Hi everybody I had my first dr appointment on Wed June 25 with Dr. Merriman from Shreveport LA. It went great and my husband and I just loved him.:sad: They told me that all they were waiting for was the insurance approval on the surgery and that my insurance pays 100% (thank God) they should no something in the next week. :redface: Is there anyone out there that can give me any insight about the way Dr. Merriman does things like all the testing, is there a pre-op diet that has to be done if so how long and whats on it, whats the recovery time usually, how long before I can drive or go back to work. :confused2: I know these are question that I should have ask dr. M but I was just so nervous and excitted all at the same time. Oh by the way my surgery date is set for July 21 or the 22.

I'm amazed that you got surgery date a month after your first appointment. I'm a bit jealous actually :thumbs_up: I started my process back in December. I will see my doctor in two weeks at that time I will get my surgery date assuming my insurance company approves the operation. I hope it will be in August but I'm prepared for September. I had to do a 6 month insurance mandated diet program. My doctor requires two appointments with a nutritionalist, a psychiatric eval, a respiratory eval, a cardiology eval. My doctor will do an upper GI exam and I'll have to do a two week optifast liquid diet to lessen the fat around the liver before surgery. At the very least I'd think you'd have to do a liquid diet and see a nutritionalist before your surgery. Best of luck to you. :biggrin:

I am surprised too. For my insurance, it took me over a year to finally get approved. My surgeon requires attendance at a 3-hour in depth seminar before you can even make an appointment with them.

Once you get in the office, they give you a booklet to read and a huge checklist of all the criteria you have to follow such as a physch eval, nutritionist visit, 3 month supervised diet and exercise program, sleep study, cardiologist and stress tech, upper endoscopy and more.

It takes at least 3 months to get all the appointments and the reports in before they can schedule the surgery.

I have never heard of any surgeon scheduling the surgery before any of this has been done.

But, good luck to you anyway! My surgery journey started in February last year and I have finally been approved. I am having surgery on 7/11.

And, by the way, you have to be on a pre-op diet for 2 weeks prior to the surgery, so if you are planning surgery in July, you need to get some information from the surgeon.

Lisa