You may regret THIS one. The longest post I've ever written. Seven years of regret?
I so loved the "food apathetic" instead of "foodie" because that has always been me (though I had an evil roommate introduce me to Lil Debbie, for some reason I never thought she was worth knowing..... is it partly evil to note that she is as big as I was then, and i'm as small as she was when we were in college?)
~Lady Lithia~ 200 lbs lost!
March 9, 2011 - Coccygectomy!
I chased my dreams, and my dreams, they caught me!
OK looking back over this before I post, I have to apologize - this is long. Sorry about that...
CONFESSION: A few months ago, I ate 1/4 of a Jersey Mike's Turkey sub. It was good. I didn't plan and was at an event where that was the healthiet thing there. Course, my restriction kicked in immediately and I handed the rest of the sandwich to my daughter. But it was good, and it didn't make me sick or anything. And yeah, I've eaten a brownie, and a cookie, and some pretzel M&Ms, and some pita chips, and probably a lot of otther things I shouldn't have. Fortunately I don't have RH, and I don't dump with my sleeve. But I don't eat them very often and it's usually just a bite - just enough to taste it and remind myself that I really didn't enjoy them that much!
Depriving yourself too much can really play games with your head and eventually you'll end up eating whatever it was and then eating too much of it. And I didn't try these until I was at least six months out, and on those occasions I step up my exercise to try and compensate. Normally, I stay pretty close to protein first - and a lot of days it's almost completely protein and water. I do avoid carbs most days.
Seriously though, MM, I read the entire thing. I am so sorry you're going through all of this.
I do feel like my surgery saved my life - it certainly was lifechanging. With that said, I'm not to goal yet or even a year out yet. Heck, I'm not even 10 months out. But I am happier than I ever have been in my life.
But one thing that happened was my undiagnosed ADD flared up big time. We eventually figured out that I was likely trying to self-medicate my ADD with sugar and caffeine, originally as coca colas, and later on the last few years as diet Coke. Haven't had a Diet Coke since the day before surgery. (Yes, I went right up to the wire...)
Without the option to self-medicate, my ADD was giving me a really rough time. Have you seen the movie Up? You know how the dogs reacted to squirrels? I was that distractible - at work, at home, anywhere. I could focus on anything if my life depended on it - and i was wasting so much time surfing the web and playing games on Facebook.
When my son was diagnosed with ADD, I decided to learn everything I could to help him - parenting a child with ADD is a little different that a child without ADD. In the process, I began to learn all the ways that ADD was impacting my life - and I was totally shocked. All of a sudden stuff began to make sense. The half-serious comments I had made about me having ADD all of a sudden became real. Many cases of ADD are genetic - and DH has zero ADD traits. None at all. So the ADD came from me most likely. Additudemag.com became my lifeline.
I went to see our family doctor, who had placed my son on his ADD meds. I took in the checklists and questionnaires and books. We had a long talk. Did you know that a high percentage of people with Morbid Obesity, alcoholism, and substance abuse have undiagnosed ADD or ADHD? The prevailing wisdom is that it is because people are trying to self-medicate.
Anyway, my doctor put me on a very low dose of ADD meds - and it was like putting on glasses. For the first time in my life, my house is clean. I can remember to write everything down in my food diary at the time I eat it. I live off to-do lists and planners - and my smartphone alarms. My anxiety is gone. I laugh and have fun. I'm no longer in what many would describe as a low-level depression or possibly anhedonia. I actually schedule my exercise and meals, and it is on my schedule - and I do it. I schedule my laundry. I schedule EVERYTHING. That's because many people with ADD know two times - Now and Not Now. If I'm not going to do something now, I have to assign it a time - otherwise it goes into the black hole known as Not Now - some people just call it later.
I'm happy for the first time I can remember. My mom even noticed it - she says she's never seen me smile so much in my life. I'm doing so much better at work - and it has been noticed by managers.
I'm not sure if the surgery and losing the weight did this - ghrelin is an anxiogenic hormone and post op I immediately felt my anxiety lift. But the surgery wasn't the entire solution. The ADD meds really help, and learning the appropriate conpensation skills complete the puzzle.
