Hi there, I am new to this forum. I have my first consultation with the surgeon next Friday March 30th:) . I am so excited but also nervous.

I have been reading through a few posts and it is so good to see that the majority of the feedback is positive.

I will be having my surgery done in Dublin and I was wondering if any of you have any advice as to questions I should be asking the surgeon next week.

Thanks so much. Brenners x

Hi

I was wondering if anyone knows what is going on with ACS, I understand that ACS is being liquidated and that the Hospital Group has taken it over but when I ask how that effects my after care which I paid in good faith and getting more fills I can't get a straight answer. The receptionist was going to put me on to Kim but I have always found her unhelpful. I have been reading your posts and everyone seems to be going to Chirs De Bruin, he did my last fill with ACS, is he will ACS still or has he moved. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Candy

Hi everyone hope everyone is keeping well... Ok well my flights are booked and the nerves are kicking in big time!!! I was just wondering what to do about a pre op diet dr de bruyne never gave any info on it and its only from reading the forums i realised a pre op diet has to be done and poor me thinking id pig out for the next few weeks lol also is there anything i should take with me or have for when i come home any info would be great...

Flirtylass I was banded by Jerome Manuceau and we didn't have to do a pre-op diet. All surgeons are different. I'm sure if you needed to do one your surgeon would have given you the info.

Girls just to let you all know I heard today that 2 girls who were filled by the Belgian nurses last week are very badly overfilled. One girl ended up in Loughlinstown yesterday, all they did was put her on a drip, shes flying to Paris today to have a de-fill she's in a very bad way. Just to warn you to be careful how much of a fill you get because if your overfilled theres nowhere in this country to be defilled. Having been in the situation myself its horrific and I'd be very careful how much of a fill you let the nurses give. They give this girl a 2ml fill

Hi

I was wondering if anyone knows what is going on with ACS, I understand that ACS is being liquidated and that the Hospital Group has taken it over but when I ask how that effects my after care which I paid in good faith and getting more fills I can't get a straight answer. The receptionist was going to put me on to Kim but I have always found her unhelpful. I have been reading your posts and everyone seems to be going to Chirs De Bruin, he did my last fill with ACS, is he will ACS still or has he moved. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Candy

As far as I know they've basically washed their hands of us. I haven't been in touch with them, don't really see the point. Last time I heard from them I had my appointment cancelled like many others and was told they'd be in touch in 2 weeks that was months ago. From what I hear anyway they're as bad as ACS so I will steering well clear of them. I personally am just cutting my losses

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I've not been around for a while, I'm currently in London and will be for the remainder of the month. I've decided to pop over to Paris to see Jerome to have a proper xray with him and find out what exactly is causing the acid reflux that I've had since my last fill. I don't think that the band is too tight, I know by how comfortable it is to eat right now that and the fact that I've not lost any weight for quite some time now. I know those of you who have seen me think I'm fine at the weight I'm at now but I would like to lose another 7 to 10lbs but I'm not in a huge hurry to do that. I am more concerned as to whats going on inside me. So I'm going to eurostar it to Paris one day next week and get the xray and the correct fill level. Jerome says he won't charge me for his consult, I'll just have to pay the radiologist for the xray. So that shouldn't be more that 150. Euro. Hope you're all doing well. Take Lil's advice about having conservative fills. Nothing worse than being overfilled, particularly in Ireland. :Banane37:

Hi all ,sorry i've not been on in months but i have been so pissed off that i could not even come on ,i was banded last October and have had only 1 fill in January and that has been it ,have had no appointment since ,no help at all from ACS ,is anyone else in the same position ?thanks a million ,any help or advice would be fantastic ,i thought by now i'd be a little way to where i wanted to be .

Hi

I was wondering if anyone knows what is going on with ACS, I understand that ACS is being liquidated and that the Hospital Group has taken it over but when I ask how that effects my after care which I paid in good faith and getting more fills I can't get a straight answer. The receptionist was going to put me on to Kim but I have always found her unhelpful. I have been reading your posts and everyone seems to be going to Chirs De Bruin, he did my last fill with ACS, is he will ACS still or has he moved. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Candy

Hi Again

Thanks Lil for letting me know about ACS, there must be alot of us who have dealt with ACS for this op and are unhappy with our treatment. Personally I don't want to let them get away with this, if enough of us got together and sought legal advice maybe we would be able to negotiate for better treatment. I would love to hear from anyone who would like to take this further, €10,000 is a lot of money for me as I am sure it is for the rest of you, I don't believe this is something we just let them get away with, like all of you I am sure you opted to have the operation in Dublin because you would receive aftercare, which wouldn't have been the case if we had gone to Belgium.

Apologies for the impassioned plea but even before ACS was liquidated I found them unhelpful and rude and I don't like being swizzed!!!

Thanks

Candy

hey everyone,

godness its been ages since i posted, hope everyone is well,

i'm looking for some help , serious help....

my band is far too tight and i need t get it losen but i dont know of anyone to give me a de-fill apart from the hospital group but thats not till 18th sept and i wont make it that long. i havn't eaten any proper food in a month,

any help would be greatly apricated, thanks dini

Hi again ,i also keep getting told that they are waiting on the surgeon's to get their licence to practice here ??has anyone else been told that ?i feel like i'm up against a brick wall here ,thank's.

