Cleveland Clinic Surgeons

I am ready to request a consultation at Cleveland Clinic to discuss j-pouch surgery (fortunate enough to be in Columbus, so travel won't be bad at all).

Who has worked with their surgeons and has a recommendation? I will also be posting this on j-pouch.org, but I didn't want to miss anyone who may not post over there.

Thank you in advance!

I am a patient of Dr. Ian Lavery and have my j-pouch scheduled for April. I was recommended him by a friend who recently had her j-pouch performed by him, to great results! He is the 3rd in line there I believe and trained under Dr. Victor Fazio who pioneered the j-pouch surgeries. I have only met with Dr. Lavery once, but have heard nothing but great things and I liked him very much at my first visit. Good luck!

Thank you, everyone. This afternoon I submitted to online appointment request form to meet Dr. Vogel. I am interested in lapro surgery if I can get it and I read he specializes in it and also a few people suggested him. I also agree it seems like there aren't any bad surgeons up there, so it should work out just based upon what kind of niche they prefer, etc.

I am excited and nervous about possibly going up there. It's really odd. The Rowasa is working at putting a stop to the bleeding (finally!) but I am still on 40 mg of Prednisone, too so who knows if that will hold true once I start to taper down. There is a little voice that asks if I really should even be considering this if adding the Rowasa will do the trick, but I don't know the answer to that. How long will it work? How bad will the next flare be? Do I really want to end up on biologics? My husband and I are of the mindset that I should go and get the information and have it all in my back pocket so I can think this through while I have time to decide rather than having my back against the wall in the midst of the next flare. I think that's the best approach right now. Why is this so hard? :-(