Diana C.
When I decided to look into weight loss surgery, I was a 47 year old female that has been overweight since about 13yrs old. I am 5’ 2” tall and have now dieted my self up to 240 lbs. My co-morbities included:
Hypertension since 1997
High Cholesterol since 1997
Acid Reflux Disease since 2000
Stress In-continuance for over 10 yrs.
Chronic feet, knee & back pain which gets more severe the longer I’m on my feet. I now have a problem of my feet & legs swelling if I either sit or stand too long. My knees hurt when going up or down stairs. I have bone spurs on both feet that aggravate the plantar fasciitis. My weight adds to the problem. I have had surgery on my left foot for this already, which helped tremendously, but did not completely eliminate all of the pain.
I have a family history of heart problems. My maternal grandfather had a quadruple bypass and years later died of a heart attack. My maternal grandmother died of a stroke. My father has a history of heart problems and Diabetes. My mother has both hypertension and heart related problems. My paternal grandmother died from a stroke related to uncontrolled hypertension. My 14 yr old son has mitral valve prolapse.
My blood pressure medicine causes chronic dry mouth. I think this may also be contributing to the dried congestion problem I have with my sinuses. The dried congestion was not a problem before I started taking blood pressure medicine. I have to keep water with me all the time, even at night. I wake up and my tongue feels like it is stuck to the roof of my mouth. It feels like I’ve peeled the hair off of my tongue when I pull my tongue down. I have to get up two to three times a night to go to the bathroom because of the in-continuance problem. Having to drink the water for the dry mouth, at night, doesn’t help either. I hit menopause 10 yrs. early according to my gynecologist. Even though my periods have stopped, I have to wear a pad 24 / 7 due to the in-continuance. Is this ironic or what? I remember the in-continuance first appeared when I was serving a tennis ball on the tennis court. I guess the exertion was too much and I literally wet my pants. Since then, I make sure I have a pad on, because if I sneeze or cough, there is no stopping it. If I’m on my feet an hour or more I really pay for it with the pain in my feet or knees or both. They swell all the time too. When I try to walk for exercise, my hands also swell. My husband thinks I probably have sleep apnea too because of the way I sound when sleeping, but I have not been tested for it.
I am now to the point where I feel bad most of the time. Something always hurts and I am exhausted with the least exertion. I don’t even feel rested when I get up in the mornings. I’ve been on so many diets, it’s hard to list them all. It’s not that I can’t lose weight; I just can’t seem to keep it off long enough to make a significant improvement in my health, and then, I seem to gain more than I lost. It is getting harder & harder to do any form of exercise without severe pain and/or exhaustion. Therefore, after my gynecologist asked me if I’d ever considered weight loss surgery, I started seriously researching it. He suggested the lap band because he knew a doctor that has had great success with it for his patients. I took the information and went to his seminar but, was still unsure since it was not an approved surgery under my insurance and had not been around that long in the U.S. I was also concerned about having to have the fills all the time to get the right restriction. I know a couple of people that have had the Roux-en-y and have had great success with it, so I started researching it and went to Dr. Kim’s seminar. Dr. Kim was very informative and seemed so sincerely concerned for his patients that I now think the Roux-en-y would be better for me. The dumping syndrome along with the malabsorption would greater improve my chances for successful weight loss. Dr Kim’s program also provides support groups and aftercare support for the rest of my life. This I feel is very important since I have had and know I will have to deal with a weight problem for the rest of my life. The Roux-en-y type surgery shows to have been around a lot longer and with more success also. When I researched weight loss surgery in general, I discovered that it has shown to benefit most all of the areas of health problems that I have, or have concerns about, due to family history. (high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, reflux disease, sleep apnea, stress in-continuance, low back pain) I realize this surgery will not be easy, but I feel it is my last resort to finally getting a handle on my weight problem. All of my doctors seem to agree and have provided letters of recommendation as well.