need advice please...dr. houston or dr. husted

To begin with, I am looking for a revison from RNY to DS.  Dr. Husted will do that but i have to wait until his hospital is COE certified because I have medicare.  I hear Dr. Husted is wonderrful.  I have just talked to a Dr. Houston in Nashville.  He said for me to have a complete revision from a RNY to a DS is overkill.  He said he could do the lower part of the DS which would be the malabsorpton part, like a RNY Distal.  Anyway, he said after the lower part of the surgery is done, he said there is about a 60% of excess weight loss.  He does not take Medicare but the hospital does.  It will cost me about 2500 dollars.  Dr. Husted accepts whatever Medicare gives him.  I don't know what to do .  If anyone has heard of Dr. Houston, please email me.  He does make a lot of sense about revisng a RNY to DS in that you will have a lot of staple lines which means a lot more risks of leaks and that the upper part of the DS revision would be overkill and unnecessary as the lower part is what causes the malabsorption part, which is what is what will cause the 60% of excess weight loss.  What do you all think?  What would you all do if you were me?  Have it now with Dr. Houston or wait until Dr. husted's hospital has COE certification....I don't know what to dooo.

Yes we've heard of Dr. Houston. He's my surgeon, I had RNY.  Several here this past year have had DS from Dr. Houston.  He is a good doctor and he won't bs his way around. He will tell you the striaght up facts.  He is very concerned about safety of his patients.

My honest suggestion is to wait for Dr. Husted. I say this because he has much experience in RNY to DS revisions. I LOVED having Dr. Houston as my surgeon, but he has done relatively few DS surgeries and you have a revision expert in Dr. Husted.

You may want to post on the DS or revisions forums to get some feedback on the revision to full DS vs. distal RNY.

Good luck either way :) 

Bethany

I say go with Dr. Houston.   He is great and he knows what he is doing.   Centennial is a COE abd has been.  There are a lot od Houston's DSer's around and anyone of them will tell you the same thing i am saying.   If you want to pm me with any questions I would gladly answer them.   I had my DS with Dr. Houston on 2/24 and I am loving it.  

Oh my goodness....even if Dr. Houston were not my surgeon, I would run screaming as quickly as you can from Dr. Husted & never look back.  I absolutely, unequivocally would not use Dr. Husted...and, if you are still considering it, I would thoroughly research his history here in Nashville, as well as on the west coast, etc. and then make your decision.  It will take some digging, but I would leave no roc****urned.

Dr. Houston is an incredible surgeon backed by an incredible program.....I would absolutely listen to what he says....I researched surgeons prior to my decision to have surgery & am extremely happy with my choice.....

Good luck....Micheala.

Three4 Me, I did reseach everything and I can't find anything but people who like Dr. Husted.  I can't figure out why you said that.  It caused me to lose a lot of sleep over it because it is like somebody making a statement without following up on why out of the clear blue they would say something bad about somebody. 

We had Dr. Husted's old phone number for awhile at work, and his former patients called all day long...  every day...  saying things like they could not find him, or he would not give them their records or transfer them to local doctors so they could get aftercare, and also some said that he wanted them to either travel all the way to California to get aftercare or meet him at a hotel meeting room or something.  I dont know all of what happened but I do know one thing...  while his patients may sing his praises in the beginning, afterwards they sure do get hot about one thing or another...  I had to deal with them til we finally got a new phone number.

I'm not saying that he is not a good surgeon.  What I am saying though is that you need to find a doctor who is here to stay.  Or at least, a program where you can get your aftercare from another surgeon who might be in that practice, should your doctor choose to leave...  (that way its about a program, and not one man like Dr. Husted's practice seemed to have been).

My experience is with Dr. Houston.  He is smart, ****y, detailed, and will get it right.  He has performed bariatric surgeries for years and is well respected.  Centennial Hospital has a great reputation.

I have been a patient of Dr. Houston's for three years.  I was always a normal weight until I hit my 30s.  Then bad eating habits, desk job, and life in general got in the way and I was an above 40 BMI.  I was convinced that I wanted lap band.  In my mind, the malabsorption surgeries were overkill for someone who had not had a llife history of obesity.  I think Dr. Houston sensed that something more than just habits was going on and he suggested a malabsorption surgery.  I ignored him and had the lap band.  Well, I lost a grand total of 34 pounds with the lap band.  Although I eat less than 1000 calories a day, I stay in the 190s at  5'1"..

Fast forward to present.  I am in my 50s and I can't lose unless I work out several hours a day.  My metabolism is shot.  Dr. Houston has tried to make the band work for me.  It is very tight, but I don't lose.  I should have listened to him in the first place about malabsorption, but I didn't.  Long story short, I am scheduled for a revision to DS on 8/24 and I am happy about it.  Dr. Houston took an hour and a half to talk with me during the consult to make sure all of my questions were answered.

I know very little about Dr. Husted.  I know that he cranks out the DS surgeries.  That has its pluses, but we are not cars being built in a factory.  I don't know his reputation in Nashville at Baptist Hospital or in California.  He may have had a specific plan for his family to establish practice in a small town in Kentucky that fits their needs.  However, as a patient, I would be somewhat questioning as to why he would choose to leave a major hospital that has any resources that his patients would need to establish his current practice at a hospital that is not COE certified.  There may be very valid reasons for his decision, but as a fellow poster said, you need to do research on his history.

Mary

I guess Dr. Husted figures that in the long run, maybe the other surgeries just don't work as well as the DS.  I have researched Dr. Husted and cannot find anything.  It seems like he has the most experience of any other surgeon.  I can't figure out why more people on the board didn't use him.  But, maybe people just go to the surgeon who lives closest to them I think.  I know he practived in California and Nashville and everybody seems to be really happy after having surgery with him.  I have searched as far back as you can go as everyone tells me to do research on your doctor before committing to a surgery.  My husband is going to have surgery with Dr. Husted and I was planning on it too, except in my case, I have Medicare and need a COE hospital, which Dr. husted doesn't have yet.  So my dilemma is waiting up to a year or trying to find somebody else.  Kind of leaves me in a undecisive state.

Looks like goincrazyinky has decided on Dr. Greenbaum in NJ.   She posted that in the DS board.   Dr. G is a great dr and will do her revision well.