?? about my lil sis...

Hi everyone! I have a question regarding WLS and teens...Duh, I'm here! My sister turned 14 in October and weighs more than 200 lbs I know, but possibly even more than 250. (I'm in Germany and haven't seen her for 3 years.) My mom has her on diet pills now and they are doing a good job, but I just wonder if she would be a good candidate for WLS. I am having my surgery in a few days and so all the family has been talking about it. Do you think 14 is too emotionally premature for someone to have WLS? I know the difficult time I have had with making the decision and I'm almost 28!! If any of you are around 14 or were 14 when you had the surgery, please let me know so I can talk to her (and Mom) about this. My mom says she doesn't think Kaylee would be able to deal with all the issues involved in getting the surgery, like being serious and following the rules. Any help you could send my way would be greatly appreciated and is sorely needed. Thanks in Advance for all your help! Brenda

i know from my own experinces in this whole wls thing at 14, i don think i would have had the mental mind set to handle all of it, ya know? i would have had a mental break down from getting poked and pinched and told that yeah there are chances that you could die...this is a major surgery and whatnot :/ and if shes doing good with the diet pills, keep going with em...maybe she'll slim down on them :/ or just keep using the pills and if by the time shes 17-18, she hasn't slimmed down then start looking into wls. Like tina said...there arent many doctors that will operate on someone that young...but there are a few, its basically her/her mom and dads call, if they think that she can mentally handle it go ahead ya know :/

Like the other posters said, the majority of surgeons usually will not perform wls on those younge than 16 yrs old, many won't perform on younger than 18yrs old. The best thing at this point is to keep record of all diets, medications, physicians etc used regarding weight loss, so if she does need wls in the future all this can be noted during the approval process.

oh yeah! the whole recording of diets and drs stuff and everything

yeah during the time I was doing my paperwork for the insurance and the surgeons office I had such a hard time remembering every doctor I had seen, ever medication I have taken, every diet I had been on for weight loss. That's why I tell everyone now that is looking into it to sit down and start recording everything names, dates, address, phone numbers, medication, duration, result, etc... because the more proof you have the harder the time the insurance has to deny the surgery.

that's right. Doctors in US won't perform on patience under 16 yrs old. Period.