- Name: Heather
- Age: 26
- Surgery: Gastric Sleeve
- Surgery date: June 22nd, 2012
- Testimonial date: October 2nd, 2012
- Surgeon: Dr. Almanza
I am a wife and stay at home mother of two children, I found myself taking care of everyone else except myself. I am 5'5 and started realizing I was gaining more and more weight. I have bought every type of diet pill, to excersize DVD to nutra system food, and yes I would lose a little weight, but it always came right back. Then I started having health issues, and started having high blood pressure. Of course it was all to being over weight. If you looked at me people would just think I was a bigger woman, not over weight. My doctor informed me I was 70 lbs over weight and that's why I was having all the health issues. At my heaviest weight I weighed 209 lbs. I just cried because I weighed more now than I did 9 months pregnant. I talked to my doctor and told him what I was considering, he thought it would be a wise decision. I reasarched many local doctors, and found that insurance of course would not pay! At this point I did not this the surgery was an option for me. I had mentioned the surgery to a friend who is a RN and she told me about weight loss agents, she said that one of her sisters had used Dr. Almanza for her sleeve surgery, and was very pleased with the results and price. She also has a second sister who came after the first sister and had Dr. Almanza do a lab band reversal to a sleeve! After hearing there positive feedback I did a little more research to find several people I knew had used him as we'll. I started feeling like this is where I wanted to come, but was still hesitant. I made my mind up and decided to go forward, and have the surgery. My husband and I flew to CA the day before the surgery date, then the next morning we went into Mexico, where we came to a small what looked like shopping strip, I was a little nervous, thinking I thought this was a hospital. I was expecting it to be huge, but it was not. The facility was very clean, but just smaller than I pictured. Once we got sighted in a filled out paper work we did all of our test, and blood work, the nurse who did all of this was a very sweet lady, she made me feel at ease. We met the doctor for a short while. Then we were hooked up to an I.V the other patients and myself sat in a waiting room, until it was time for surgery. When I woke up I was laying in a bed, and boy did I not feel so well. I did have a little throwing up, but that is common. Gas strips became my new best friends! After day one I was able to leave and go stat at the hotel ticuan, which was very very nice. I would recommend staying there. By day three I felt soo much better, I walked a lot up and down the halls, it helped with recovery. On our flight home it wasn't as bad as I expected, my body felt very tired. The hardest thing was not to try to lift anything over 10 lbs, you don't feel at this point that you just had a major surgery. When we came home I weighed myself and I had already lost 16 lbs. of course that's from being on a liquid diet, just seeing the scales not say 209 made me think, it was all worth it. It has now been 3 months since surgery and have lost a total of 41 lbs, I feel so happy with the way my body is changing, I personal would like to say, if you've struggled all of your life with weight, do this it will be the best decision you've ever made. I knew what foods I was supposed to eat, I knew what excersizes I needed to do, but without this tool I couldn't control how much I was putting into my body. I would do it all over again. Plus I no longer an morbidly obsesse and no longer have high blood pressure, and most importantly I am healthy and happy with my self!
