How do you start the process to even start narrowing down surgeons to use?

i have gone to make me heal and besides finding it hard to navigate that site, i have not been able to find many Dr.'s close to me that have enough ratings or high enough ratings to even consider.

I'm not sure how far out is too far out to travel (to go back for checkups....traveling back and forth in the begining seems like it would be tiresome and painful to go a couple of hours back and forth)

I live close to the Texas border in Louisiana. I have family in New Orleans, but that's about 4 hours away. I'm about 2 hours away from Houston.

I still have a ways to go, but want to start doing my research now so when i get to a point that i want to start my consults, i know who i want to go check out.

I want to have a TT and BL (not sure with or without implants yet), and lipo if needed all done at the same time.

I have about 23-28 pounds to get to where i will be ok with my body, but i would like to lose 33-38 pounds to be at my OMG goal. when should i think about going to check out Dr's?

THANKS!

I am planning on using Dr Simeon Wall Jr from Shreveport. I have a friend who went to him and has had good sucess and my cousin also works for Dr. Wall in his recovery center. I have already started my consultation 6 months after my lapband but do not plan on having the surgery until I am about 1 year out from the Lapband.

Hi:

I started by asking my Primary Care Physician and LapBand Surgeon if they could recommend anyone. They actually recommended the same Plastic Surgeon. If you have a LapBand Support Group you might want to ask there because you'll probably get recommendations of your local plastic surgeons.

Best wishes to you in your LapBand and Plastic Surgery journey.

I love my band!

Sue

I started by googling "bariatric surgeon St. Louis" see what came up, and then investigated the ones who came up.

Once I had a few names, I read reviews about them on obesity.com and here, what other patients said. You can come to a site like this and use the SEARCH function to search for that name.

I also made sure the surgeons I was considering carried the "Center of Excellence" seal for bariatric surgery.

I learned how long the surgeon had been doing these procedures, which procedures he had done, how MANY of them, where he went to school, etc.

I did switch surgeons after going down the path for months with one, who was an excellent surgeon by all information. But his office was disorganized and I wasn't getting follow up from them as I needed. This ended up in them submitted for insurance approval before we had met the insurance requirements, which was very upsetting for me. That was the last straw - I switched and the new office was wonderful - great TLC all along the process.

And now I'm banded - 2 days in.