My name is Tony. I had ulcerative colitis for years as a young adult. In 1998 I had my colon removed and was left with an ileostomy external pouch. In 1993 I had a BCIR internal pouch built and it did great for 25 years. In 2018 my valve went bad and the pouch started leaking. I found only 1 doctor that performed BCIR surgery and thank goodness he was in my home state of California. The repair lasted 1 year and had to undergo surgery again in 2019 and in 2020 it started leaking again. I scheduled another surgery for May 21st of 2021. 2 weeks before my surgery my Dr informed me he was retiring and could no longer do my surgery. He’s the last of the BCIR surgeons I know of. His name is Dr Don Schiller, a wonderful Doctor and will truly be missed. Is there any other Doctors out there that perform BCIR surgery?
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Tony,
Please come join our group at Poucherlifestyle on Facebook. (no infidelity with this site...it is still and always will be the best site for information on all kinds of pouches) We are all continent pouchers. Either BCIR or K pouchers.
Many of us have gone from one to the other. Some have had j pouches then k pouches and finally a BCIR...they can give you the list of surgeons who still operate on or fix both kinds of continent pouch.
Yes, there are still a few surgeons in the U.S that do or fix continent pouches. You may have to have yours converted to a k pouch if it cannot be fixed as a BCIR (they keep the pouch, just flip it and create a new valve). But until they know what is wrong with it they cannot say.
Sharon
Thank you skn69 for your response. I’m not on FB at all or I would join that group. Dr Schiller has found me a doctor that can do this surgery, I have an appointment with him next week. We’ll see how the visit goes and will find out what he says. Thank you again. If I decide to get on FB I will definitely join.
Thank you Sharon
Good luck with your new surgeon. You may also want to check out our continent ostomy forum, K-Pouch Korner.
https://www.j-pouch.org/forum/k-pouch-korner
Jan 
You are very welcome Tony...good luck and please keep us posted on this new doctor...we are all interested!