First Step

[ShopMan]

After discussion with my wife and she agreeing I called my URO's office and have an appointment May 29. My own uro may not do the surgery only because I may not be comfortable with his experience. Having said that the nurse I talked to did say that my URO is the senior member of the group of physicians. When I asked her is she had any idea about how many he has done. Her answer was "a lot".

I just want to make sure I ask the right questions. Right now because of what I have learned here I am leaning towards AMS. In my research on the AMS system I discovered that my present URO is a consulting Dr. for whoever makes the AMS. I fount this rather reassuring but it may mean nothing.

So, I have made the first step. I had not hesitation in doing so. Any help from you guys will be appreciated.

Charlie

P.S. Are there any posts on this site from wives or lady friends abput their experiences after their mates have had the surgery?

[rlm1818]

Many of the top surgeons 'consult' for one or the other or both of the two manufacturers. Mine told me he consulted for both. I personally did not take much reassurance from that, as I suspect that in part this is a way for the manufacturers to pay the docs to be biased towards one or the other device.

As far as what's "a lot", Dr Eid told me that both manufacturers keep a record of every implant (required by the FDA). It is easy for them to do a data base search and tell exactly how many implants any doc has done in any time period. When I met with him and mentioned I had been to a local doc that did '5 to 10' per month, he laughed and said if I gave him the docs name he could call AMS (the local guy did only AMS) and he, Dr Eid, could tell me precisely how many the local guy actually did. No reason for any doc not to be able to tell you precisely how many they do. If they don't keep the records themselves, AMS and Coloplast do and they can get it from them.

As to wives and SO's posting here, that is officially discouraged and is pretty rare. But, lots and lots of guys have posted what they believe their SO's reaction is. Using the advanced search function you should be able to find quite a few of them. Generally, if the implant is done properly and works as intended, almost every guy as well as his SO (if he has one) are very happy. The ones who are not happy have generally had a problematic implant.

[ShopMan]

Thanks for your feed back. Much appreciated.