Just starting the process

  • Hi everyone. Wanted to introduce myself. My name is Kim, I've been active on another forum here. I have rheumatoid arthritis.

    I've been thinking about the surgery for a while now. I've had good and bad personal experience with this. Unfortunatly, we had a family friend who passed away from complications. She really didn't have the proper work up, and I blame that for the results. My sister had WLS seven months ago. She's doing FANTASTIC right now, but she was very ill initially with a bad infection.

    I had pretty much put it on the back burner until I went for my first visit to our new family doctor. He's the one that actually suggested it to me.

    I called my insurance company to see if there was coverage provided and was told yes, if medically necessary. I got a referral to the surgeon my doctor recommended, and actually got an appointment within four weeks.

    Things seem to be progressing fairly quickly for me and I'm hopeful sometime in the next few months to get this ball rolling.

    I'm going to be scouring every single post in this forum over the next few days and I know I'll have a bazillion questions.

    I do have one to start with.... has anyone here actually had the surgery that has rheumatoid? I'm pretty sure my rheumatologist is going to okay me, but I want to prepare myself ahead of time in case I'm facing a fight.


    Kim
  • well, hi there, kim... i don't know of anyone who has rheumatoid specifically, but just about every single one of us has osteo and all the MDs we've all seen have pretty much said that if it'll get the weight off and help us keep it off, they're on board with it.

    the only concern i can see is that since RA is an autoimmune process, you might need a really careful workup to make sure that there's no autoimmune processes going on in your digestive tract. i've known one or two people who had undetected Crohn's disease [not necessarily related to RA except that they're both autoimmune]. the roux en y causes problems for them, but i don't think that the lapband would be a problem. i just have no idea about the duodenal switch in these cases.

    sooo. ask oodles and oodles of questions... looking forward to seeing more of you -or less of you..
  • Thanks for the reply.

    My gut, seems to be the ONLY thing that works on me right.

    My family doc has given me the A-OK and says other than the RA, and well, the weight, that I am healthy as an ox.

    I've been giddy at the prospect of less of me...
  • I'm considering it right now too. I am at the lower end of the morbid obesity scale (which sounds a lot better than it is, I'm sure) but really feel the need to do this. I met with a surgeon at a large University here in Philly who had no deaths, hasn't had a leak in years, and is the nicest, sweetest surgeon. He's definitely the one.

    So, it's all just red tape, which is the struggle. Those insurance companies just love to help us, don't they?
  • so nice to meet you, amy. and i'll wave to you today as i'm on my way to philly in a few minutes. the Dali exhibit...

    more over the weekend....

    how's it going, kim?