Can you all tell me some of the IMPORTANT questions that I should ask the WL doctor when I go and see him. I would appreciate any respones.

Thanks,

Sherri

Man, I have racked my brain and I can't think of a single question that you can't find an answer to on here. Anyone else?

For questions that you can't have answered here but you should ask your surgeon if you haven't already gotten the info:

* How many bands has he done?

* And for how long has he been doing them?

* What percentage of the bands he has done have had

-- erosion

-- slipping

-- other problems

* How many free fills do you get?

* What is their procedure if something goes wrong with the band during the first few months or first year?

* What is the success rate of weight loss of this surgeon's patients? (I know at the center I'm going to, they've got a 70% EWL average, which is higher than the national average -- this may be because of support services offered post op and/or careful screening of surgery candidates)

* What kind of followup care will you receive?

* What will the surgeon require of you post-op? (weekly or monthly support group meetings? weigh-ins? meetings with a dietician?)

* What is their policy on doing fills? Do they limit it to only so often? How do they decide when it's time for you to have another fill? (or is it your decision?)

* Does he require you to lose a certain amount of weight prior to surgery?

lol, yep, those are some terrific questions! I read the original question wrong ha ha

After I researched the backrounds of two highly professional & respected Doctors, It came down to one final question. I asked Dr.Pleatman(whom you can talk to here on LBT)

"Why should I pick you over Dr. so&so?"

Well he was a little takin back that I was asking him that (I think) But They were both qualified & I needed to know that he felt confident in himself to the point that he felt he was a better surgeon. He never taked poorly of the other Doctor & told me how he felt he was very well trained & whom & how he learned the procedure & how he will care for me after. I wanted him to basically sell himself to me & he did. I think it was very hard for him to talk so highly of himself. Most are not into selling only healing & fixing. He was the Doctor I finally choose & I couldn't have been more happy!

• Who does your fills?
  
  
  
• Do you ever see me again or is this in the hands of someone else once I've been banded?
  
• Who will monitor progress and offer suggestions other than message boards and support groups led by others who are banded?
  

Ok, I asked two offices these questions (and you can guess by my other thread which offices I asked). One could not answer all questions, but Dr. B's person answered them all in detail. Regarding the question "What is their policy on doing fills? Do they limit it to only so often? How do they decide when it's time for you to have another fill? (or is it your decision?)" What is the appropriate answer?

The answer I received was that if I hit a plateau the Dr would give a specific diet to follow for two weeks. If after those two weeks you still did not lose they would do a fill. The PA does the fills most of the time.

Is that good? Or bad?

I don't think that's such a bad policy. I personally would not pick a center that didn't embrace the philosophy that the right fill level makes the difference between the band working and it not working. Because everything I've heard from folks who have been successful with this points to the right fill level really making a difference. Some of the posts I've seen on here and on SmartBandsters about docs that make you wait months between fills even if your fill level is not working for you -- those are the docs to avoid.

I'm going to assume this is just their way of bringing you back to the bandster guidelines, in case it's not a fill that you need but rather to stop consuming liquid calories or eating soft, high cal foods. Now if you're already carefully following the guidelines and still not losing, going on the "diet" is probably going to be annoying. But at least it's only two weeks.

I am new, does anyone know anything about dr. minkin in st. louis MO? Camille