Hi everyone,

I recently decided to have bariatric surgery and I am new to the forum. Does anyone have advice on how to choose a surgeon? Beyond the obvious criteria (insurance approved) what process did you go through to find the one? Just to give some background, I am originally French and even after 4 years in the USA I struggle to understand healthcare and medecine in the USA. Everytime I visit a doctor I feel like I am talking to a used cars salesman, peddling costly procedures before he/she even listens.

I live in Manhattan, NY so I think there are good and bad options. I don't trust vitals and healthgrades anymore but as I don't have family here and few friends, my information source is very limited. I have insurance (Aetna) which covers bariatric surgery (hoping for the VSG) but for me an Institute of Quality or whatever distinction is no proof that I have a serious through doctor in front of me.

Any suggestions? Thank you!!

Edited July 1, 20188 yr by Assya
be more specific

On 07/04/2018 at 20:57, Assya said:

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! I will look them up. How are you doing post surgery? I suppose you're on a liquid diet right now? How is that going?

I’m glad that you’re going to look into them!

Post surgery has been good. Not going to lie, the first day it felt like I got punched in the stomach a couple hundred times but then around Day 2-3, the pain was manageable for me (my main struggle was the nausea over the course of the first week). My doctor prescribed me pain and anti nausea meds and I didn’t end up using the pain meds because I didn’t feel like I needed it, but I know everyone is different.

As for my diet, I’m currently in the puréed stage right now and will move on to soft foods on July 18.

For a break down of Mount Sinai’s post op diet:

Day after surgery (Clears): Water: they try to get you to drink about 4 little medicine cups full of water in the first hour and 8 in the second hour. If you can keep that down with no problem, then you are sent home.

Week 1(Full liquids) Starts when you get home from the hospital: So during that time period I was drinking broths and protein shakes. It was a struggle for the first couple of days but I was able to get into the swing of it around Day 4-5.

Week 2-5 (Puréed foods): I’m in this stage now. So far so good. I struggle to get to my daily water (64 fl oz) and protein (60g) goals for the day. I usually eat a Light and Fit Greek yogurt (12g of protein) and add some unflavored protein powder (Genpro: 30g a scoop) for breakfast but I can only take a few spoonfuls in a sitting and may or may not come back to it. For lunch, I periodically drink a Premier protein up until dinner. And then for dinner I have a cup of pureed soup.

Week 6-9 (Soft foods): Haven’t got to this point yet, but I’m looking forward to it because I miss chewing :)

Week 10-onward (Slowly reintroduce ‘regular’ foods)

Overall this process has been good so far. I was really nervous right up until day of surgery thinking the worse. But afterwards, it turned out way better than I thought it would be :)

I have 2 friends that had a sleeve and a bypass, I spoke with my family care doctor and went to 2 different WLC before I decided which surgeon to go with. I also spoke with my insurance company and decided I would go with a center of excellence which was not required by insurance. The hospital I will be having surgery in has a very good Bariatric area with 8 rooms that are designed for WLS patients. The nursing staff is trained in bariatric issues and has a great rep around my area. That’s how I decided where to go.