WLS and Fatty Liver Disease

Good day everyone.  I have started the process for wls but don't actually have my first appointment until late July.  I was recently diagnosed with an enlarged liver and fatty liver disease.  Has anyone had these diagnosis and had wls?  If so, was the surgery more complicated than usual?  What was your recoverly like and did the weight loss help with your fatty liver disease?  Thanks in advance for your help!!

They should just call fatty liver disease "consequences of a ****ty diet"...because that's what it is.  Most obese people, if they got tested for it, would show up with fatty livers.  WLS is a way to rectify that issue but so is eating a healthier diet, lower in processed food and fats.  

Typically, most surgeons will put you on a liver-shrinking diet a week or two prior to surgery to reduce the size of the liver.  This makes it easier for them to do the surgery.  Personally, my liver enzymes went back to normal and my scans showed a normal sized liver immediately after surgery.  

It's common, but everyone's liver is a little different. Talk to your surgeon. Every once in a while they need to do open surgery if the liver is too enlarged. In any event, the more weight you can lose ahead of time, the easier the surgeon's job will be, and the safer it will be for you.

Absolutely, fatty liver is a part of being obese. The liver will actually get fat running through it like the marbling in a steak. It's one of the first areas fat starts to develop when we overeat, it's also one of the first areas that loses fat when we go into the negative caloric ingest/burn state. Most surgeons will require you to lose 10-20 pounds before they will green light you for surgery. This is mostly to shrink the liver and the fat cells in the abdomen, for the sole purpose of having more room to work on you. Don't cheat on this phase. Even if the surgeon doesn't require it, require it of yourself. Your liver is flat out blocking everything they have to work on. They make an incision under your rib cage and insert a metal crowbar that lifts your liver up during the surgery, then they have to carefully trim fatty deposits that mingle up your liver and stomach. It's real delicate work. Regardless of which procedure your looking at, the top lobe of your stomach is called the FUNDUS. This piece is the trickiest part for your surgeon to work around because it's soooo far up top and the liver presses down on it normally so much. More often than not when leaks occur, they occur in this region, because they were so hard to get to, because the liver was enlarged. 

Prep your body months in advance for the surgery. Fatty liver is something we all pretty much had, but it comes in varying degrees. Don't play with it because if left unchecked can be the underlying cause of some of the more common risks. Lose 10-20 pound before surgery, and follow every bit of advice your doctor gives you. I would further recommend seeking a few opinions from different surgeons if yours doesn't want you to lose weight up front. Don't gamble with it, err on the side of caution.