6 Months of Research Later

What Clinic Should I Choose? 

Back in February this year, after another failed New Year diet attempt, I started looking into the gastric balloon. I felt like it was now or never, that it is something that I need to do in order to prove to myself that I can lose weight and become a healthier person. 

I looked into NOSC which handily has a clinic in Washington- about 20 mins drive from me. I also went onto a couple of other websites - Nuffield Health, Spire Healthcare and some others. I had decided earlier this year that I would end up going through NOSC, based mostly on the level of support provided. 

According to their brochure, they provide you with a dietician, personal trainer and weekly catch up calls with an advisor to check how you're doing. This sounded great to me because I'm useless but massively afraid of failure, so someone checking in on me would have to make me work harder. In the last 4 weeks however, I decided to go in a completely different direction. 

I joined 2 facebook groups which support people considering a gastric balloon, or those who have it fitted (or have had it removed). I found a vlog of a woman who travelled to the Czech Republic to get her balloon fitted. She reviewed 2 clinics, the one she went to and the one her friend went to on the same day. 

I then started digging further into this group and found that a large number of UK residents travel to Prague to get the gastric balloon fitted. 

The main driver for this is of course price. To get a gastric balloon in the UK costs in the region of £5,000 while with £100 return flights the same treatment in Prague costs in the region of €2,400 (approx £2,150) for exactly the same brand of balloon. The more I dug the more I was drawn to the idea of getting it done abroad - money is obviously a big pat of it, but also I spoke to people who had gone through my pre-chosen NOSC, and they said the support was not great - and didn't provide them with any additional benefit. 

Based on all of the above, I researched approx 5 clinics in Prague, and decided the one that suited my needs the best was Medical Travel Czech and this is who I decided to go with. 

Reasons I close MTC;

- They sedate you - Not all clinics do this. As someone who gags when I clean my teeth - finding out you could be sedated for the procedure made me feel a whole lot better about it.

- They fill the balloon with 650ml of liquid - some places let you chose your own volume, but as someone who eats a lot, I’m happy to take their recommendation of 650ml. Then I don’t have to worry about if it’s too much or too little.

- Communication - Having read and watched reviews of a number of clinics in Prague, it seemed like most people agreed this one had great communication. Out of all of the places I applied, these were the only ones to actually answer the questions I asked. 

- Price: The reason I chose Prague was price. This was not the cheapest of the clinics I looked into but the price difference was minimal, but I thought it was worth paying for better communication. 


- Recommendations- I had seen pictures of inside this clinic from users of the Facebook group I’m in, and it made me less scared of the unknown.