i just don't understand

there are some things i just don't understand. i have been 300+ lbs for over 15 yrs and have had insurance that covered the surgery. i was depressed because i was obese & dr's kept giving more meds that made me gain more wt & i became more depressed. it was a vicious cycle. what i don't understand is that why didn't someone suggest weight loss surgery to me even 5 yrs ago? it got to the point that i had so many physical problems related to obesity that if i had waited another 6 more months i would have been either dead or in a nursing home. it took me 15 months to go thru all the clearances to finally have the surgery. is obesity such a touchy subject that alot of docs won't bring it up to patients? i just don't understand. tomorrow i will be 7months post op & have lost 126lbs. i have gone from a 6xl to 1xl. my whole life has changed. i don't even want to go back to my old life. where i live there is a bbq place i used to go to alot, now i take a whiff of the place & i want to barf! my surgeon dr. dunshee is totally awesome! he gave me a new lease on life and i will be forever grateful to him & his staff. thanks everyone for just listening to me and giving me support.

I don't know if this is true in your case, but some primary care docs are dead set against weight loss surgery. Many have gone so far as to refuse giving a referral to patients who asked for one.

thanks for the feedback. i have found that alot of medical professionals just don't know alot about weight loss surgery. they think its just the easy way out. i really think the medical profession needs to be better educated about obesity.

I have asked myself the same thing so many times! Why didn't someone suggest WLS to me years ago? It does bother me, but i try not to dwell on it.

If it weren't for a specialist I saw for sleep apnea, I wouldn't have known that the surgery was an option! I knew about the gastric band, but that seemed to be ineffective for a lot of people, and cause side effects, so I didn't want that. And I had heard of "getting your stomach stapled", but I thought that was just another kooky thing celebrities did. I assumed that, like everything else that was intended to help people lose weight, WLS was another gimmick that didn't really work.

I think most physicians don't really know much about WLS. To counteract that problem, I'm open about my surgery. (Not that I blame anyone who wants to keep it private.)

There's a gentleman where I work who is very large, probably 500 lbs. I have wanted to find an opportunity to casually mention my surgery to him. Unfortunately, I work in a large company, and I don't know him at all. I was trying to think of a way I could get into a conversation with him about anything, and it has been bugging me that, like me, he might not even be aware that surgery is an option. Fortunately, I saw him the other day for the first time in a long time, and he appears to have lost at least 100 lbs. I don't know if he had surgery, or found another way, but whatever he's doing is working. I feel so relieved for him.

I have had doctors that will barely bring up my obesity..or if they do you can tell they are nervous and don't want to offend me. Like my PCP. He's a great doctor..Spends alot of time with patients, is extremely thorough..He has been the doctor of my mother since the 90s...and my brothers and I naturally went to him as well when we turned adult age. Now the woman who was his PA for many many years is the exact opposite..and i used to dread going to her. Because i knew she would be blunt. And every appointment she always brought up weight loss surgery as if it was the first time telling me about it. I think it's just the personality of the doctor. It would be nice to have a middle of the road doctor who is blunt but not come off mean..but that is rare. I will say it's good to have a blunt doctor tell you what you need to hear sometimes.

No doubt it's because I am older, and been a nurse 40+ years...but I LIKE blunt...not MEAN...but blunt/to the point/no BS/bottom line/etc...I did Hospice nursing the past 15 years, and saw the ravages a poor lifestyle can do, to a human body (not counting the things that naturally happen, or with illness)...

Sometimes bluntness...said with kindness/good intention...is the best gift you can give someone. Especially if you WENT to the medical professional, SEEKING HELP...

I am NOT NOT NOT going to walk up, to an obese person, on the street/at the buffet line, and offer my "sage advice"...Oh, hell to the NO!!!

I wonder if I would have been receptive to the suggestion of WLS earlier in life? I don't know. Sadly, I feel that so many doctors still have such a great obesity-bias that it prevents them from being useful. Why offer WLS as an option when you know that someone who is obese is really "just lazy" and is therefore doomed to regain all the weight? I'm sure some doctors feel that way. Or feel that "if this patient can't lose weight through diet and exercise, why would that change after weight loss surgery?"

And, for some, I'm sure weight just is a touchy subject. My former PCP -never- mentioned my weight. On the one hand, I was grateful for that because I got tired of being told that every non-weight related ailment would be fixed by losing weight, or being denied treatment because losing weight would help (as though losing weight would fix the agonizing pain in my knee in the next week, right?). But on the other hand, I don't know what would have been more helpful.

I look at this, from a different angle. WLS has come a LONG, LONG way, in the last 15 years. Unless a person lives under a rock, or WAY off the grid, there is NO way they have not heard about WLS...It is on every other TV commercial, highway billboard ad, Facebook feed, etc...I dare say nearly EVERYONE knows SOMEONE, whose brother's cousin's hairdresser's baby mama's stepfather's second wife had "that fat surgery"

People have to step up, and be THEIR OWN best advocate. They CANNOT wait, for others to take care of them. TAKE OWNERSHIP, OF YOUR HEALTH.

YOUR body. YOUR responsibility

I heard about surgery about 12 years before I even thought about it for myself and even then it took me 3 different times starting the process to finally get it done. I'm very glad I waited because I was READY, so ready! If I had done it before, I would not have had the DS and I won't have been as successful. I think you need to be ready and 100% all in!

Liz