I have to have an endoscopy done. I’ve had one before but I was wide awake. This surgeon requires patients to be under local anesthesia to do it (which is scary to me). Then he requires patients to take blood thinners via injections that they give themselves, a month before and after the surgery...which seems very strange to me. I know blood clots can be a problem but injections, seriously?
Lastly, this surgeons office doesn’t have a patient advocate for people to talk to and answer these questions.
Whitney, welcome to the group. But wow, your surgeon sounds super weird. You are essentially in the DC area, right? Seems like you should be able to have your pick of the best surgeons in the nation's capital.
When obesity is an issue, like when you're more than a hundred pounds overweight, a lot of care needs to be taken with procedures. But it just blows my mind that you would have to take blood thinners that you would inject yourself. That is unthinkable! Actually that's bullshort! If a surgeon said that to me I would be furious and I would flat-out refuse to do it. There are oral blood thinners that you can take and there's no reason on Earth why you should have to inject yourself. What the hell!?
Just to show you the contrast, when I had surgery 12 years ago I was a hundred pounds overweight, Maybe 120. All my surgeon did was weigh and measure me, and the nurse told me to chew each bite of my food at least 30 times and to try to lose a little weight before the surgery, which was less than a month off. In other words I went to see the surgeon, said I wanted the surgery oh, and the surgeon sent me home to prepare for the surgery without any of the bells and whistles they put you through these days. I did of course get handouts because of the way you have to go through eating phases following the surgery.
Everything else I did to prepare was stuff I could do on my own, like research vitamins and find the chewables and buy them. I remember sitting on my front porch eating my last cheeseburger, or what I thought would be my last cheeseburger. Turns out that once I was healed and after I lost 115 lb, I could have a cheeseburger once in awhile, although I could not finish one. This was a couple years after the surgery. And it remains so even up to today.
As to the endoscopy, how in the world could you ever have one while awake? I just had one in July and they put me under but it was the same sort of anesthesia you have at the dentist if they yank out all your wisdom teeth on the same day. It was very pleasant, didn't hang on afterward, and I didn't feel a thing. If you didn't have anesthesia you would be in terrible pain oh, I would think. Regardless, I really want to urge you to relax and have the anesthesia. You're going to have a general anesthesia when you have the surgery and that is a lot more complicated.
Anyway I agree with Annie that you should look for yet another surgeon. I can't believe the stuff you wrote, it is so bizarre and so anti-medical!
Of course we all have different experiences, unique to our own physiology. But gastric bypass surgery or gastric sleeve surgery is a science that has become as simple as a tonsillectomy. Sure, there will be some pain and there will be nausea and other After Effects because you had major surgery and your stomach is healing. But in my opinion it's really not worth worrying about.
Read this thread, and then go to Roy's profile and read all his posts that followed. He had a lot of fear and as it turned out he was scared for no reason whatsoever:
Worried0
The occurrence of bad effects from bariatric surgery is rare. Of all the 12000 people who have passed through this support group, very few of them have regretted the decision or had any significant trouble after surgery, including in the days following the surgery. Keep reading, hang out and consider seeing a better surgeon who wouldn't suggest you jab yourself with blood thinners for 2 months. I am really seriously horrified by that.
But perhaps the most frightening detail in your post is the fact that your doctor has no patient advocate in his office. What is up with that? Who is supposed to explain things to you, determine your level of insurance coverage, make referrals to other medical professionals you need to see related to your surgery, make appointments for you for your pre-op appointments and your meetings with the nutritionist and all that stuff. That shouldn't be done by a nurse or a doctor. It should be done by a person who understands human relations and manages them for a living. Is he just too cheap? Or is he afraid that his incompetence might be exposed if he had such a person in his office? Maybe he just can't get one who wants to stay. I don't know. I just think this is a weird situation.
