Increase Rate of Suicide after Gastric Bypass

 I know...it's frustrating.   And if the PDR or official prescribing guidelines for a product set a limit...it takes a knowledgable doctor to go against the grain.   I often talk to my doctors about prescribing patches or liquid versions.       If I have dental work or something, I tell them the tablets make me nauseous (which is actually true) and ask for liquid pain meds which is what I was given after my surgery.    I don't know if that is true for you, buy my surgeon prescribed liquid Roxicet.    

Why does that change after 12-months?    But what about all the people on, like you mentioned, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, heart meds, blood pressure meds, etc.     Are they liquid forms of those?    Often not, unless you have a compounding pharmacy and can get it specially made.   And lately so many are time released.    That can't be in a liquid.   I couldn't tolerate the last time-released medication I was prescribed....it made me so sick.

But for me...the most important thing is how much of my multi-vitamin or all the calcium supplements is being absorbed?    

With this surgery only growing in popularity, these things need to be understood better than they are now.     It's sad to say, but perhaps with this issue with Congressman Jackson, maybe it will garner some serious attention.

Please stay in touch and let me know if you find out anything new.

I write a blog www.itsnotaddictiontransfer.wordpress.com and I think this issue be my next post.

Also at FaceBook:  "Its Not Addiction Transfer After Gastric Bypass Surgery"

ASIDE FROM THE MALAPSORPTION FROM CERTAIN MEDS NOT TREATING OUR PROBLEMS PROPERLY SO MANY THINGS SHOULD BE PUT INTO PLACE FOR LONG TERM TREATMENT AFTER BYPASS.

ILL TELL YOU MY STORY.    I WENT FROM ONE OF THOSE GIRLS PEOPLE USE TO SAY MY GOD SHE HAS SUCH A GORGEOUS FACE, YOU KNOW THE GIRL WITH ALL THE BOYS THAT ARE FRIENDS BUT  NO BOYFRIENDS.      WELL LETS JUST SAY THAT AFTER SURGERY I WENT FROM A 2 TO A 10 ON AND APPEARANCE SCALE.   I REMEMBER WALKING INTO A BAR AND HAVING THE BAND STOP TO SAY "O MY LOOK AND THIS BEAUTIFUL CREATURE WALKING THROUGH THE DOOR"   I WAS ABLE TO BE WITH WHOMEVER I WANTED TO WHEN I WANTED TO MEN THAT LOOKED LIKE MODELS MOVIE STARS AND YES WAS A HUGE EGO BUILDER BUT ALSO MAKE ME A LITTLE BITTER.   I DID BECOME PERMISCUOUS BUT LUCKILY NOTHING HAPPENDED TO ME FROM THAT.  THEN STARTED TO DRINK AND PARTY MORE THAN I SHOULD HAVE AND EXPERIMENTING WITH OTHTER THINGS.   ANYWAY WHAT I AM GETTING AT IS ONCE YOU HAVE THE SURGERY YOUR PROBLEMS ARE NOT SOLVED THEY JUST START.  I DO THINK IT IS ABSOLUTLEY NECESSARY TO HAVE SOME KIND OF THERAPY FOR YEARS AFTER YOUR SURGERY AND LOSE WEIGHT.     WHEN WE WERE FAT WE ATE FOR A REASON.   YOU TAKE THE ABILITY TO EAT AWAY AND WE ARE GOING TO FIND ANOTHER VICE OR ADDICTION TO TAKE AWAY THE PAIN THAT MADE US OVERWEIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE.   YOU MAY TURN TO MEN, DRUGS, DRINKING SHOPPING WHO KNOWS.   CONTINUOUS THERAPY IS AS NECESSARY TO YOUR LIFE JUST AS CONTINUOUS FOLLOW UP WITH MEDICAL DOCTOR.

DOES ANYONE AGREE OR HAVE A STORY TO TELL?

I have a daughter who had it and her whole personality changed.  In the years since she has had it she has had so many complications with other body organs and is now using a bypass for urine and bowels.  I cannot begin to tell you how her way of living has changed.  It has hurt so many people in so many ways.  The only place she is safe from doing bad things to herself and others is in an institution.  There is no doubt in my mind that the gastric stapling changed her brain chemical balance and has had devastiting effects on her life and those who love her. 