Now I know many people don't believe in ADD. But if you ask a parent of a child with ADD, or a teacher they will tell you it is something real that needs to be addressed. Many women fall through the cracks and don't get diagnosed especially if they are the inattentive type and don't have hyperactivity. I was a daydreamer. I didn't cause problems for the teachers, I always did fairly well in school but I was coasting by with little effort. I couldn't focus enough to put out the effort.
Looking back, I can see how I began to gain weight. Was it self-medication as some think, was I using food as a comfort mechanism to deal with the frustration and feelings of failure? I suspect it was probably a little of both, and I fell into a vicious cycle.
Have you ever seen the movie Awakenings with Robert DeNiro? It's about a group of people who had become catatonic after some other illness, and a new drug was used to treat them. They showed a dramatic recovery, and begin to resume life. Then the drug stops working. They all end up back in a state of cataonia.
That's my biggest fear - not catatonia LOL, but the fear that this is a dream, or a short term blip in my life. I feel so good now - I'm happy, I can do things, I can focus, and I'm starting to like me. (Strange concept for me at least.)
I'm afraid it won't last.
I hope six years from now I'm still feeling the same way.
I don't know if I will or not. And reading MM's post worries me a big because it is a reminder that this may not last, that other problems may pop up.
My morbid obesity did bother the hell out of me. I was miserable. I do feel like I have a new life.
Will the new life last? I don't know - but I do know none of us are promised tomorrow anyway. I am going to embrace these new feelings and enjoy them while they last. If they continue long term, I will be forever grateful. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy the moment - responsibly, caring for others, and so on - for as long as it lasts. And I hope and pray it lasts a long time!
Weight loss surgery is no guarantee of health. What it does for many people is shake up the dice a little. They get rid of one illness - obesity and its comorbidities - and it gets replaced with another illness, a transfer addiction, or even a full or partial relapse - regain. Sometimes the new problems are easier to live with that the original ones. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes treating one problem reveals another.
I do know that for most people. morbid obesity is a serious health problem - if not today , it will eventually bring a bunch of comorbidities for many of us.
Weight loss surgery isn't a quick fix. It makes major changes to both our anatomy and our physiology. Most of us here tried everything else many times with little long-term success. For me, it evened the odds a little bit - it leveled the playing table. It will do that for many of us. For others, the tradeoff will ultimately be neutral; and for some, and I have no way to accurately quantify how many, the end result will be negative. I guess you can think of it as a spectrum, with many shades making up the whole.
Your post should be mandatory reading for those considering weight loss surgery. And the surgery type does matter - they each can have different long term effects.
And who knows what mysteries in our bodies and our brains are being treated subconciously or intuitively by what we were eating and how much we were eating. Some of us have been unknowingly self-medicating some undiagnosed condition for years. In those people, the weight loss and change in food intake and/or absorption may cause those conditions to flare up.
MM, I hope you find a resolution to your health issues. It's hard to tell whether the medical issues were coincidental, a side-effect of the surgery, or possibly something you had been living with all along and just because unmasked through the surgery. The reactive hypoglycemia is almost certainly a sde effect of RNY. And it is possible that a severe RH episode may have triggered your epilepsy. I've read somewhere on the web of someone having something similar happen - I think it was a lady in Australia. I'll look for the link and send it to you.
And I will check your links and use them when I need to make a purchase. We all should do that. Because tomorrow it could be any one of us in your shoes.
I'm sorry for hijacking your thread - I thought about deleting what I typed but I'm going to post it anyway because maybe it will help someone.
CONFESSION: A few months ago, I ate 1/4 of a Jersey Mike's Turkey sub. It was good. I didn't plan and was at an event where that was the healthiet thing there. Course, my restriction kicked in immediately and I handed the rest of the sandwich to my daughter. But it was good, and it didn't make me sick or anything. And yeah, I've eaten a brownie, and a cookie, and some pretzel M&Ms, and some pita chips, and probably a lot of otther things I shouldn't have. Fortunately I don't have RH, and I don't dump with my sleeve. But I don't eat them very often and it's usually just a bite - just enough to taste it and remind myself that I really didn't enjoy them that much!
