Carson D. Liu, MD

I met Dr Liu in 2006, at that time he was known for performing more than 800 Lap Band surgeries, giving him the most experience in the area, maybe even nation wide. Dr Liu is gentle, caring, patient and has a wonderful sense of humor. I was blessed to have had the experience, and couldn't imagine using any other doctor. If you have choices and you choose a lap band for your weight loss surgery, you won't want to miss the opportunity to meet Dr. Carson Liu and let him do the honors. It will change your life for the better, and you will be amazed with the progress and results. I loved the experience and will forever be thankful to God and Dr. Liu.

Sandy
Updated on 25 Sep 2014:
I lost 100+ pounds, found an incredible amount of energy and the desire to leave the house and go do things. The LapBand is very gentle surgery (compared to the sleeve or gastric bypass) recovery time was a matter of a day or two and I feel incredible.

On September 12th, 2012 I had a routine Lap Band surgery with Dr. Liu.

24 hours later I was rushed to the emergency room in extreme pain. My stomach had been perforated and I needed emergency surgery to remove the Lap Band. I was in the hospital for 8 days and it took months to recover.

My follow ups with Dr. Liu were disappointing. He forgot about that near life ending incident and asked me how my lap band was - clearly he had forgotten. Many times I sat in my car after my appointments with him crying. I stopped seeing him after all he did was offer diet pills.

Four years later after suffering from very bad depression from my failed lap band I set out to start the process over again. I went to the bariatric surgery center at Cedars Sinai. I saw the brilliant, wonderful Dr. Miguel Burch who understood all my fears, stress and concerns. Unfortunately due to the policies at Cedars - I was not eligible for surgery there on account of my BMI (still obese, just not obese enough).

During the 3 month prep evaluation at Cedars, I was very emotional that I had lost 4 years and paid cash for a procedure with Dr. Liu - I never asked for the money back or sued (which every person under the sun told me I should have). I went to go see Dr. Liu as I needed closure and felt the least he could do was refund me the money for the new procedure. He told me he would do everything to make things right, promised he would contribute to the new procedure and even told the new surgeon he would.

Now as I have my surgery date with a Cedars recommended surgeon, I sent him an email with the surgery invoice as promised, as discussed.

He sends me back a terse email saying I am threatening and demanding money from him - really? That's how you handle this? Why make a promise like that and then say you are being threatened?

I guess in Dr. Liu's world asking for something you have been promised is considered "demanding" and "threatening".

Now he sends me the name of a psychologist... Gee thanks Dr. Liu - that would have been really nice if you were that helpful in the months after you had to remove my lap band so I wouldn't die. He says I should NOT get another procedure done because of my BMI (even though I have been told otherwise by the 3-4 top bariatric surgeons in LA). He is clearly reneging on his promise by saying I am not emotionally stable and he cannot condone a surgery. And says I am demanding and threatening. If I were that kind of person I would have sued him a long time ago. It was about doing the right thing- which I think is what life is about, which he promised to do and is now taking back.

I hope nobody else has to go through what I went through. It's been absolute hell.

I wish I had not lost four years of my life feeling abandoned and botched by his procedure.