I am so sorry to hear this.   Did she have the Roux-en-Y?    I don't think people realize just how devastating this is for the loved ones as well.     If family and friends were educated on the psychological and behavioral signs and symptoms of malabsorption such as agression, depression, anxiety, insomnia, then perhaps these issues could be caught sooner.    There has been focus on the increase in alcoholism, but far less attention paid to the increase in mood disorders.     This is very concerning because typically serious mood disorders are usually diagnosed early in life (late teens or early twenties).   So to have gastric bypass patients suddenly developing these serious issues should be a huge red flag to surgeons and psychiatrists.   Unfortunately, the bariatric field has been eager to place the blame on the patients for developing psychological problems after surgery.   Often, they just attribute it to the drastic life changes that can accompany significant weight loss, rather than dig deeper to see what is really causing these problems.   

I don't know if you've experienced this, but when my ex-husband was in a treatment facility, in spite of all the information about malabsorption and gastric bypass I provided, I could not get the doctor to even prescribe him a multi-vitamin, much less extra calcium, iron, B-12, Omega-3 fish oil, magnesium.....etc.   But they were mighty swift to give him heavy duty mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety meds, all of which only temporarily mask the problem.

I am so sorry your daughter is going through this, as well as you and everyone who loves her.    My advice is to just keep trying to find knowledgable doctors who are familiar with the behaviorial and psychiatric problems caused by long term malabsorption.   For myself, I found a doctor who gives me IV nutrient injections.   I do this either once a month or a few times a month depending on how compliant I've been with my supplements.   But it is still a constant commitment.

Best wishes to your daughter.

One of the things that is often overlooked, even by those of us in the mental health profession, is the prevalence of people believing that surgery is going to solve so many of their problems or things that they are unhappy with in their lives (because they believe that the weight is somehow at least partially to blame for those problems), and then becoming even MORE depressed after they have lost the weight and discover that the relationship issues, problems at work, etc. actually had nothing to do with their weight.

There have been two studies that I am aware of that show a decrease in levels of depression during the first year post-op when people are losing weight, and then a gradual increase in the depression over the following year so that depression levels closely match the pre-op level by the time someone is two years post-op. There are a number of things that may contribute to the increase in depression (body image issues because of excess skin, lack of full absorption of meds, unmet expectations, etc.), but disappointment that being thin doesn't automatically mean being happy is a BIG contributor.

Lora

May I am 9 years post GBS.  I never had any addiction issues of any kind.  I went to alcohol rehab 3 years ago..did not work.  need help and advise

I have been in therapy for nearly the entire time i have been post op, 3 years in april/14. i was instructed to go by my surgeon because of anorexia. i was in the 130s and more depressed than i had ever been before as a pre-existing depressed person. when i went to therapy, i was given more tools for self-acceptance and healthy mindfulness. i believe this is the biggest tool that goes ignored post-op. THERAPY. 

 

how can any of us know what our bodies will do? i thought i would be thin, which i was, but not like a thin woman who was small her whole life. i was 270 pounds, then 130. my body looked like the elderly with skin folds, saggy boobs and stretch marks. it still, to this day, bothers me that no images of loose skin are celebrated, much less openly revealed. google loose skin and it's all about surgery AGAIN... so this idea of a thin happy lean life was a lie. for SURE it was a lie. in this weight loss community we don't have support or loose skin celebration.

 

i have a popular youtube channel and i try to get people to return to their mind and heart. meditation and spiritual growth, coupled with a shrinking body is hard at best- without it? jesus, i would have been another dead statistic. everyone just sees the weight loss. the outside. the clothes. even, and this may be the saddest part, my bbw friends only came back to being in my life after i took a active and very loud stance against the surgery.

 

does it save lives? heck yes. can it also kill a person? yup. gastric bypass changed all my meds, wellbutrin literally did not work the week after. i still have very serious depression, but i maintain an active and healthy view that weight loss isn't the primary reason. but i will say this: if [women especially] are used to a certain lifestyle with overweight friends and family members and lose a lot of weight, somebody is going to be an asshole, jealous - if not all. then there is an increase in risk of suicide and drinking/drugs because we're trying to numb the pain, which we can't do with food. then there is the regain, which happens... and thank God. for me, i finally, after eating everything all the time, got back to 150s. I am glad i am no longer obese, but let me tell you, the weight came off so fast, i was terrified of myself. my identity, sense of control over my life, how people viewed me [more as a piece of meat than as an intellectual woman] was so much- i nearly starved to death trying to crawl out of my skin.

i am a bold and fierce woman, i was pre-op and i am now. but it has been every week of meeting with my therapist to control my body issues and my depression. i pray for all of us. but mostly? i pray for a world where fat shaming DIES quickly so women of size can enjoy the skin they are in without debating if they are "worth it" or not.

 

we are all worth happiness. at every size.