To use FLOURO or not

[stormy]

The place in Olympia

WASHINGTON - Shelton & Olympia/ Dr. Neal & Dr. Ogle/ Pacific

Bariatric Surgery, PLLC 866-426-4142 or 360-426-4142

Fills for non-patients is $350 $150 for facility. Always done under fluoroscopy. 200 Lilly Road, NE, Suite C-2, Olympia, WA

when I checked into going there it's either $270 or $370 for a fill with fluro... by the time you factor in gas, travel time and cost of the fill you could almost go to Tijuana

That is insanely high, I wonder why. How crazy

[trulytangledgrl]

I have all of my fills done by Dr. Christine Ren at NYU program for surgical weight loss in NYC and only pay a $20 copay each visit. Dr. Ren is highly experienced and has done thousands of fills. I have never once had any doubts about seeing her, even though she does not use fluro. As some others here have mentioned, if there are ever any doubts in your Dr's mind, they will generally order an esophogram (barium swallow) so that they can double check to see that the band/port are both okay and nothing is amiss.

The first time I saw Dr. Ren, I had an esophogram done and she was able to pull it up on the computer and show me that everything was normal. She showed me my stomach with the completely intact band, the line leading from my band to the port, and I saw the port too and was able to feel much better knowing that it was normal and not tilted or flipped.

Dr. Ren has devised a simple list of questions that she asks to determine how much of a fill you need. She has a chart with yellow, green, and red - the goal is to be in the green! Yellow is when you are feeling hungry between meals, able to get down more than 3/4 cup of food, able to easily eat white meat chicken, easily able to eat bread/starchy foods. Green is optimal for weight loss - in the green you are feeling restricted, but not overly restricted. You are not able to eat more than 3/4 - 1 cup of food, you are not easily able to eat any starchy foods or white meat chicken/steak, etc. Red is the total opposite of this. Red means you are over filled- not able to keep down solids and some liquids, frewuently PBing/sliming or even regurgitating. SO... As you can see, her method is very sound, and so far I have been THRILLED with her and am so happy I have such an experienced/knowledgable Dr. available to me.

Its really a matter of personal choice - I have peace of mind knowing that if I ever want to, I can have the esophogram done and Dr. Ren can check to make sure everything is okay with my band. At the same time, I don't have to pay the outrageous fees that other Dr's charge for fluro/office visits/etc... while I would LOVE to go back to TJ, I just can't afford it. Its an extremely long flight coming from the eastern USA, I have to take days off of work, flights are outrageous, hotel fees, etc...

[HopefulFuture]

Carrie I thinkI am gonna call dr. Ren for my first fill sometime in November. Hopefully before Thanksgiving so I dont make a pig out of myself. I havent even got banded yet and I am so far ahead of myself LOL. Has anyone made appoints with their fills Dr(other than OCC) before being banded?