I get my son once a month for a weekend. I was never married to his mother. To make a long story short My son was a normal weight baby and his mother got married around two years ago and moved a state away. She got divorced about a year ago and lives at home with her parents. I had to get emergancy temp custody with her mother (who my son lives with as well as his mother). His mother has not had a job in 4 years. My son is currently 5.5 years old 4 foot tall and weighs 100.5 lbs. I have repeditly expressed to them my consern over his weight. But they say he does not over eat. When ever he stays with me after he eats its not a hour later before he starts begging for food. I always refuse him more and tell him he just ate and lunch and or snack is not that far away. His mother/grandmother/grandfather say that he does not over eat and they walk him to school so he gets excersise. He is so large he cannot even wipe his bottom and my son told me at school his grandmother asked him to "hold it"..Is that right? What age is a kid have to be before he can wipe his own bottom. Over the last few years I have based my life on getting him once a month. I have thought about getting custody but many more factors come in to it than just getting him ie. my wife and my relationship, I work full time and have another business that requires me to be away in the evening and my son is so "attached, dependant and wraped up into this family that I think he would have a mental breakdown if he left. What are the effects of a 5.5 year old that weighs twice of what he should? When I take him out to eat or shopping people look at me and my wife "his step mom" like we are killing him. My wife and I feed him fresh home made meals everytime he stays with us and we are in pretty good shape. I am at wits end and feel so sorry for him.

Hi, I was part of the clinical trial for what is now called Simponi (golimumab). I have Psoriatic Arthritis. I was recommended to the trial by my rheumatologist before I was approved for medicare because nothing else was working.  Because it was a double blind study we were not told if we actually received the drug, but I could tell the difference right away, however, it only lasted about 2 weeks before the pain came back. Later, after I got on Medicare I was able to get on Humira and they started me off on 1 injection every other week with methotrexate, which made me very nauseated. Finally I was put on Humira, one 40mg injection once per week and that worked very well. This was my experience and of course everyone is different and needs to find what works best for them. Happy to share my own experience though. Good luck.

If you qualify for WLS, you qualify for the DS. Come on over to the DS board and do some reading, ask some questions, etc. You might also want to look into the Sleeve/VSG---it's the stomach portion of the DS, and you can take NSAIDs with it, too.

I'm having knee problems as well.  I thought that once I got a lot of the weight off that it would relieve the knee pain.  Unfortunately even after having lost a 100 lbs I still have the excruiating pain.  Rheumie said that it's due to inflammation and upped my celebrex--to no avail.  I do not agree with her analysis and I'm considering seeing an ortho doc. 

Just wanted to give my two cents and get anyone elses thoughts.

Marie

Can you take steroids or steroid shots to the knees?  Those might help - I do both.  Oral steroids and shots in the knees.  Also, SynVisc or OrthVisc- these shots replace/mimic snyovial fluid and reduce pain of bone against bone.