So tell me about Dr Alverez in Mexico..

I am just researching all options if insurance does not cover me....

how much was the cost of surgery with Dr. Alverez??
Anyone have any complications with him like infections ect??
How long is the wait after you decide you are going to use him as your surgeon?

I went to Dr. Alvarez.  It was $8999 for surgery with him, plus my plane ticket to San Antonio.

I didn't not have any true complications.  I had a little pain, but nothing unbearable.  It felt like I had done way too many sit-ups.  I did like to use the electric head up/down button when going from sitting to laying down or vice versa.  But there was no more pain than I expected.  I mean, it's surgery, it's not going to be pain-free.  I don't think he generally uses narcotic painkillers.  I know he didn't with me.  I'm not sure if I would have had worse pain if he would have used narcotics or not.  That's something you can talk to Susan (his coordinator) about, or even email him directly.  After my surgery for two days I did have a lot of nausea and dry heaves.  Unfortunately, Zofran (the best anti-nausea medication out there) does nothing for me.  A year and a half ago I had a horrible stomach virus and ended up in the ER and Zofran didn't help me then either.  I am more prone to nausea though, so don't attribute that to Dr. Alvarez or VSG as a while, but it is a possibility.  Most people don't have anywhere near the nausea that I had.

The hospital is older and is not fancy at all, but it is very clean.  I even looked for dust and couldn't find any.  LOL.  The hospital nurses don't speak English at all, except for a few words.  Dr. Alvarez has two nurses that are there most of the time who do speak English though - Jessica and Cristina.  The hospital nurses still wear white outfits with the nurses hats with their hair back in tight buns.

Rosy is the one who drives the van from San Antonio to the hotel in Eagle Pass and from the hotel to the hospital and back.  She is Dr. Alvarez's cousin and is very nice.  I talked to her the whole ride from SA to EP.  It's a little over a two-hour drive.  She was very knowledgeable about the experience because she has driven pre- and post-surgical patients back and forth for a few years now.  I was by myself, but usually there are two or three patients with their companions.  The only other patient having their surgery the same day as me was a local person, so I was by myself.  BTW, I thought she was a very safe driver, she didn't speed or do any crazy driving.  After my surgery she drove me back to the hotel in Eagle Pass.  Usually she takes people back to a hotel in San Antonio, but my sister picked me up in EP.  She lives in Austin and I went to stay with her for several days.

Dr. Alvarez was great.  He's a very good surgeon and a very nice and caring man.  He's also nice looking and smells good.  When Rosy drove me to Piedras Negras to the hospital we went to his office first.  It's right next to the hospital.  I met him, his assistant and another hospital doctor.  We sat and he talked about the surgery and answered any questions I had.  His assistant took me into another room and weighed me.  Christina then took me to my hospital room and to get my blood work and chest xray done, and went to my hospital room.

I scheduled my surgery on December 6th and had the surgery done on January 6th.  So it was only a month in between.  I paid $1000 down when I scheduled the appointment (I sent them a cashier's check in the mail.)  I paid the balance by a cashier's check when I was in his office at that first meeting.

Sorry, I kind of just kept running on and on.  I totally loved Dr. Alvarez and his staff.  I totally recommend him to anyone who asks.  Feel free to add me as a friend and ask anything you want.

Good luck on your journey!

wow! Almost 100lbs in 4 months! Amazing. :)

I am a little more nervous about surgies because my dad died of an infection from surgery (NOT WLS) so it makes me really nervous. Thanks for you imput. Did you research any other surgeons, and why did you decide to go with Dr. Alverez?

My hubby is a nurse and also speaks spanish so it would be very helpful to have him there, from the sound of it lol

It's a little over 5 months actually - I count the start as being December 16, 2010, when I started my pre-op diet.  I lost 17 pounds during those three weeks.

Sounds like it would be a very good idea to have your hubby there on both those counts.  I speak a little English, so if Cristina or Jessica wasn't around, I could usually converse with the other nurses a little.  I'm not married, but I had a couple of friends and my sister offered to come with me.  I declined though because I didn't want to worry about them being bored or whatever.  If I were married I'd have had my husband come with me though, that's what they're there for, right???

