Way OT: Gastric bypass surgery

What does your doctor say, or are you doubting his/her advice?

I doubt everyone's advice. I'm not saying I reject that advice, but that I don't just automatically accept it. Cutting up a perfectly healthy organ in order to treat a mental health problem isn't medicine, it's quackery. However, even quackery is better in some cases than doing nothing, when obesity is life-threatening. And I use "nothing" as the alternative, because expecting any results from current mental health practices is a joke.

Yes,

Both my wife and I have had gastric bypass surgery. My wife is 4 1/2 years out and I am 4 years. She lost 140 and I'm down 125 lbs. A good resource is

or This is the type of bypass surgery we both had and so far it has been very livable and IMO the best choice between the different types.

Hope this answers a few questions.

Cleo

Are you the subject of this mental health issue?

I know the cashier in our cafeteria had the surgery. She was over 400 lbs. before the surgery, lost about a 100 lbs. and is back over 400 lbs. again. She moves around the cafeteria by leaning over a roll-around cart.

Wise to be cautious of modern medicine both mental and physical. Both have made great strides over the ages and done wonderful things for people. Unfortunately it appears that the corporate sales departments and maybe greed have skewed what is stated can be done for a person’s health. Talking in general here, not specifics. But just watch the TV ads.

I suggest you talk to people who have had this surgery, both the successes and failures. Perhaps there are some support groups out there where folks who have had this procedure could address you questions. Find a doctor that will present all the facts. Also, thought this procedure could involve major surgery; always wise to get the facts before having major surgery. I have known people who through diet, life style changes, moderate exercise, and will power have lost a LOT of weight and kept it off. For many people alleviating (or at least handling better) the stress in the life greatly helped. For some the process included counseling with a competent mental health professional.

I suggest you take the advise of Natalie and view this surgery as a part of a life style change and not a panacea in itself.

Good discussion...and NOT about politics! A couple more points -

1. Any surgical operation under anesthesia is a risk, from the standpoint of infection, adverse reaction to the anesthesia, etc. and gastric bypass is Major surgery. It should not be entered into lightly. And it's not for those individuals who are 50 or 60 pounds overweight...it's for the morbidly obese only. Patients having the surgery have occasionally died, so take that into consideration. Lots of folks have benefited by it, but again, as has been pointed out, it means a lifestyle change, and it is NOT the easy way to drop some weight. Good luck.

Absolutely, and so do doctors, but not everyone can. Candidates for bypass have usually been trying for many years

Natalie

I thought my stopping smoking was the one hardest thing I've done. Now, the idea of losing, say, 55 pounds, by diet and exercise just doesn't appeal to me. Nicotine products one can totally do without. Food, one can't. It would seem to be a minute to minute battle.

Awesome, thanks!

Yup - it's a matter of changing how much, rather than doing completely without. Tough, indeed. I tried to smoke when I was 13; it made me sick to my stomach, so I never tried again.

Thank God.

Natalie

Excellent advice, thank you.

Sonewhat similar scenaio here. I begged & begged for a puff of my father's cigarette one day when I was 9. My mother - amazingly - told him to let me try it. I took one puff, it tasted absolutely disgusting & I coughed, & that was that. Never had a desire to smoke after that, thank goodness. (Father, who smoked 3 packs a day back then, finally quit cold turkey one July 4th when he was in his mid-40's.)

Cathy

Oh, I have. I've lost more than 80 lbs through a moderate diet (2000 calories, some exercise) but I can't keep it up. It's like resisting the urge to scratch an itch. I can do it for a while, but eventually the itch (cravings) are pulling so strongly, and I'm so worn-out from fighting them, that I scratch (start eating junk food and too much food.) Once I slip, it's *much* harder to get back on the wagon so to speak. It's like, it feels SO good to scratch that itch, I have to keep on scratching.

I've attacked the problem relentlessly as a mental one, which as you correctly pointed out, it is (in my case at least.) I know I need to eat right. I know I'm eating myself into an early grave. I know I have to change. But I don't. I even tried seeing a therapist for a while, but the severe limitations of modern mental health make it a joke when trying to affect change to one's personality.

The surgery sets up a condition wherein I will suffer instant discomfort and possibly pain if I overeat by even one bite. This should help train the primitive part of the brain (which is the source of the itch) to stop or reduce seeking pleasure through overeating. That will give me a jump-start on making the basic changes I need to make, the most important of which is learning to get my daily pleasure requirements met through other methods such as ones involving physical activity or other healthful or constructive activities.

Yes. I've self-diagnosed this as a mental problem, because it seems obvious that it is, at least with me.

You hit the nail on the head! I can and have quit a number of things including smoking, but if I quit eating, I'll die of malnutrition. I've never heard of an addict getting his addiction "under control" without actually quitting, except for people who've had WLS, and even among that group there is a high failure rate. I'm not saying all overweight people are addicts, but I know I am.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember this, but here used to be a commercial that showed a teenage boy lighting a cigarette; the voiceover said, "Remember your first cigarette?" It then showed the boy coughing his head off, followed by the voiceover, "Maybe your body was trying to tell you something."

That only reinforced my resolve not to smoke - worked for me!

Now if I can only get my 19-year-old son to stop. :-( I can't believe he smokes, after seeing its effects on my in-laws, and hearing us naysay it all his life.

Lots of smoking on the hubby's side of the family, so I guess there's some truth to the genetic link to addictive personalities.

*shrug*

Natalie

Yea obviously it's a mental problem that our health care system can't deal with. I'm skinny, but it's not because I can resist the mental "itch" any better then you, it's because I don't have the mental itch to begin with, many people can't understand this simple concept (even doctors). I suppose since they can't see it or measure it, it doesn't exist.

On a side note, Pavlov accidentally discovered some interesting aspects into personality changes, he had a large number of trained "conditioned" dogs caged in his building (conditioned by rewarding all sorts of behaviors). But he found it impossible to uncondition these dogs no matter what he did (i.e., get rid of the itch). One day the building was flooded to the extent that the entire cage, except for few inches of the top, were under water. Understandably the dogs experienced severe trauma like you can't imagine. When the water receded all the dogs that survived were completely unconditioned. (Unfortunately, he spent the rest of his life giving nervous breakdowns to his dogs to learn more about this behaviour!)

So it seems some type of severe trauma is required, bypass surgery might provide that, I don't know, but sitting in a therapist couch ain't going to do it.

Even in my youth I just couldn't get myself to suck smoke into my lungs. Peer pressure was enormous. Being a non-conformist I resisted and won.