@Susan in Tennessee
@Clematis
Annnnnnnd, (drumroll please!) here's the response I received from their office this morning....
"In the many years of experience, Dr Ungson concluded that patients with the cc shorter than 100 cm CC were the ones having problems. He started doing the cc as short as 50, 75 etc but the mal nutrition rate for this patients was high, quality of life was not good and these were the patients having the reversals done, which is high risk.
Dr Aceves nor Dr Ungson never went lower than the 100 cm either. We do not consider this a disservice, on the contrary , documented or not this is what the experience taught them and this is the same protocol Dr Esquerra follows. It is not as easy as just taking more vitamins as you may already know.
The Dr may be willing to go a bit shorter like 90 cm which he has done in the past but I am sure he will not go shorter than that. Do not think that because you are not tall that your intestines will automatically be shorter too, you will be surprised at what we find inside. If the sleeve was not enough as a weight loss tool most likely you have longer intestines and this is why you need the DS portion. We can also compensate with a smaller sleeve if needed , sometimes patients with a larger sleeve and a lot of malabsorption have a lot of problems because they can eat too much and live with extreme cases of diarrhea for example. The drs need to balance the weight loss and patient's well being.
We are in an event out of town and Dr Esquerra is not here with us. I will see that you speak with him before you need to fly out here to see if you"
It is, what it is.... I will request the 50/50 split (BPL = AL+CC) and see what he says... Never hurts to ask, right?