I went with Dr. Alvarez for a few reasons.  The top being that he seemed to have the best repuation and has a lot of experience.  I didn't see one negative thing about him anywhere.  I watched all the testimonials on his website.  I watched a lot of his videos on YouTube.  I saw a lot of good things about him.  I did check into a couple of other doctors in Mexico, but he was the one that stuck.  Another reason was that my sister lived 4 hours away and it worked out well for her to pick me up from there and take me back to her house.  I'm from Texas originally and my dad's hometown was an hour away from there.  I'd been to both Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras before, so for me, going to that area had a comforting feel.  I hadn't been out that way in a long time and the scenery from SA to EP had a familar and nostalgic feel.  Anyone else would probably think it's boring, but to me it was a reminder of my childhood.  But, my decision was based primarily on him being a very good surgeon.

I can understand your apprehensions about surgery in general with your experience with  your dad.  That must have been very hard.  You can talk to Dr. Alvarez about your concerns and find out what he does to ensure this doesn't happen with his patients.

Some things they do differently there...  Here when you have an IV and they put medicine in the IV they use the needle-less syringes to protect from accidental needle sticks.  In Mexico (at this hospital anyway) they still use needles to inject meds into your IV line.  Here we have the individually wrapped alcohol squares.  There they had a stainless steel tray carrying cotton balls with alcohol poured over them.  Neither of those bothered me at all.  I thought it was interesting to see the differences.

If you don't know already, Dr. Alvarez's website is www.endobariatric.com.  He has a reunion every year for his patients and this year it was last weekend in Las Vegas.  I didn't go, but plan on going next year.  Susan says they should be posting the pictures and videos soon.

His channel on YouTube is: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Endobariatric

Sorry if you have to copy/paste those.  I'm not sure why they don't do a direct link.

I would absolutely recoment Dr. A  I felt like family when I was there, his staff are fantastic. I has surgery on tuesday and photographed three seniors back in San Antonio 3 days later. I'd recommend the surgery & Dr. Alvarez to my family without hesitation. It's very true what everyone says my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. I've lost 55 lbs so far and ran a 5k race in 38 mins last week. Now training for a 10k. I can;t belive this is my life!

Good luck!

Nearly three years out and never did have any complications from the time I awaken from the table.

No pains or issues !!!

Dr. A and staff are awesome !!!

I would highly recommend Dr. Alvarez.  I am a nurse of 30 years.

I paid 8,900$, this included a night in the hotel before surgery, two nights in the
hospital and another night post op in the hotel.  They also sent me home with pain and antibiotic meds. I first contacted the office in March, they sent me a a health questionnaire.  I was low risk, was approved and had surgery April 12. If you have any risk factors, the wait might be longer. 
It was very smooth and organized, they send you a lot of info pre-op, so you are well
prepared. As stated before, the hospital is older, but clean and well maintained.  Dr.
Alvarez patients are put together, at one end of the hall, but I saw other hospital patients
also.  Quiet and restful, you can tell they have done many patients and know what they
are doing.  When I had the leak test the next day, the equipment was modern and
I was able to visualize my baby stomach. Little pain, the first 24 hours I was kept medicated and hydrated, but encouraged to get up also.  They wrapped my legs with compression wraps
to prevent clots while I was in surgery. There is a couch-bed in the room, so someone can
stay with you. I didn't have long distance service on my phone, but they provide a phone
with free long distance. Dr. Alvarez even called my sister in California when the surgery was completed, I have NO complaints and would recommend him to anyone. He is Board Certified
and a very low infection/complication rate.
to reassure her 

Ditto to what the others said.

I too am a nurse (29 years) and I researched thouroughly before I chose Dr. Alvarez.  I had narrowed it down to Dr. Alvarez and Dr. Aceves.  I spoke to both patient coordinators and send each of them identical spreadsheets with over 30 questions on it.  The answers returned were very similiar.  Both are very competent, well known, caring surgeons.  However, Susan and I just bonded and I just was drawn to Dr. Alvarez when watching his YouTube videos.  Besides that, it was closer to my home to go to San Antonia/Piedras Negras than San Diego/Mexicali (I live in Kentucky).

Dr. Alvarez and his staff are wonderful.  I have emailed him and Susan several times since I have been home and they always respond in a caring, helpful manner in a matter of a few hours.

