Has anyone been filled in New Orleans?

[Am1e]

I am going to New Orleans for a fill in May and wondered if anyone else has used that location. It is a fill centers USA. I am a bit worried about it because when I first looked New Orleans did not use flouro this was around March 1, 2010, so I was going to go to St. Petersburg, but then I was looking at fillcentersusa.com again around April 10th and it said New Orleans uses the flouro now. So I called to make my appointment. (This is my first fill ever). Anyway I was told they only make appointments one day a month, so I said I will take it, no matter what time it is at, but I prefer the earliest time available. Then they called me back and said that they start at 3 so I got a 3:00 appt. Anyway, this sounds a little weird to me. Only 1 day a month and it starts at 3:00????? I hope this goes well, and this is an experienced provider.

[AngieB]

I am going to New Orleans for a fill in May and wondered if anyone else has used that location. It is a fill centers USA. I am a bit worried about it because when I first looked New Orleans did not use flouro this was around March 1, 2010, so I was going to go to St. Petersburg, but then I was looking at fillcentersusa.com again around April 10th and it said New Orleans uses the flouro now. So I called to make my appointment. (This is my first fill ever). Anyway I was told they only make appointments one day a month, so I said I will take it, no matter what time it is at, but I prefer the earliest time available. Then they called me back and said that they start at 3 so I got a 3:00 appt. Anyway, this sounds a little weird to me. Only 1 day a month and it starts at 3:00????? I hope this goes well, and this is an experienced provider.

Just a few things to mull over. I actually prefer later apt, as my band opens up more in the afternoon/evening time.

Where I get my fills, they schedule time through the radiology department to use there equipment. That may be why only one day a month...not sure..

I am a believer in if you have any questions or unknowns....ask. So, if I were in your shoes, I would call the fill center and simply ask why they have no early apt available. Not to forget why they only can schedule one day a month. The fill center should have no problems answering those questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions, it's how we learn.

[Am1e]

Fill Centers USA - New Orleans

I went to the New Orleans fill center on May 12, 2010. I was apprehensive about going there because they only take appointments 1 time a month starting at 3 pm. This worried me that they were not experienced. Also, I was told they just started using flouro (in April I think). I saw Dr. Scharmaine Lawson-Baker. The cost was $349 for the first fill centers USA visit, and $100 to Dr. Baker for flouro. The flouro is not optional, but I wanted it so that was fine. The location and appearance of the office was fine. Dr. Baker was pleasant. I gave her my surgery report. She used the flouro only to locate the port, she does not use the barium at all. She got it in the port on the first stick. She told me she was going to put in .25cc and she would possibly go up to .5cc, and that was the recommended amount for a first fill. I said, "Even in an 11cc band?" She said yes. I was upset about this because it would make sense to me if I only had a 4 cc band to do small fills, but was thinking that would be nothing in my 11 cc band. She put some in and I felt absolutely nothing, she was using a 2cc syringe, so she put in all of the 2 ccs. I still felt absolutely nothing. She had me sit up and drink some water, still I felt nothing different. She said that was all she was comfortable putting in and I should try it out for two weeks and call her if I have trouble.

I called her office a little over a week later and told her I still felt nothing different. She made me an appt for Monday, May 24th, and told me to call fill centers and have them get an approval. I paid $165 to fill centers USA for the second visit. This time she wanted to do it at her regular office and there was no flouro machine there, but she said my port was easy to locate. I went to her office, she tried to locate the port for the fill, but after a couple of minutes, she asked if I minded going to the other office to use the flouro. She told me she would not charge me the $100 for the flouro because she really thought she would be able to locate the port. We went to the other office, only about a mile away and used the flouro to locate the port. She got it on the first try. She put in 1cc more and I still felt nothing. Then 2cc more, still nothing. Then 3cc more for a total of 5. I still didn't really feel anything different. I sat up and drank some water, it went down fine. The doctor and I decided we didn't want to put any more in. I said I would just try out 5 ccs for a while, because I didn't want to get too much. I left the office and drank a bottle of water, then a small bottle of Gatorade. It was fine. I do like the fill doctor in New Orleans, although I would have rather went back to OCC, because I feel that i would be more comfortable with them, due to their experience at doing fills. I just didn't have airfare money. Dr. Baker is a pleasant person and does seem to care about patients. Also, she is only an hour or so drive from where I live. I do believe this will cause me to have to get more fills than someone who goes back to OCC though, so in the long run, it would have been more cost effective to go back to OCC for fills.

I am going to schedule another fill, but I am considering driving to Roswell, GA Fill Centers location (8 hours away) instead of driving 1 hour to New Orleans. I have read good reviews about the Roswell, GA location, and I believe they use barium. Its just with all that I have already spent, that would cost me a couple hundred more by the time I drive there and get a hotel. So I may just go back to New Orleans.