jenksn13
I remember when I first learned about weight loss surgery as a child back in the '70s. A couple of morbidly obese women in my small-town neighborhood underwent "stomach stapling". One died from a gastric leak; and the other, despite a dramatic drop in weight, looked sickly, developed brittle bones, lost hair and teeth, developed kidney stones, lost her gallbladder and eventually died of heart failure a few years later.
My mom was a nurse and told me that this surgery was very risky and extreme, and that people who underwent the procedure were desperate and seeking quick results through unhealthy means. As a result, I grew up having a fairly low opinion of weight loss surgery in general and certainly never thought it would be something I would do.
I, myself, however, struggled with weight issues my whole life. As a child, I was always taller and more developed than my peers. I went through puberty early. I was called "fat" by other kids, as well as grown-ups. Throughout elementary the school nurse made it a point to weigh and measure us all in front of each other, calling out the numbers for everyone to hear. I suspect she did this on purpose, probably because she thought (as many people do) that the best way to get someone to change a characteristic they find unacceptable is to shame them. And by the numbers, I was definitely the heaviest and the tallest in my age-set, which pretty much ensured that I would be relentlessly picked on for the entirety of the school year.
Nevertheless, I was always a physically active kid. I had years of dance, gymnastics, as well as other sports, and I was constantly moving and challenging my body to push past its limits. I started my first diet when I was 10 and over the ensuing years read tons of books on nutrition and fitness.
When I was in my early 20s I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, and my endocrinologist put me on birth control. My weight continued to climb. A few years later she recommended I go on this new drug combo called Phen-Fen (phentermine and fenfluramine) for weight loss. They'd had great success with it, and although I'd never used diet pills nor attempted fad diets, generally, I figured this was worth the risk, as it was being prescribed by a physician, and I'd be closely monitored.
It was like a miracle. For the first time in my life I had little interest in eating. Sometimes I'd go the entire day and forget to eat. When I did eat I'd feel slightly nauseated, which kept me from wanting to eat much. I found I was no longer sensitive to food cues in my environment. I could pass a billboard for Wendy's and not want to immediately run to their drive-thru, or pass a bowl of candy at work and not want to shove it all in my mouth. I realized that food had always been the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning (often it was the thing that got me out of bed), and it was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. I was constantly thinking about food. But that all changed when I went on Phen-Fen. I also had abundant energy. I thought, this must be what "normal" people feel like. And in fact, I felt "normal" for the first time in my life. I lost 80 pounds in 6 monhs while on Phen-Fen. It was awesome.
But of course, anything that really works to help you lose weight can't ultimately be good for you or, heaven forbid, last forever. So it should have been no surprise to learn that the one thing that worked for me turned out to cause heart valve damage in thousands of people (luckily, I was not among them). So they pulled that combo off the market. Nonetheless, I managed to maintain that weight loss for almost 3 years until the stress of grad school and a bad relationship had me packing on the pounds yet again.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2015: I am 5' 5" tall, in my late 40s, and I had dieted and exercised myself all the way up to 309 pounds. Three-hundred and nine glorious pounds of misery and depression.
I work in an academic teaching hospital that has a good bariatric surgery program, and when my employer's insurance picked up coverage for the surgery a few years ago, that program began to market itself heavily to the people who work there (to a point that makes me uncomfortable and a little angry). But because of my preconceived notions about bariatric surgery (not to mention my dislike of our program's marketing strategy), I never seriously considered getting it.
But then a co-worker of mine got RNY surgery, and I watched in fascination as she went through the process herself and lost a lot of weight. I started reading studies about the efficacy of the different types of weight loss surgeries (WLS) available and the concomitant risks. I watched hundreds of VLOGs that people had made of their journeys through WLS, as well as videos produced by several well-known bariatric surgeons (e.g., Matthew Weiner).
And I did a 180. I decided that given my age, the longevity of my weight issues, my family history, and the fact that I am perimenopausal and have PCOS, the likelihood that I will ever lose a substantial amount of weight and maintain that weight loss without surgery is pretty slim. Statistically, it's much more likely that I will continue to gain every year until I develop diabetes or heart disease and just keel over from one or the other at some point.
[Sigh]
Anyway, so in the summer of 2015, I contacted our WLS program and started jumping through the hoops required by insurance to get the surgery. It was a painful, stressful, frustrating, infuriating process. Our program only performs either the VSG or RNY surgeries, and I ultimately opted for the RNY - primarily because VSG is a relatively newer procedure and they don't have as much long-term data on its efficacy (although it's probably just as good as RNY), and because I was nervous about having a long line of staples down my new half-stomach, and because I wanted the nutrient malabsorption and increased liklihood for dumping syndrome that comes with RNY. As masochistic and ridiculous as that sounds.
I lost 30 pounds on the pre-op diet, weighing in at 279 lbs on the day of surgery (February 9, 2016). So far, my experience post-surgery has not been what I expected. Granted, I'm only about 4 months out, but already I'm scared this isn't going to work. I'm intensely hungry all the time, I can eat anything I want without getting sick, and my restriction doesn't feel all that restrictive. Moreover, I haven't lost any weight in about 6 weeks, and the more time goes on without weight loss, the more despairing I feel about this process. Which of course triggers super-not-healthy eating behaviors.
So, I've decided to set up a profile on OH to get some feedback/support from the community. I am just scared.