I paid $8900 and could've had my surgery in about 3 weeks from the first time I called.  However, I scheduled it about 2 months after I talked to Susan about it because of work issues.

One of Dr. Alvarez's patients that had surgery about 3 weeks after me did develop a leak.  However, she had formerly had the lap band with many complications.  The band was removed previously and Dr. A did her revision (he didn't do her band).  The leak was small and not caught until she was home for a couple of weeks because the swelling had it sealed.  It did not show up on her leak test in Mexico.  Even though she has felt awful, she doesn't attribute the leak to Dr. A.  She was really afraid of problems because she had so much damage from the band.

I've had 8 abdominal surgeries including my VSG.  It was my third laprascopic surgery.  This was the easiest and most complication free surgery I've ever had.  With all my other surgeries, I had some degree of wound infection.  Not with this surgery.  My incisions healed beautifully without ANY redness, signs of infections, etc.  Premature suture absorption and wound infections are a given in my family.  But with surgery, I had no problems.

If anyone in my family decides to have WLS, I will strontly encourage them to go to Dr. Alvarez!

I am 2 years out, my experience is the same  as the above.

My husband was way against this surgery in general, surgery in Mexico specifically.

He now uses the treatment I got in Mexico as a standard for all care he gets in the states and, even 2 years later, response from local doctors is not even the same as the quick response I still get from Dr. A and/or Susan.

There are some folks here who say if you need someone to be closer to you with followup, that Dr. Alvarez is not your guy.  We were given though all of the tools we needed, diet preop and postop (all the different stages, the macronutrients we need to get in, cals, carbs, protein, et cetera, when to start exercising, what labs to order, things of this nature.  So, Dr. A does his job, the rest is on you. I was fine with this.  There are some excellent doctors who also do studies and submit their patient's information for research information, so those doctors have more of an expectation of losing X much by X time.  Of course for any doctor, their patient's success reflects on them some, but Dr. A is not your guy if what you want/need is someone to be near/there to be accountable to about your weight loss.  Dr. A is your surgeon, not your counselor, not your accountability person, not your nutritionist.  You are given the information to do well afterwards, and you know, your healing up and your loss has everything to do with compliance (unless you have some metabolic issue that the sleeve alone just is not going to address).  This would not be preferable to some folks, which is understandable, but it all worked out perfectly for me.  I followed the post op diet given and was a "stay on plan until goal" person, because I could figure out food later, I only have so much laser-strength concentration.  :} Anyway, I called goal in December of 2009, lost 120ish pounds, and set myself up for success with tools that help maintenance not be difficult for me at all. 

For me?  I would go back to him in a heartbeat and I would also not hestitate to concur if any of my family chose him. 

Folks fuss about gas pain with a lot of doctors- I never had it, not once.  Dr. A, I think, burps our bellies like my mama used to burp her waterbed *ha* no bubbles allowed! The only pain I ever had after surgery was trying to sit up in bed without raising the head of my bed high enough - or well when that one hard stitch to our abdominal wall (to secure the incision that our stomach is pulled out of) started to do its healing/burning/pulling thing.

But I see folks locally who have horrible nausea for months and month, and gas pains that make them go back to the ER and whatnot. 

For me?  Monday afternoon was surgery, by Tuesday morning I asked that the IV line be removed from my hand because it was irritating me - so not even a whole day later, I was off of any narcotics, Wednesday morning after leak test we were discharged and toted back to San Antonio, and my husband and I spent the rest of the day wandering around the Riverwalk.  (take a cab!  Do not bother with the bus, just sayin! :} ).

The wait is going to depend on his schedule, he does not do more than a handful of folks each day, and does not do surgery on Sundays (or he did not when I was asking questions, I imagine he still does not).  But I could have gotten in much faster than I did - I just had the hoops of quelling my husband's fears to work around.  :}  Even now, my husband will jump up and remind you of all the horrible complications that *can* happen (its just in his nature to see everything that can go wrong, its more helpful inwork than it is in love :}) but will tell you just as quickly how well won over he was and continues to be by Dr. Alvarez and his staff. 

Good luck in your choice making!  And welcome to the bench soon!