GASTRIC BYPASS

Testimonials are not evidence. There are hundreds of thousands of people with WLS in the US. Some of them will also end up having seizures, it would be statistically odd for there to be no overlap in these populations. Correlation DOES NOT equal causation.

I've had seizures for YEARS now, there's no paranoia involved.  I lost my job, my house, my car.

 I had RNY on 4/5/2004

I developed epilepsy at some point in 2005/2006 and started having grand mal seizures 1/2008.

My seizures are not connected to the WLS -- at least we have not found the connection -- it's just coincidental that I HAD gastric bypass and then developed epilepsy.

This is not common, however there are quite a few of us out there in the WLS Community that have similar conditions.  Neurolgists have differing opinons of WHY we seem to be triggered after gastric bypass.  I was "healthy" going in to WLS -- so -- we're still seeking causes.

I had a list going at one time that had about 165 people that had WLS + seizure activity.   I'll link it here.

I take Phenytoin and Topamax, but it's not been working.  I have seizures every 5-7 days in clusters.  I had two last night, 2:30am and 3:30am.  I gave up my drivers' license after totaling my car during a seizure, and I have not worked a "real job" since 1/2008.

Feel free to contact me.

And this is the exact reason wls should be your last and final attempt at weight loss, once every conceivable diet is exhausted, because if you go into this healthy and come out sick how are you gonna feel.  I was diabetic, nothing but medicine could control it, I watched my mother die at 61 a very brittle type 1 diabetic, taking 5 shots a day.  When I found out wls could reverse my diabetes, or control it, or give me more time (however you want to look at it) without taking meds I was ready to try it.  I was MO for 20 years, had an eating disorder, lots of food issues.  I knew when I laid on that table that if I died it would be trying to regain my health.  That said, do I think it is worth the risk if you are overweight but have yet to really make serious attempts at dieting.  No.  Go ask Beth about seizure disorders, about losing everything.  I saw the same sort of diabetic attacks in my mother, her bs would drop off the charts and she would fall on the floor, the paramedics knew her by name, they would bring her back around, until the day it was too late and she was gone.  I had wls to avoid that fate, if I developed a seizure disorder also, I was willing to take the risk.  This is all a calculated risk, is being MO worse then the surgery to fix it.  For some yes and for others no.  You have to make the call, its your health on the line. 

 Somebody is deleting my posts !  THIS IS REALLY ANNOYING !   I did not  violate any terms of the TOS   ..  I just sincerely thought  this question / concern is  going pretty overboard  when weighed against the many thousands of people  *****cieved WLS over the years and never developed any neurological issues .

Neurological  issues could be  triggered  by a congenital predisposition and  natural aging ...maybe combined with minor  vitamin deficiencies . 

I STILL think its a bit paranoid and hypochondriacal to assume everything that  has happened to  someone else is gonna happen to you .. 

Actually, your deleted post on this thread was very mean spirited and went off on a wild tangent. So I (and, possibly, others) reported it.

Don't go calling people who have asked a valid question PARANOID or other derogatory terms. It was unwarranted. It was, GASP, bullying behavior. You want to stir **** up, you know where to go and it ain't this board.

I didn't call anyone paranoid I don't believe .  I mentioned the word in connection with an ASSUMPTION  or an ACTION .  

There is a BIG diffrence between  stating an opinion about what a person is doing vs  attacking that person by name calling etc,  

I would never do that .  

I certainly wasnt putting down anyone, or even criticizing or  much less bullying .  

I WISH  whoever is censoring these posts would actually READ and understand the vast difference between a personal attack on a POSTER  vs  politely stating an opinion about  an ACTION  . 

I STILL  say  considering how few people this actually happens to  ... vs how many success stories there are .... 

AND factoring in  how many MO people develop neurological problems who DONT have WLS  surgery ... 

the likelihood that neurological problems  would develop  in the poster because of WLS is minute .  That said I understand their concern .  

I also think that the story I posted  of my personal experience having  a grand mal seizure because of hypoglycemia ( due to a strict diet and hard exercise)  then a food binge PREOP makes  a valid and valuable point .  

Reporting me  for what YOU think is "going off  on a tangent "( not that that violates the TOS  anyway ! ) is actually  bullying ME  and depriving everyone else from reading something that IS relevant  whether or not you can see the connection .  

 Maybe  we should be thinking that an overload of calories might cause some excitement in the electrical circuits of the  brain that  the brain can't handle .  Maybe binging  repeatedly ( or just DIETING  or the combination of the two ) like we ALL  did to get morbily obese really has created  some pathway that won't tolerate much binging and/or hypoglycemia post op ..  at least in a few unusually vulnerable people .

My REAL question is  statistically do  MORE  people develop neurological issues  post WLS than  a similar  virgin Morbidly Obese population ?

 The part about paranoia got you deleted, as it comes across as a personal attack.

You'll note that most epileptics DO NOT think that "what happened to us" will happen to anyone else -- it just happens.  

First of all, to answer the original OP's question, my surgeon was the first doctor to ever perform lap-RNY.  He has performed over 6000 gastric bypass surgeries and has never had a patient develop seizures.  He did lose one patient who died shortly after surgery.  Therefore his patients are more likely to die from surgery than to develop seizures from it.  Where are you reading about seizures attributed to gastric bypass?

From all of the studies I have read, there has been no evidence of actual seizures attributed to gastric bypass.  The reports of seizure like symptoms have been anecdotal and were reported to physicians by patients and not witnessed by physicians.  And, those, in large part, were later attributed to reactive hypoglycemic reactions and not seizures.  Severe reactive hypoglycemic reactions may leave one in a semi-conscious/unconscious state.  And the hypoglycemic reactions were in most cases attributed to the result of dumping from eating sugar/ empty carbs, causing the body to dump a ton of insulin when it perceived the sugar in the intestine as a critically high level of glucose when it wasn't.  The result is sometimes a dangerously low level of glucose in the body.  I have yet to see a study attribute any reaction to those eating properly. 

I am not saying I am correct.  I am just tired of people acting on rumors rather than sound evidence from the medical community.