Can I Get Approed?

Hi all, I have a question around qualifying for the surgery...and will being bulimic disqualify you? I am 50 years old with binge/bulimic with a BMI of 45, have high BP, High Cholestrol, aches and pains getting around...My last blood work showed diabetes too, but Dr is re-testing. Anyway...I'm tired of years of trying therapy, Weigh****chers, Liquid Diets with no long term success, and am actually feelign worse due to failiing all the time. I'd been thinking about surgery for over a year, but kept thinking I can do this, I can do this. But I feel out of time, and out of energy. Bulimia developed 15 years ago while in therapy for old childhood stuff. I can control it, but will bring it back under times of stress.

Will the bulimia diagnosos disqualify me? I am active in therapy again after takign a few years off, am going in with eyes open about how hard the psycholigical effects will be with this. Two close freinds have had surgery, and are successful inspitatiosn to me. One is a year out and still attends her support group, which I think would be of great help.

Any advice or wisdom here?

many thanks....   

You'd need to talk to your doctor and therapist, but I'm thinking the bulimia would disqualify you IF you have not developed new ways to cope with stress and IF you've been binging and purging in the last couple of years.  If you have learned new coping skills and haven't binged or purged in a while, then it probably won't disqualify you.

I'm thinking purging could be even more dangerous after WLS because it can lead to nutritional deficiencies and those are already a concern after WLS.  And many people do find the first several months post op to be pretty stressful, so if that was your main way to responding to stress, you'd be kind of setting yourself up for trouble.

I agree with Kelly.  Everyone has issues that we recover from with better coping skills.  Binging is extremely dangerous after surgery with the new, small tummies! Regardless, if that is your coping mechanism- you would really be miserable with it taken away.  Work with a therapist!  I also have noticed that vomiting is so easy now even if I just eat a TINY bit too much.  The thought crossed my mind that it would be very easy to become a bulimic after this surgery without being on guard for it.  You really don't want to put yourself in a dangerous situation without this resolved.