Need advice...botched surgery
I am an attorney, but I don't do medical malpractice. However, I would absolutely recommend talking to one or two medical malpractice attorneys in your area. Your new surgeon's opinion alone should be enough to get the old surgeon to get in contact with his malpractice carrier, and the fact that you have had such dismal success in the past few months proves the new surgeon is correct. This may be something that can get resolved without the need to even file a suit.
Good luck!
Good luck!
On September 8, 2011 at 8:00 PM Pacific Time, Josie W. wrote:
Ok, so it's been awhile since I've been here because I don't fit in. For those of you that I've never met, I had a sleeve done on 4-6-11. I lost 10lbs pre-op and have lost 8lbs since surgery. Completely wasted surgery. Anyways, I have been looking into DS because the sleeve is doing nothing for me, obviously. I submitted for insurance and was denied because they say that now that I lost the 18lbs my BMI is too low to qualify for DS. My new surgeon wanted to do an endoscopy to find out what is going on and why I'm not losing. This was done yesterday and here is what it found. My sleeve is VERY large. If the endoscopy doc couldn't have seent he staples, he would've never known I had surgery at all. My stomach measures 44mm and aparently a 32f bougie is 11mm, which is supposedly what was used. The fundus (which is SUPPOSEDLY removed with a sleeve, getting rid of stretching and the grehlin) is "completely intact and has no areas of narrowing". GRRRRI'm so pissed off I could kill someone. So now, my new surgeon is resubmitting everything, including the endoscopy to insurance again to appeal. I have a question for you all....would you sue? I am so angry that I went through all this, all the recovery, not holding my babies, frusteration of not losing anything, and now finding out that I did that all for NOTHING because my surgeon is a ******g idiot. Now, to top it all off, the 18lbs total that I lost put my BMI just under what it needs to be in order to get DS. I do NOT want rny, and Dr. Buchwald highly recommends a DS for me. He sees no reason in waiting because he says I will just gain more weight than I already have since surgery. What do you guys think? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.
Santos
Im truely sorry your going through this, as much as it sucks you got robbed of a true sleeve, at least you now know you were not crazy that what you were experiencing was not normal.. you have a good reason for not losing the weight.
I wish you all the best in getting approval for your ds and hopefully it wont be too long before your truely on your weight loss journey...
i also hope some form of diciplinary action is taken against the surgeon, for not providing you with the surgery he was advertising he would do..
Linda 5".4

6lbs under goal weight
Join US On The VSG Maintenance Group Forum!!
http://www.obesityhelp.com/group/VSGM/discussion/

6lbs under goal weight
Join US On The VSG Maintenance Group Forum!!
http://www.obesityhelp.com/group/VSGM/discussion/
I'm so glad to see your post. I've been wondering how things have been going for you. Not so well, it sounds. I have nothing to offer as to the law suit but it looks like you're getting some direction on that from some who know the law. I certainly hope you get approval for a DS. If you have to re-gain to get it, then you'll have to put the pounds back on. I had to gain weight to qualify and I know others have had to, too.
Please let us know how it all turns out.
I wish the very best to you.
Please let us know how it all turns out.
I wish the very best to you.
I'm pretty new to this sight so I never heard your story before, but I just want to say I'm SO sorry! That sucks! I haven't ever heard of an insurance company require a bmi of higher than 40 for any specific wls...interesting. Anyway, I agree about not contacting the doctor directly, I'd check with an attorney for sure. Good luck!
Rebecca
Rebecca
I am really sorry you are going through this! I don't really have any thoughts on lawsuits or anything like that, but I AM wondering.....Would it be an option for you to get re-sleeved instead of a DS? Since so much of your stomach was left, I wonder if a surgeon could just go in there and do it correctly this time?
Certainly not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just wondering about your options....
I hope you can get all this worked out, and please keep us updated on your progress!
Certainly not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just wondering about your options....
I hope you can get all this worked out, and please keep us updated on your progress! Yes, I could. My new surgeon is highly recommending the DS for me tho. He said that since it has the highest success rate than any other, it is a better option for me if I want FOR SURE results since the sleeve is so new. He has been doing all these surgeries since 1973...so I trust everything he says lol