Depriving yourself too much can really play games with your head and eventually you'll end up eating whatever it was and then eating too much of it. And I didn't try these until I was at least six months out, and on those occasions I step up my exercise to try and compensate. Normally, I stay pretty close to protein first - and a lot of days it's almost completely protein and water. I do avoid carbs most days.
Seriously though, MM, I read the entire thing. I am so sorry you're going through all of this.
I do feel like my surgery saved my life - it certainly was lifechanging. With that said, I'm not to goal yet or even a year out yet. Heck, I'm not even 10 months out. But I am happier than I ever have been in my life.
But one thing that happened was my undiagnosed ADD flared up big time. We eventually figured out that I was likely trying to self-medicate my ADD with sugar and caffeine, originally as coca colas, and later on the last few years as diet Coke. Haven't had a Diet Coke since the day before surgery. (Yes, I went right up to the wire...)
Without the option to self-medicate, my ADD was giving me a really rough time. Have you seen the movie Up? You know how the dogs reacted to squirrels? I was that distractible - at work, at home, anywhere. I could focus on anything if my life depended on it - and i was wasting so much time surfing the web and playing games on Facebook.
When my son was diagnosed with ADD, I decided to learn everything I could to help him - parenting a child with ADD is a little different that a child without ADD. In the process, I began to learn all the ways that ADD was impacting my life - and I was totally shocked. All of a sudden stuff began to make sense. The half-serious comments I had made about me having ADD all of a sudden became real. Many cases of ADD are genetic - and DH has zero ADD traits. None at all. So the ADD came from me most likely. Additudemag.com became my lifeline.
I went to see our family doctor, who had placed my son on his ADD meds. I took in the checklists and questionnaires and books. We had a long talk. Did you know that a high percentage of people with Morbid Obesity, alcoholism, and substance abuse have undiagnosed ADD or ADHD? The prevailing wisdom is that it is because people are trying to self-medicate.
Anyway, my doctor put me on a very low dose of ADD meds - and it was like putting on glasses. For the first time in my life, my house is clean. I can remember to write everything down in my food diary at the time I eat it. I live off to-do lists and planners - and my smartphone alarms. My anxiety is gone. I laugh and have fun. I'm no longer in what many would describe as a low-level depression or possibly anhedonia. I actually schedule my exercise and meals, and it is on my schedule - and I do it. I schedule my laundry. I schedule EVERYTHING. That's because many people with ADD know two times - Now and Not Now. If I'm not going to do something now, I have to assign it a time - otherwise it goes into the black hole known as Not Now - some people just call it later.
I'm happy for the first time I can remember. My mom even noticed it - she says she's never seen me smile so much in my life. I'm doing so much better at work - and it has been noticed by managers.
I'm not sure if the surgery and losing the weight did this - ghrelin is an anxiogenic hormone and post op I immediately felt my anxiety lift. But the surgery wasn't the entire solution. The ADD meds really help, and learning the appropriate conpensation skills complete the puzzle.
Now I know many people don't believe in ADD. But if you ask a parent of a child with ADD, or a teacher they will tell you it is something real that needs to be addressed. Many women fall through the cracks and don't get diagnosed especially if they are the inattentive type and don't have hyperactivity. I was a daydreamer. I didn't cause problems for the teachers, I always did fairly well in school but I was coasting by with little effort. I couldn't focus enough to put out the effort.
Looking back, I can see how I began to gain weight. Was it self-medication as some think, was I using food as a comfort mechanism to deal with the frustration and feelings of failure? I suspect it was probably a little of both, and I fell into a vicious cycle.
Have you ever seen the movie Awakenings with Robert DeNiro? It's about a group of people who had become catatonic after some other illness, and a new drug was used to treat them. They showed a dramatic recovery, and begin to resume life. Then the drug stops working. They all end up back in a state of cataonia.
That's my biggest fear - not catatonia LOL, but the fear that this is a dream, or a short term blip in my life. I feel so good now - I'm happy, I can do things, I can focus, and I'm starting to like me. (Strange concept for me at least.)
I'm afraid it won't last.
I hope six years from now I'm still feeling the same way.
I don't know if I will or not. And reading MM's post worries me a big because it is a reminder that this may not last, that other problems may pop up.
