Scott F posted:My main recommendation for anyone choosing J-pouch surgery is to choose your surgeon *very* carefully. A good surgeon can give you your life back. A sloppy one can do incalculable harm. I flew 1,500 miles for my surgery.
Totally and 100% agree. My J Pouch was done in 1992 by Irwin Gelernt who at that time was considered the best J pouch surgeon in the USA and even though the surgery started being done late 1980s on a mass scale, he had done thousands by 1992. He did the first K Pouch surgery in the USA and was mentored by Dr Nils Kock who that surgery is named for.
Dr Gelernt is unfortunately no longer with us, but the group of surgeons he mentored is, and they are doing business as Manhattan Surgical Associates in NYC.
Every single GI I have been to praised his surgical work particularly in fashioning a small rectal cuff, which is crucial!
The other thing he did was to take military like control of diet and exercise regimens postsurgically. A lot of people post here asking about diet, Kegel exercises and exercise and even if the board existed in 1992 which it didn’t, I didn’t have to ask because he gave me the roadmap on all of that, on how to treat butt burn etc. His office was sort of a full service surgeon in terms of detailed pre and post op steps. He wouldn’t even cut me until I lost 10 pounds because I was deemed too heavy- I was literally just 10 pounds overweight.