please help me

I have been overweight all of my life. I have been made fun of and called names. I have joined weigh****chers 5 times and lost 50-100 lbs. But, I have been unable to keep it off. All of the other choices, slim fast, etc. were also tried. I am considering bariatric surgery, but am frightened of dying on the operating table. All my life all my surgeries have had complications. Should I go back to weigh****chers or try my luck? Since I am almost 60, I feel that my days are numbered for having surgery. Please give me some help.

Hi Betty, I think everyone can relate to your concern about dying. I know I have always had that fear with surgery except when I had my gallbladder out. I really felt like I was dying with pain before they yanked that sucker out. Funny (not at the time) when I woke up in the recovery room I let out a Thank-you God I made it. Then I started having trouble breathing. Hyperventalating (sp) I remember them calling resporatory (sp) to come in and everyone moving around like crazy. All I could think of was damn I made it through the surgery and now I am going to die anyways. I have never had trouble with breathing and it scared the hell out of me. Back to your question, have you talked with your PCP or a surgeon? The decision has to be yours and yours alone. Go to some support meetings. Ask your doctors lots of questions. And if you believe, pray about your decisions. I wish you luck. JC

Hi J. Just wanted to let you know, I am 59 years old & just had DS surgery on May 2nd in Lafayette, La. I had a lot of co-morbidities that was slowly killing me. I decided to go ahead with this surgery even tho death was a risk. I was willing to do this because I felt without it I was definately going to die. My thought was that I would not go until God was ready for me, wheter it was during surgery or sitting in my living room. My advise to you is to research each form of WLS and talk to people who have had one of these surgeries done. Attend seminars & get as much info as possible. Only you can make these decisions & I wish you Godspeed in your search. As of today I am down 67 lbs. & no more diabetes & feel like a million. Hope this is some help to you. God Bless. Donna Butler

Hi!!! I'd like to invite you to visit the over 50's forum here at ObesityHelp. Great group of folks there...many in thier 60's. http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/amosforums/over_50/ Best of luck to you! (((HUGS))) and prayers, Toots

Betty, I hve the same qualms sometimes and I am 45! But you have to weigh the odds of how much longer you have on this earth (and if you're OK with the lack of quality because of MO) and if it's a worthy tradeoff for the risk of dying from the surgery. A successful surgery will give you a raging quality of life, gaining back some of what you have lost over the years. Risk is directly related to two things - your health condition to start (same risk for every major surgery) and the doctor's skill. Find the doctor with the absolute best record for your type of procedure - and experience counts. Get someone who has done hundreds of those surgeries. I don't recommend wasting another day of your life on something that has never worked in all your life. There's an old saying that goes, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Although a lot of people lose a lot of weight by diet and exercise alone, Only 4% of people who have been MO ever lose enough weight to get healthy and then keep it off over two years, and only 2% keep it off over 5. We have metabolic issues or we'd have never gotten so big. The odds against our ever overcoming them with nothing but diet and exercise are astronomical - greater even than the odds of dying on an OR table when we have an excellent surgeon. We need medical intervention in those issues to deal with them. Since you are a newbie and have expressed that you have problems getting the weight off and keeping it off, I'd also like to encourage you to be sure and check out ALL of your options for bariatric surgical procedures. Too often, people think that wls means either RNY or lap band, and those are just some of what is available. When I first began researching, it was after I'd already decided for sure taht I want wls but quickly became dismayed when I saw that SO VERY MANY of the people who'd had it were regaining or had to stay on very strict diets to keep from it. Well, so much for permanent weight loss - and if I could live on a very strict diet, I'd never have regained all the weight I've lost over and over again on every program imaginable. Then someone turned me onto a procedure called duodonel switch. It has fewer post-op complications with the stomach because it leaves you with a smaller, but fully functional stomach and no stoma or blind stomach pouch. Because stomach digestion works as normal, DSers don't dump. The missing portion of the stomach (the rounded part is cut away) produces a hormone called ghrelin that makes people feel hungry - get rid of that and a lot of the hunger issue is dealt with. Some will tell you that there are more problems with adhesions with DS and that you'll have unending horrible gas and diarrhea, but researching it rather than just listening to scare stories will show that there is not one iota of truth in either. The adhesion issue is exactly the same as for all abdominal surgeries, and the gas and diarrhea issues are dealt with by avoiding things you can't tolerate - they are exactly the same issues as those with RNY have and no worse. But best of all, you don't have to live on a terribly restricted diet to lose weight and keep it off. RNY, lap band, VBG, all of those require severe restrictions and some groups of foods are totally off limits forever. You will hear a lot of people say that they can have things like sweets, fast food, and carbonated drinks and it doesn't bother them, but when people start complaining that they are regaining (and, like I said, MANY MANY MANY do) they will be advised that they have scuttled their surgery by not avoiding these things like the plague. I like food of all kinds, so that's a real problem for me. With DS, your restrictions are as follows: PROTEIN FIRST - get 100 grams a day whether you eat anything else or not. After that, add some complex carbs in the form of leafy or other non-starchy veggies, and if you still want a little bit of something sweet sometimes, or if you want carbonated beverages, you can have them. So if the gang goes out to DQ after a game and has an ice cream, you can have a small cone with them and not have to feel guilty or like you have ruined your 'diet' - DS doesn't require a 'diet' at all, just everyday, normal healthy eating like people who don't get obese are allowed to do. You don't have to count every calorie. YOu don't count fat grams at all, as DS prevents 80% of fat absorption and fat is unrestricted (which sure makes all that meat you have to eat taste better!) So be sure and do all of your homework, and choose a surgery type which is right for you. I have a terrible problem with following a severely restricted diet. Any diet that puts severe restrictions on both carbs AND fat - and then still sometimes restricts calories to the point where you are still hungry is a severely restricted diet. That is why I chose DS surgery, although there are also very good reasons to choose it from a health standpoint, the lifestyle difference is what hooked me at first, and the continued good health is what reeled me in. Search the OH site thoroughly - it's a great place to get more information about every possible procedure. If you're interested in other stories about DS, start here and then go to the message boards: http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/surgtype-forums/DS/ Denise