Help me understand why people would turn to diet pills, etc. after WLS

I know two people IRL who had RNY 2-3 years ago who have started taking various kinds of diet pills (appetite supressants, stimulants, and "fat burners") and I recently did a psych eval on someone who said that a friend of hers who had a RNY uses these types of things (and the client wondered how many people "have" to do that after RNY).

This is not meant as a judgment. I just don't understand... at all. I am hoping that someone can help me understand. If these drugs actually worked, we would all have taken them and wouldn't have needed WLS. So if they didn't work before surgery, why would they work after WLS? (They do not seem to be helping the two people I know... at least not very much (or, maybe they ARE helping, and both of them would be gaining more weight without them)... and I did not ask the client about her friend.)

Even after the caloric malabsorption is gone (and even if our metabolism is lower than it was before surgery), we still have the restriction (IF we choose to use it) and we still have the knowledge of how to eat to maintain our weight (again, IF we choose to use it). So why turn to drugs that didn't work before instead of using what we have?

Even though I am personally not a fan of people taking stimulants, I could understand going back to taking diet pills if they worked, but they DON'T... so I just don't understand.

Lora

I suppose its a billion dollar industry because the promise of it working really grabs at a desperate person. I agree that I don't understand, but desperation tends to make us hope for a magic bullet even when we know better.

Desperation.  People do surgery as a last resort, what do you do when that stops working and you are regaining with abandon.  If everyone had great will power in the first place no one would need wls because they would keep their weight in check.  I can't take any drugs whatsoever, but I get how someone could get to the point of trying weigh loss drugs to get off regain or keep themself where they are.  It really is hard.

It's likely those patients who feel "their surgery failed", so they are trying anything to help their wt.  Failed surgeries are a misnomer--it's the patient that "failed" --they don't think about maintenance at all.  There are still some people who beleive that RNY is the "magic bullet", but it's really only a tool, and the final results are up to the patient's behavior. DAVE

I know that's at least part of the issue with one of the two people I know... always lamenting that "I shouldn't be able to eat this much; I think the surgeon made my pouch too big"... and getting very defensive when anyone suggests that it is not necessary to eat until completely full and limiting portions will help. (Fortunately, even though I was thinking it, it was someone else who actually said it and got the "ear full"!)

I have never heard the other person blame her re-gain on the surgery, though.

Lora

My only experiences with people who have had any form of WLS is on here and there are lots of things that people do that make me smdh ...

Drugs
5 day pouch tests over and over again
Very low calorie diets
Shakes replacing up to 2  meals a day when you are years out ...

Our metabolism is a fragile thing, especially after WLS, and I cannot understand, for the life of me, why anyone who has undergone having their digestive system re-routed, would jeopardise their metabolism rather than do what is really commmon sense - what we are taught to do once we are onto full food.  

High protein, lowish carb (not NO carb) really is our diet for life - not a year or two - and it is THIS fact that is the most important lesson we can learn.   We don't need to diet, we need to acknowledge our lifestyle and stick to it - this is what *most* of the vets on here do - maybe it's why we are successful so far out, when so many others aren't?????????

it's a million dollar question for a million (billion) dollar industry....   It's desperation trying to take any measures to loose weight instead of focusing on the real issues

Yeah, you know how the 5DPT raises my blood pressure, LOL.

It seems that a lot of surgeons don't tell people that their metabolism may be even lower after surgery than it was before, and maybe that contributes to the struggle in maintenance.  If people don't understand that their bodies may be MORE done to gaining weight after surgery, they may very well be frustrated at having to eat less than they expected in maintenance, especially if they were eating more than that while they still had some of the malabsorption going on.  (As strange as it sounds, I think that it actually worked to my advantage to have lost so slowly after 9 months out.  Since it took me 20 months to get to goal, I never really had a period where I was takin advantage of the caloric malabsorption and didn't have to decrease what I was eating once it was completely gone.  It still eat about the same as I did at a year out... other than my daily treat, of course.)

I confess that when I had the surgery, I expected that the surgery would do more than it does to help maintain the weight loss.  I knew that the caloric malabsorption would fade (but I did not know how MUCH... Just like I knew that not everyone dumped but did not know how low the number was).  Fortunately, there were some vets on here at that time (when i was a newbie) who talked about how this surgery was not a "get out of obesity free" pass.  One of the reasons that I now stick around to pay it forward.

Lora

I understand people feeling desperate about their weight and trying anything that MIGHT work (been there done that)... but when you already KNOW that it won't work.., and you already know what WILL work... it honestly confuses me.

I also understand lack of willpower.  BTDT, too. But the desire to eat when not hungry or to overeat comes from something deeper.  So maybe the answer to my question is as straightforward as people not having dealt with the psychological/emotional issues at the heart of the overeating... And then feeling just as desperate about their weight as before surgery.  I know that I spent as much time in my counseling sessions the year before my surgery and the two years after it talking about the overeating issues as I did the assault/PTSD issues.

It just makes me so sad (and sometimes a little frustrated, deending on the person and situation) to see people going back to these things that just don't work after they have already gone to the extreme step of having their digestive system altered.

Lora

I really don't think it is something that one can understand. I beleive that part of it is the "dieting mindset". For some folks it might be this isn't working fast enough let me add this to help it along. When really they are upsetting what really is a delicate balance now that "we" have had our "guts rearranged"! Then, as many people said before in their replies others are looking for that magic bullet that is going to help them. I have probably tried most every diet out there at some point in my life. HCG injections, Optifast (or some other version of it), Phen/Fen, Atkins, the "cabbage soup" diet, just to name a few. I was even prescribed methamphetimines at one point and that did a great job of boosting my metabolism and controlling my hunger. Did the diets/pills work? Sure they did for the short term! However, I always gained the weight back PLUS more. RNY was what I considered to be my last chance at being able to return to a "normal" weight and BMI and to have a chance at a more active life. I know I'm still in the honeymoon phase and that the real test won't come until I'm in maintenance, but I have to utilize this time to change my bad habits. I'm trying and so far so good, however I still have a long way to go!