Hi Dini ,I'm sorry to be no help to you at all but as i've not been told anything about The Hospital Group taking over ACS i was wondering when you were told you had an appointment on the 18th Sept ?as i just posted below they keep telling me about surgeon's licence and can't tell me when i'll see anyone at all ,again i'm sorry to be no help and hope you feel better soon ,

hey everyone,

godness its been ages since i posted, hope everyone is well,

i'm looking for some help , serious help....

my band is far too tight and i need t get it losen but i dont know of anyone to give me a de-fill apart from the hospital group but thats not till 18th sept and i wont make it that long. i havn't eaten any proper food in a month,

any help would be greatly apricated, thanks dini

Hey again, I was told that I would have an appointment up in Belfast on 30th August, nobody has come back to me to confirm, I was also told that the Surgeons for the Hospital Group were waiting to get their licenses also.

Regards

Candy

hey there bettyboop

i got the app, cos i've been trying and trying for ages and i begging for it. they said they had no app so they'd call me back if they had anything so i got a call back a week later with there new app date, ask for a girl called Robbie up in belfast. its not in dublin as they still dont have the paper work for dublin

candy with my expierence i would call belfast i was ment to have 2 other app and they weren't comfirmed and they wouldn't do thing for me cos they didn't have my file.

Thanks for that Dini, much appreciated.

dont know if this helps my aftercare is with wlsgroup in the uk, they come to dublin once a mth, there over on 10th sept in fitzwilliam square. they do just after care alone. there mail WLS Group [enquiries@wlsgroup.co.uk]

Hi everyone

I am posting on here for the first time since just after I had my op in Oct 07 with the notorius ACS. I have been so depressed and having so many mixed emotions about this whole procedure, that I haven't felt able to even participate. Iniatially Coco responded to my first couple of posts and gave me some great tips (thank you, and all of your posts are inspiring), I have been logging in every now and again over the months and reading how you are all doing but just feeling I had nothing to contribute as I felt so deflated.

When I was operated on (Saturday, 13th Ooctober 07), the following Monday the news broke about the incident with Jerome 's patient. I didn't buy into it all as I knew that poor woman did not die as a result of the band procedure.

However, ACS proved to be less than satisfactory in my dealings with them. I had two appointments in Fitzwilliam where I saw the nurse Lou, who gave me no fill but two lovely, what can only be described as lectures, on how to eat healthily - I felt like I was at WeightWatchers again for the umpteenth time! (except that costs €10 a week as opposed to €10k!) Then I saw Jan, my surgeon, who gave me 1 ml, and he had difficulty getting the needle into my port.

Then came all the too-ing and fro-ing with ACS, the letter to say ACS Europe had taken over as ACS had gone into liquidation but don't worry, they were taking over our aftercare - yaay. I had an appointment in May in the new premises in Pembroke St with Chris de Bruyne's bariatric nurse. He had trouble getting the fill in (another 1 ml - wihoo - €10,000 lighter, 7 months later, and still only 2mls in my band) and said that my port had flipped, he had to manipulate it which involved lots of pressing down to get it to flip back around so he could get the fill in - not pleasant.

Then - lo and behold - ACS Europe were no more and The Hospital Group had taken over. Okay, I'd researched them previously, and had considered going to London to Harley St for a consult with them before I decided to go with ACS as I liked the idea of them being on home turf, in case you needed them fast...... ha ha.

And then began the humming and haawing about the registration of their surgeons to practice in Ireland. A Belfast appointment was offered -midweek, of course, so I figured I would hold off, surely it couldn't take too long for the registration process, and I don't have much annual leave to play around with spending a day up and down to the north... They said they did not do Saturday appointments, and yet I subsequently found out the last one was on a Saturday. I rang them two weeks ago to find out what the eff was going on - Lydia had left a couple of days before and I was talking to the lovely Kim (not) who informed me that The Hospital Group would do a review and give a fill, if necessary and then subsequently I would pay €150 per fill after that - still no info on when they would be up and running in Dublin. I expressed my concern as I had been informed by both Lydia and Leanne that The Hospital Group would take on the aftercare and that mine would be extended by a few months due to the upheaval just after my surgery... I knew this was not worth anything as they would not/did not put it in writing. Now we are all left high and dry.

I have researched a couple of places, Chris De Bruyne is apparantly away on holiday til 1st Sept so will await contact from him, rang the crowd Obesity Solutions who are based in London and have a monthly clinic on Dame St. I thought the Polish surgeon Jan was working with them, but evidently not... they charge €210 for first consultation and €150 per fill after that, but I was less than impressed when I rang their London number. The person who answered the phone... Me: ring, ring - Her: Yes? !!! Not the way I would expect someone in a professional organisation to answer!! I contacted the Beacon and although they don't normally do aftercare if you've had surgery elsewhere they will for ACS patients - aaaaww, bless, a warm fuzzy glow began to envelope me... until finding out that the initial consultation is €400 and the fills after that €300 a pop...!!!

I am now looking into the feasability of approaching the liquidators for ACS... even if we got some of our money back it would pay for what we'll have to shell out for continued aftercare... but I won't hold my breath.

The bit that gets to me really is that ACS went to the wall in light of all the adverse publicity, people stopped going to them for all the other procedures as well due to the media-frenzy witch-hunt... at the end of the day the results of the post-mortem were that the woman died of natural causes. And where are the media now, when we've all been left high and dry. It really does leave a sour taste.... how I long for pb and slime instead, but as I have no restriction at the moment, not likely :-) I have a €10,000 band thats not working and it will probaly cost another few €k to get it back in action. In the words of the Sex Pistols: "Ever feel like you've been cheated" (I'm an old punk at heart!)

Anyway, I just wanted to say a belated thanks to all of you, I've been popping in every few months just to read how yis are doing but just felt too pissed off and negative to contribute.

Will keep you all posted if there's any progress, but right now it feels like everything's come to a grinding halt.

Have a good weekend y'all xx