My morbid obesity did bother the hell out of me. I was miserable. I do feel like I have a new life.
Will the new life last? I don't know - but I do know none of us are promised tomorrow anyway. I am going to embrace these new feelings and enjoy them while they last. If they continue long term, I will be forever grateful. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy the moment - responsibly, caring for others, and so on - for as long as it lasts. And I hope and pray it lasts a long time!
Weight loss surgery is no guarantee of health. What it does for many people is shake up the dice a little. They get rid of one illness - obesity and its comorbidities - and it gets replaced with another illness, a transfer addiction, or even a full or partial relapse - regain. Sometimes the new problems are easier to live with that the original ones. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes treating one problem reveals another.
I do know that for most people. morbid obesity is a serious health problem - if not today , it will eventually bring a bunch of comorbidities for many of us.
Weight loss surgery isn't a quick fix. It makes major changes to both our anatomy and our physiology. Most of us here tried everything else many times with little long-term success. For me, it evened the odds a little bit - it leveled the playing table. It will do that for many of us. For others, the tradeoff will ultimately be neutral; and for some, and I have no way to accurately quantify how many, the end result will be negative. I guess you can think of it as a spectrum, with many shades making up the whole.
Your post should be mandatory reading for those considering weight loss surgery. And the surgery type does matter - they each can have different long term effects.
And who knows what mysteries in our bodies and our brains are being treated subconciously or intuitively by what we were eating and how much we were eating. Some of us have been unknowingly self-medicating some undiagnosed condition for years. In those people, the weight loss and change in food intake and/or absorption may cause those conditions to flare up.
MM, I hope you find a resolution to your health issues. It's hard to tell whether the medical issues were coincidental, a side-effect of the surgery, or possibly something you had been living with all along and just because unmasked through the surgery. The reactive hypoglycemia is almost certainly a sde effect of RNY. And it is possible that a severe RH episode may have triggered your epilepsy. I've read somewhere on the web of someone having something similar happen - I think it was a lady in Australia. I'll look for the link and send it to you.
And I will check your links and use them when I need to make a purchase. We all should do that. Because tomorrow it could be any one of us in your shoes.
I'm sorry for hijacking your thread - I thought about deleting what I typed but I'm going to post it anyway because maybe it will help someone.
Like the butterfly, I have the strength and the hope to believe
In time I will emerge from my cocoon... Transformed. Kirsti A. Dyer, MD, MS
DO NOT DELETE.
BTW, I'm also diagnosed ADD. Where's the squirrel?
That was my first DX in high school. Ritalin = instant report card win. I could use it now, however, my brain on amphetamine-like drugs NOW?! That's a funny joke.
Without the cloud of three anti-seizure medications, my brain is STILL a bit frazzled BECAUSE I AM ALREADY deficit in attention and bouncy.
Adding the medications to keep me from having seizures only serves to shut down parts of my synapses -- of which -- make me lose parts of me at times. I lose personality, words, thoughts, memories, and coherency. Wtihout medications - I have most of that intact.
BTW - I have a list - if you have that woman's contact -- for those of us with sz + WLS -- I haven't been actively seeking people lately, but last I checked there were about 160 of us.
If we remove the seizure disorder out of the picture completely - and pretend it never ever happened - I'd still be quite realistic and blunt about this journey. I made a career out of reading/writing/watching the WLS world -- and I know too much of the secrets of what other people DO NOT TALK ABOUT. I was seeing this stuff before anything happened TO ME! It was just ironic that something did, you know?
The honeymoon happiness doesn't survive for most post ops. I am actually a LUCKY ONE, medical issues ASIDE, I have fared well. To be honest I think if I had a 'perfect' path, I'd be an unlivable WLS cheerleader until someone smacked the **** out of me and brought me back to reality.
BTW, I'm also diagnosed ADD. Where's the squirrel?
That was my first DX in high school. Ritalin = instant report card win. I could use it now, however, my brain on amphetamine-like drugs NOW?! That's a funny joke.
Without the cloud of three anti-seizure medications, my brain is STILL a bit frazzled BECAUSE I AM ALREADY deficit in attention and bouncy.
