How to do research online about bariatric surgery.
For those that do not know how to search, here is a quick primer.
Google is awesome. You can type in “Search Term site:fatgirlshrinking.com” and google will search that particular site. (in this case, mine :-) If you wanted to search a subset of a website, you would type (into google only) “site:obesityhelp.com/forums/vsg Search Term,” and it will only search through the VSG forum on OH (in this example).
You have two major friends in your research. The first is reading, the second is variety.
First, when you find out about surgery, read. Read. Read some more. Dont jump in asking questions, read all about your surgery, from many sources (variety), and then if you still have a question, you can ask.
The worst thing to do is to jump into an online forum (bariatric or otherwise) without having read a few days worth of posts. People who keep up with the forum get tired of having the same questions asked over and over, and thus may not answer the 5th question in 5 days the same way as they would have the first time it was asked. :-) By researching the forum and your question, you can see how it was previously answered. I do this with almost any online forum, if I cant read it for a few days, i’ll read back in the archives for a few pages before posting a question, just to see if it has been answered yet.
The second is variety. Get your information from a variety of sources. Check out the source of your sources. Know if a website is being run by someone with an agenda, or if it has been around for a while, or if the surgeon themselves run it, or if someone does it for them. There are many forums that have been around for years, these are typically better places than newer forums, or forums focused around one surgeon.
You also want to read a variety of testimonials about the surgeon. Go out seeking specifically negative information on your surgeon. (Quick note, I only found one negative thing about Dr. Alvarez as a surgeon, and it wasnt really a negative about him. He doesnt do surgery on those he considers high risk, so one individual was not able to be intubated, so Dr. Alvarez was not able to do the surgery. I also know of one individual who was told that he was at too high of a weight to do surgery. That individual has chosen another mexican doctor.)
I have read other very negative things about some of the other surgeons (like leaks that were not taken care of correctly), and some other minor issues with other ones. These may not have come to me if I waited for questions, but because I went to seek out information, I came accross these.
But, do your own research. :-)
