Questions about finding a new surgeon.

I'm completely not satisfied with my surgeon & his responses to my abdominal pains these past 2 weeks. It has not gotten any better & he finally called me back at the end of the day yesterday & pretty much in so many words told me to suck it up & he will see me in a month at my 1 year appointment. He said he thinks it is muscle skeletal. I think I could tell between muscle & internal pain. I think I need to look for a new surgeon. My husband suggested going to my regular PCP & getting a recommendation from him. My PCP does head the weight loss program here. Just looking for suggestions from those of you that have been down this road or has any good ideas or suggestions where to start.

I will warn you that for short term issues, you may find it difficult to find another bariatric surgeon that wants to take on someone else's patient who is less than a year out and having issues.  When I had been having my mystery intermittent, severe abdominal pain for many months and my surgeon did not want to do exploratory surgery because of creating additional adhesions (for something that was likely wordy adhesion-related), I had one of the surgeons in the area (ironically, the one who took MANY of my surgeon's patients when she closed her practice last year) tell me that he would not even see me.  I consulted a general surgeon that I used for some other issues before my RNY and he shared her concern and also did not want to do surgery until he knew what he was looking for (all CTs showed nothing).  He was, however, willing to make the calls to get me set up at the Cleveland Clinic for diagnosis.  Of all the surgeons in the area, the only one willing to see me was the one who mentored my surgeon and who is the only surgeon within several hundred  miles who routinely does WLS revisions.  (Fortunately, when my own surgeon found out that the pain as so frequent and severe that my PCP had put me on medical leave, she agreed to go in and find the problem (before I saw either the other surgeon or endured an entire week of tests (and hotel expenses) at the Cleveland Clinic).  I had been having the pain off and on for 18 months by the time she went in and found and fixed the problem!

If you specifically want another bariatric surgeon, I would start with your PCP for a recommendation. I would also suggest, though, that ou consider what it is specifically that you are unsatisfied with and what you wanted your surgeon to do that he did not do.  A new surgeon may ask you these things before (s)he agrees to "take you on".  Two of the three additional surgeons I contacted asked this (in varying ways).

good luck.  I hope you can find someone to take you more seriously.  (I was also told at one point that my pain was from muscular adhesions and the surgeon didn't want to hear me insist that I could tell the difference between muscular pain and internal pain. Turns out *I* was right, BTW... the problem was not muscular.)

Lora

Thanks for your reply Lora. I did meet this morning with my PCP & he too believes it to be something more than muscle skeletal related. He works closely with all the WLS surgeons in my area & will be speaking with my surgeon tomorrow. He drew some blood work today to see if my white blood cell count is up & suggest that we do a endoscopy to check things out before possibly having to go the surgery route. I told him my concerns of feeling just pushed off & that I did not appreciate it. I do believe that if it was just muscle related I would know the difference. The pain feels like a rock or knot just to the right of my belly button & has been there constant for the past 2 1/2 weeks. I also told my PCP that I don't want to wait around for it to be something bad that could of been prevented or taken care of sooner. I'm just scared & I feel stuck.

I am glad that your PCP is listening.  I know how horrible and frustrated it made me to have TWO surgeons not willing to do anything except rep[eat CT scans.  Fortunately, like yours, my PCP was very supportive and did what he could.

Lora

Trust your instincts, find someone who will listen, you shouldnt have to live like this.

Thank you & I agree & don't plan on it if I can help it.

Your PCP sounds like a good place to start. I know several people have had success with going to the Cleveland Clinic to help with their issues if you cannot find anyone local to help you.

My PCP seems to think he can talk to my surgeon and get him to listen since they work closely together. Hopefully he can get him to at least do a little more testing to rule out some things or give me peace of mind. I just know abdominal pain shouldn't be normal. I'm just scared & want to make sure everything is right or stayed on top of at least. Hopefully I will not have to go outside of my local doctors, but it is my life & if I'm not getting the care that I think I should be then that may be an option I'll have to take.

I hope you get your issue resolved and feel better soon!! Keep us posted!!