Dr. Heider in North Carolina

I am considering having the vertical sleeve surgery in NC by Dr. Heider.  Has anyone here been his patient?   If so, I would love the feedback.   Thanks!

You should go to a support group of his and talk to his patients.  I had my sleeve done at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in WInston-Salem by Dr. Fernandez and I would definitely recommend him!

Have you heard any feedback about Dr. Heider?

Dr. Heider did my surgery and in my opinion using him has been the best decision I have made in the last decade if not longer.  He has done over 4000 of these surgeries and was trained at UNC Chapel Hill.  Three of his office staff have had this surgery from him.  So when you call in and if you can't talk with him there are people there that have gone through this experience.  

I will try to find the link to the last time I posted about him.  It was a long post but I think very informative.  

Here is my post from last time ... I am going to cut and paste it here to make it easier ... 

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He is fantastic.  He has done over 4000 of these surgeries and was trained at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  They have one of the best medical programs in the country.  He has surgeries on Mondays and Thursdays.  Well at least the bariatric ones.  

His staff is excellent.  Three of them have had him perform their VSG so he has staff members that can talk from experience which is great.  I was self pay and paid extra for the Concierge package.  I live in the Raleigh area so I took an Amtrak to Kannapolis and one of his staff members came and drove me to the hotel (Hilton Garden about 2 miles from the hospital).  I hung out there for a few hours and then was picked up by the same person and brought to the hospital for pre op tests and paperwork.  Then after that she brought me back to the hotel.  The next day she picked me up and brought me to the hospital where I had surgery on a Thursday around noon.  I woke up after surgery in a private room that is in a building attached to the hospital just below where Dr. Heider's office is.  The private room has a recliner chair that someone can sleep on while you recover and before you are discharged.

I don't know if I have a high tolerance for pain (I think I do) but the only pain I experienced was from the gas they use to inflate your abdomen.  Surgery Thursday around noon.  Discharged Friday around 3pm and brought back to the hotel.  Only 1 pain pill that day at the hotel.  Saturday only 2 pain pills all day.  Sunday I took my last pain pill and was pain free since.  I have to think that some of this pain free experience was due to Dr. Heider's expertise in surgery.  

Like was mentioned in an earlier post you will receive a huge binder with information about every step of your process pre and post op.  This includes phone numbers and extensions to each staff member as well as their email addresses so they can be reached any time.  I emailed Dr. Heider with questions both pre and post op.  He answers back very quickly.  If he is in his office you can expect an answer within an hour or so.  Obviously if you emailed him on Thursday you might not hear from him until later that day or the next day but you will hear from him.  Having three on his staff that have had this surgery, they are just as qualified to answer your questions in most cases as they have had to explain things to countless patients as well as have had the experience themselves.

The psychologist you see pre op is great.  She once told me something that has stuck with me.  That is ... at some point post op you will be somewhere at a special occasion and have a piece of cake or some such thing.  You will likely feel bad about it and beat yourself up.  She said for me to just forget about it and move on.  Forgive yourself and get over it.  As long as it isn't a daily thing you can have that treat once in a blue moon so to speak.  I think that was great advice.  I haven't had such an occasion yet but with Thanksgiving coming up and it will be the first one in over 10 years with my father and family ... I can see something happening at that point.  But I am going to wake up Friday and just have that oh well attitude and get immediately back on track and not feel guilty or beat myself up about it.

The nutritionist is great as well and will answer any and all questions and is very intelligent.  I have read things on this forum where people have gotten questionable or even stupid advice from there nutritionist and have been so glad that Amanda is my nutritionist.

I would say that I have had as close to a flawless surgery and post op as possible.  I am a little over 5 months post op and have lost 85 pounds as of 5 days ago.  At this point perhaps a couple more.  I am a week or two from being on my maintenance phase and past the weight loss phase.  I couldn't be happier with my choice of surgeons or surgeries.  

I will also be more than happy to talk to you more on this if you have any questions.  As far as I am concerned if I had to rate Dr. Heider on a scale of 1 to 10 his rating would be off the charts and way above a 10.  He is a people person and shows concern for his patients and wants to make sure they understand every pre op and post op step of this journey.  His excellent staff backs him up and the staff seems like they are a family.  I can tell that they genuinely enjoy working there and being together beyond the office environment.

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After having read this please feel free to ask me any questions.  I can only very highly recommend this surgeon.  He loves questions and you can get his email address.  The first time I sent him an email it was a Friday afternoon.  He responded in less than 20 minutes.  Of course since he does surgeries all day on Thursday he likely isn't checking emails until the end of the day or first thing next day.  You absolutely cannot get a better surgeon and a more caring one as well.  His bedside manner is top notch and he believes in the idea that there is no such thing as a stupid question.  He encourages you to ask whatever is on your mind and he really listens to your concerns. 

Honestly I could post 10 more paragraphs without blinking an eye but will let you digest this post for awhile and wish you good luck in your decision.  Please feel free (as I said before) to ask me anything about his process.  I consider myself one of his very successful patients.