Hi

[Daddy Ben]

Thanks SothernLady and Larra. I think it will be interesting to find the answers to how many DS procedures Dr Schmitt and Miles(His partner) have performed and get references for recent patients (can you do that with Hippa). The only mention Ive seen for them doing was a couple of comments in the online seminar. They do not seem to be advertising it so I dont want to give the impression that they may be a bait and switch. In any case, unless something completely unexpected comes out of those answers, I see me going out of state for DS.

I am very interested in the DS and just the sleeve as well. Does anyone know the stats on how many people that have the slieve end up with a revision? I am not interested in doing this all over in a few years, but I also recognize that a DS has more responsibility and life long follow ups.

 

[robs477]

Welcome! FYI, Diana is a science geek and atty who has fun making insurance companies pay for what they are supposed to pay for. Her partner-in-crime, Larra, is just the sweetest little thing who, politely and ALMOST non-confrontationally, informs the people denying you your benefits that they are wrong on every issue they present. I'm pretty sure she smiles while doing it.

I know little of any of that, but I was stationed at Ft. McClellan, now known as a toxic waste area but it seemed pretty close at the time, for Basic Training...so I was once neighbors with your parents or grandparents. (You weren't born yet.) My job here is to say the stuff the polite people don't actually say aloud.

Yup! In our trade we always get right to the lowest common denominator, the meat and potatoes so to speak, (meat first of course) , so spiky pretty much nailed it. Here’s my take on it: our Spiky Buggar is our tell it like it is NO SUGAR coating, right back at ya (but sweet too) and resident “Court Jester” kind of person, Diana and Larra could get WLS insurance approval for a cadaver and know everything that you could possibly want to know from that aspect as well as all the science stuff. Diana is also a Lawyer (but we don’t hold that against her though, she’s one of the good ones, and, on our side), Larra is also affectionately known as the “Sweet One” and makes it her mission to help people migrate over to this site so they may get the help they need and info they seek. She is the one whom invited me! There are SOO many knowledgeable and helpful people on here, I couldn’t list them all, just wanted to re-iterate what Spiky said.

 

[robs477]

.

I suspect his office is a "bait and don't switch" practice.

Another option is Dr. Boyce in Knoxville, TN

If you listen to nothing else, you need to learn what this is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost fell prey to it. I interviewed SIX different surgeons in the Houston area and experienced it firsthand. Could write a small book on it, and again I knew NOTHING about it or even heard of it before getting on this site. HOPEFULLY, they saved me from this which it is by far my worst fear, even more so than dying during the surgery.

 

[JackieOnLine]

Hello!

 

[Daddy Ben]

Good to meet yall. Thanks for laying it all out robs. Good luck on your upcoming surgery. What percentage of people here are DS'ers? It looks like that is pretty high.

 

[star0210]

Thanks SothernLady and Larra. I think it will be interesting to find the answers to how many DS procedures Dr Schmitt and Miles(His partner) have performed and get references for recent patients (can you do that with Hippa). The only mention Ive seen for them doing was a couple of comments in the online seminar. They do not seem to be advertising it so I dont want to give the impression that they may be a bait and switch. In any case, unless something completely unexpected comes out of those answers, I see me going out of state for DS.

I am very interested in the DS and just the sleeve as well. Does anyone know the stats on how many people that have the slieve end up with a revision? I am not interested in doing this all over in a few years, but I also recognize that a DS has more responsibility and life long follow ups.

Me...I just had a revision from VSG to DS with a partial re-sleeve. I went to Mexico to Dr. Ungson because I was self pay.

 

[Larra]

@Daddy Ben the issue of what percentage of people with sleeves go on to revision is a good question. I think no one can really answer it at this point for several reasons:
1. Large numbers of people having stand alone sleeves is a relatively recent development.
2. Sleeves (as a stand alone) are generally being made narrower because the initial sleeves, made the typical size done for DS, failed after a couple years when the restriction was gone (the stuff about less ghrelin due to removal of part of the stomach doesn't seem to help longterm if/when there is minimal restriction. It's a nice side effect but if it worked all that well we could all just take some pill to lower ghrelin and skip the surgery). So we don't know yet if this means sleeves will work longterm or if they will just take a couple years longer to stretch out and fail.
3. We see someone new wanting revision from sleeve to DS just about every week. I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg, because a lot of people don't realize they can revise, or can't get insurance coverage for a revision, OR get revised to gastric bypass because they don't know about the DS and their surgeons, who don't do the DS, don't inform them about it. So we have no way of knowing what the numbers are, we just know that there is at least some group of sleeve patients already failing.

I suspect we'll know more in another 5 years or so, but that doesn't help you now. I do believe there will be some sleeve success stories, but I doubt the percentage will be nearly as high as DS success stories. But no one really knows.

 

[k9ophile]

I'm glad Southern Lady mentioned Dr. Boyce in Knoxville. If by some odd chance you should come across the name Hugh Houston in Nashville, do not consider him. He did my DS in Oct 2008. I was (and sill am) happy with my surgery. However, his office (like so many) cannot or will not educate a DS patient properly. Then when he had some many patients do poorly, he blamed them and more or less quit doing the DS. He did do one last year, but the following from urban dictionary pretty much sums up what I have come to believe about him.

Prick:
A male bitch in the sense of an unpleasant, rude or nasty person.
But you don't say "prickslap" when you want to bitchslap a man who acts like this.

Oh, and you can pretty much say whatever you want here. I normally try to control my use of vulgarities, but I will make exceptions when warranted.

 

[JackieOnLine]

What percentage of people here are DS'ers?

it's pretty high. I think of them as VSGers, too. so I don't get lonely.

 

[aaa]

Welcome.

 

[robs477]

Good to meet yall. Thanks for laying it all out robs. Good luck on your upcoming surgery. What percentage of people here are DS'ers? It looks like that is pretty high.

Thxs for the good luck wishes. The % is pretty high, not sure of the actual numbers. the mods or SL could maybe know, or, if you get bored I guess you could just calcute the % of "posters" in the DS section VS the others.

 

[Parousia]

Welcome to the board, @Daddy Ben .

 

[italianspice]

Hi Ben! Love your pic, what a gorgeous little face!
The more you learn preop, the better prepared you will be postop.