no matter how they rolled the dice, it had to be....so happy (?) together (in complication land)! (I hope you take this in the light-hearted attitude I intended it to be)

Honestly, I almost pass out thinking about if I had surgery miles away and then had these complications.  Oh my!  In fact, my plastic surgeon is 60 miles away and when I was in the hospital last week the doctors made it very clear that NO plastic surgeon would think about touching my situation.


Happy Thanksgiving!
Jana

Jana -
I've often thought about what would have happened to me had I gone out of country.  I know that I would have ended up at West LA Kaiser with Dr. Lee anyway to manage my care because Kaiser would have had to cover my complications.  I have no idea what my asthestic outlook woul have been - it was revised at each additional surgery he had to do for the infected seromas.  I know that after things had settled, it worked out to my advantage, cause my butt ended up being lifted another 2-3 inches because of the tunnel seromas along my back. 

I do get concerned that people here do not report  ANY type of complications when they go out of country.  This gives the idea that only US surgeons have complications or revisions.  We know this is not true.  All surgeons have complications, and it isn't always a surgical expertise result, or a non compliance result, but a complication because of so much tissue disruption and our over stretched tissues and all those factors.  Lots of things to consider.  I came here 17 months ago to report my complications not because I blamed my surgeon, or myself, but it is the luck of the draw.  My body over produces this fluid.  I've had seromas with each and every body contouring procedure.  You are not supposed to have seromas after they quilt you - and many surgeons don't use drains if they quilt you.  Guess what - I still had drains for 4 weeks - 4 of them with large bore tube, not the nice tiny ones!  Once the drains came out, guess what, I still had seromas, and had to be aspirated for another 3 weeks in 3 locations!  You just cannot know that will happen before hand.

I did know going in to phase 2 - my medial thigh lift, that I was more prone to complications.  What we didn't know is that I had developed a sensitivity to the prefered suture material. I had infections and spitting suture for 8 weeks after my thigh lift.  Not the expected little spitting suture, I mean skin splitting open, oozing, puss filled spots spitting out 3 inches of suture at a time.  But I got through that, and I'm pretty happy with my legs.  I wish there was something for my knee muffins and calves.  My arms have been the most uneventful - Praise God!  Even though I have had 3 seromas and 1 hematoma (where we revised an area on my thigh) I am very pleased.  I feel almost complication free, but I also know that I'm not quite to 4 weeks, and anything can still happen especially on my flanks where so much more tissue was taken off. (about 6 -7 inches at the widest place on each side.)

Hang in there Jana.  Your surgeon is the best to manage this, and I'm sure he is just as frustrated because he wanted the best outcome for you as well.  His goal, as with any ethical surgeon, is to benefit you and give you better form, function and life.  The healing from the compllcations is long and hard, but once healed we can share with others the importance of this surgery and that it needs to be viewed with the utmost respect.

As I wrote in the thank you note to Dr. Lee - once I was through all the procedures and healed, I finally felt llike ME. I had never felt female, or like someone the world would ever take seriously. I was trapped in a body that wasn't me, and he set me free.  His care and skill healed many things for me and I am very greatful.  Hang in there friend - you will get through this - and keep appealing to your insurance for any denials because this is now a serious medical condition that must be well managed even if the cause was not originally a covered benefit.

I hope this isn't a thinly veiled attempt to characterize Maria as "unstable" because she had a problem with a Mexican surgeon. . . . . . 

Just as the surgeon doesn't have the opportunity to "evaluate" her psyche prior to surgery, you are in no position to judge another's psyche based on conjecture......

We have no reason not to take Heather at her word. I wish on message boards in general we would try to take people for exactly what they say. It probably was a general comment and I will accept it as such based on her reputation as a frequent poster and non trouble maker on the sleeve board and because there is no reason not to. If she was known to be trouble maker that would be different.

Just my opinion.

Thanks Leah, for defending me it is nice to know that I have a good "reputation"! I am not a trouble maker, nor have I ever "attacked" anyone on these boards, I try to be supportive to everyone and I was giving my perspective, not based on any specific person.