I've been on vacation for the last week and a half, and have spent most of my time (since we are visiting my in-laws ) on dialup in my hotel room doing additional research on our favorite topic here.

I'm sure some people might think it's a waste of money, but I've decided to self-pay for the surgery in my home town (Austin, Texas) instead of going to Mexico. (With the surgeon I had originally worked with before my insurance denial.)

It's going to cost me $16,000 instead of $6,500 (of which I've already paid a $500 deposit that I'll lose) but I know my aftercare won't be an issue, and if anything goes wrong, I'll have a 5 minute drive to the doctor's office. And, if it takes 5 fills to find my "sweet spot", it won't be nearly the deal it would be if I had to go to TJ 5 times. (I was having a very hard time finding a doctor locally who would perform my fills if I went out of country.)

Fortunately, I was able to get financing for the extra $10k at a very reasonable interest rate, and I'm sure that it will pay for itself very quickly. You have no idea how much money I spent on sushi on a weekly basis =)

Dr. Fass will be doing my surgery. I'm not sure if anyone knows that name, but he's a very nice guy, and has quite a bit of experience. He was one of the doctors doing the procedure during the FDA trials, and I believe he assisted during Sharon Osborne's surgery =) (Not that that qualifies him, but I thought it was an entertaining notion anyway.)

I have my final pre-op appointment with Dr. Fass on Thursday, so I should get a date then.

Oh yeah, the other "up side" is that even after I do the private pay, I can continue the appeal process with my insurance company, and hope to get reimbursed, eventually.

Anyway, just thought I'd "update" you all, since I have no doubt this community will be a source of support for years to come. =)

Jonathan

Jonathan, I havent been banded yet myself... I hope everything works for you keep us posted.. Take Care

I recently went down to Tijuana for a weightloss procedure. Andres Betancourt is the patient coordinator there. Besides having the procedure, I had a great time! Stayed in a lovely hotel to recuperate, and Joel came and took myself and another family on a tour around the city to see the sites and to go shopping. They really take care of everything, it was so nice to have such a smooth trip. Andres arranged the flight, the hotel and the procedure. If you have any questions about this clinic, I strongly urge you to call Andres. He always returned my calls promptly and answered all of my questions I had about this procedure. In my experience, they are wonderful people that really seem to care about their patients. I have to go back down later this summer and I can't wait to see how much weight I have lost by then, and can't wait to see everybody again. If anyone has any questions about the clinic please feel free to contact me and I will try to answer what I can. I had looked into another doctor/clinic in Tijuana first, but was not happy with the answers to the questions I had. I'm so glad I found Andres and the Molding Clinic!:banana

Wow. I think it's amazing that so many people stick up for the Molding Clinic. What's interesting is that most of the people that do so have 1 post.

Imagine our luck! They stumble upon our site, find a post about the place where they had their procedure at, then they take the time to post about how wonderful Adres is (they always mention this -- he must be awesome) and how perfectly everything went there.

Most of them never post again. Again, how lucky we are that they just happen to find the posts about Molding Clinic and are able to offer us their (wonderful) experiences before leaving without ever posting another message.

Lucky lucky lucky are we!

Hey Jonathan,

Sounds like you are on the right path both in mind, in the physical sense and in the financial sense..We are right behind you in each sense of the word.

I post only what I truly belive, I have been there and have experienced the clinic myself. If I truly did not believe that what I have said was not going to be of benefit to anyone else I really would not have posted. I have looked through this site for some time and have never posted, but have chatted through email with others regarding different clinics to help me make my choice. So, this is what I am doing now. Hoping my experience will help others make the right choice for them whether it is to go to the clinic I went to or another. I am here hopefully to meet and make new friends, and to support those that have gone through what I have, and vice versa. I am not here to have posts ridiculed by someone that obviously does not know me, especially since as it was mentioned that it was my first time posting. Sorry if my opinion offended anyone, it was not intentional. I thought this site was about support and I only wanted to share how great I was feeling at this time in my life after my procedure, and I do truly feel that my experience was made more pleasant by those that assited me through this time at The Molding Clinic. I don't wish to get into any arguments or any sort of wars on this chat, but seeing as it was my first time posting, I thought a little background info about where I went etc may be helpful to somebody else.