Hi All,

I have the Sleeve about 16 months ago and had an overall good result, lost about 55% of my excess weight. I was pretty surprised though that I really never had much feeling of restriction after the surgery, never got sick, never felt overly stuffed, and my hunger only decreased moderately. I kinda felt like most of my weight loss was really attributable to the lifestyle changes I made associated with the surgery, although it definitely helped some.

I recently was diagnosed with an inflammatory spine disease for which the only real treatment is aggressive weight loss and moderation of inflammation. I'm considering having a revision of the sleeve or conversion to a bypass and would really like to find someone great in the Los Angeles area. My previous surgeon was fine operatively but didn't really listen to me and I'd be hesitant to discuss my current situation in that setting as this feels like a really big decision given my recent diagnoses.

I'm considering Dr. Feiz and Dr. Dorwaiswamy. Any other great people I should consider who are great surgeons but also willing to spend a minute listening to concerns?

Another good one to talk to would be Dr. Ara Keshishian in Glendale. If you need a revision, he would most likely go for a DS rather than a bypass as that is more his specialty. But since the DS uses the sleeve as its basis, that means that he has been doing them a lot longer than most bariatric surgeons, so if there is something wrong with your sleeve, he would be the one to be able to fix it rather than revise it to something else.

By your description, it sounds like your sleeve may not have really been done correctly, so a correction rather than a revision may well be the answer. Typically, a revision from the sleeve to the bypass doesn't do a lot to correct a poor weight loss problem as the sleeve and bypass are so similar in their metabolic strength; if one really needs a stronger solution, the DS is the way to go, but it sounds like a simple resleeve may the the answer for you.

Good luck,

I’m looking as well. I moved to LA from NY so I want to find a local doc. Who did you end up seeing?