Adding the medications to keep me from having seizures only serves to shut down parts of my synapses -- of which -- make me lose parts of me at times. I lose personality, words, thoughts, memories, and coherency. Wtihout medications - I have most of that intact.
BTW - I have a list - if you have that woman's contact -- for those of us with sz + WLS -- I haven't been actively seeking people lately, but last I checked there were about 160 of us.
If we remove the seizure disorder out of the picture completely - and pretend it never ever happened - I'd still be quite realistic and blunt about this journey. I made a career out of reading/writing/watching the WLS world -- and I know too much of the secrets of what other people DO NOT TALK ABOUT. I was seeing this stuff before anything happened TO ME! It was just ironic that something did, you know?
The honeymoon happiness doesn't survive for most post ops. I am actually a LUCKY ONE, medical issues ASIDE, I have fared well. To be honest I think if I had a 'perfect' path, I'd be an unlivable WLS cheerleader until someone smacked the **** out of me and brought me back to reality.
You've probably already seen these but just in case... it appears that in some people a severe RH episode damages brain tissue and results in epilepsy/seizures. Doesn't confirm a cause and effect for everyone. I can't find the article I was looking for - the link should be saved on my computer at home (at work now).
Anyway, here are the links...
http://ehealthforum.com/health/seeking-info-from-others-severe-reactive-hypoglycemia-t262961.html
Scroll down to post by Jadeland:
Continuous Glucose Monitor info The continuous glucose monitor is made by Dexcom. It is expensive but my insurance covered it 100%. My dr said it would be hard to get insurance approval but I had no problem because of the severity of my condition. Your dr will have to give them your med records and a letter. I have had such severe episodes that I have confirmed braindamage
. The monitor hopefully will prevent it from getting worse. I have been on disability for two years. I passed out so many times at work, they finally told me to take time off on disabilty to take care of my health. I thought the pancreatectomy would help me get my life back but it didn't. My lows aren't as severe but still frequent. At least I haven't passed out since the surgery 1.5 years ago. I take Octreotide-3 injections a day and Acarbose with meals to help but it hasn't totally stopped the lows. So depressing. It's hard to come to terms with the permanence of it all.
http://www.nutritionbycatherine.org/Catherine-GastricBypassSeizure.html
and also
http://ehealthforum.com/health/hypoglycemia-seizure-misdiagnosed-as-epilepsy-t172831.html
Hypoglycemia misdiagnosed as epilepsy
Anyway, here are the links...
http://ehealthforum.com/health/seeking-info-from-others-severe-reactive-hypoglycemia-t262961.html
Scroll down to post by Jadeland:
Continuous Glucose Monitor info The continuous glucose monitor is made by Dexcom. It is expensive but my insurance covered it 100%. My dr said it would be hard to get insurance approval but I had no problem because of the severity of my condition. Your dr will have to give them your med records and a letter. I have had such severe episodes that I have confirmed brain
http://www.nutritionbycatherine.org/Catherine-GastricBypassSeizure.html
and also
http://ehealthforum.com/health/hypoglycemia-seizure-misdiagnosed-as-epilepsy-t172831.html
Hypoglycemia misdiagnosed as epilepsy
Like the butterfly, I have the strength and the hope to believe
In time I will emerge from my cocoon... Transformed. Kirsti A. Dyer, MD, MS
Hey you could always give your ADD drugs to a "friend".. I diagnosed myself post-op.. I can relate to every thing that she said about her ADD brain.. but my doctor would not even TALK about it as a possibility. But Fawn, you have gone SO far in school.. you can't have ADD. That is actually what he said to me. Umm.. hello.. coasting along never really trying because everything has been easy enough not to is NOT the same as achieving these degrees the right way. I have realized that I LITERALLY cannot study. I am physically incapable of it. I lock my keys in the car, lose my wallet, even forgot to pick my daughter up from school more than once... I am definitely a NOW or NOT AT ALL person, and it drives my hubby nuts- he doesn't get it. I am just shocked it took me until I was 30 to figure it all out.
And military doctors= no second opinions.. boo..
And military doctors= no second opinions.. boo..
I am still loving life with my sleeve! Been maintaining at or below goal for over 4 years!
"People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within." - Ramona L. Anderson
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