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Did you ever wonder why after WLS you may get so emotional?

posted 8/22/09 8:49 pm

Many of us experience some changes in our emotions after weight loss surgery. There are a few things that contribute to this occurance, But, here's one reason you may not have even been aware of.

First, we all have "fat cells" in our bodies. Even thin people. When you are not overweight, these cells are flat, meaning not filled out. As you gain weight these fat cells become more filled out and larger. Your body actually does not create new fat cells. The ones you do have are just no longer flat and basically empty.

So, whats very interesting here is that when you are obese, and begin to lose weight, you are not actually losing fat cells, rather you are losing the "stuff inside" of those fat cells. What I find extremely interesting though, is what exactly some of that "stuff" in our fat cells actually consist of, other than just fat.

When you first began to pack on the pounds, many of your hormones were actually stored in your fat cells. The longer you have been obese, the more hormones are stored in these fat cells. As you begin to lose weight and your fat cells begin to shrink, they excrete hormones that have been stored in these cells for as long as you have been over weight, thus releasing these hormones back into your blood stream.

Once they are back into your blood stream, you begin to feel the effects of these newly released hormones, and it can really get you in a state of upheaval. Did you begin to gain weight during the time of puberty? Remember how hard that time in our lives were? You were going through many hormonal changes then. Now, as your fat cells release these hormones, you begin to feel the effects of them, but more subtly than during puberty.

So it is believed that this is one of the big reasons many wls patients go through mood changes, and emotional changes especially during the rapid loss phase. The good news is, this does not last forever. And as the weight loss slows, so does this release of hormones that have been stored up over the years in the fat cells, as these stored hormones get flushed from our systems.

It can be helpful to enlist the assistance of an antidepressant during you loss time, to help stabilize the emotional effects of this process. If you are currently on antidepressants, you may need the level temporarily increased during this time.

Which, leads me to another point. After wls, you are in a state of malabsorbtion, unless you had the lapband procedure. This being said, any current medications you are taking at the time of your wls procedure, may need to be adjusted by your physician post-operatively. This applies to not only anti-depressants, but all medications. This is something that will be important to discuss with your surgeon, and (s)he may refer you to your pcp after surgery to manage your medication levels.