Recently on a Sunday in late winter I stepped off the escalator on the second level of our local Barnes and Nobles book store at Easton in Columbus, Ohio and my eye caught a large group of books on the medical self just in front of me. I counted 23 books about diabetes and as I looked further no other medical subject devoted so many books to one disease. Not heart disease, not high blood pressure, not even cancer. As a busy bariatric surgeon caring for diabetic patients nearly every day, I was intrigued.
After bariatric surgery amazing things happen to improve the lives of diabetic patients. Usually I see patients with type II diabetes discontinue all of their diabetic medicines soon after bariatric surgery. Less frequently patients who have had diabetes for many many years see improvement in their diabetes, discontinue insulin but still need some diabetic medicines that they take by mouth. In fact, it is extremely rare for a patient NOT to either resolve or improve their diabetes after bariatric surgery.
Filling my arms with a copy of each of these books, I headed for the store’s coffee shop and began to read. I tuned the pages of these books for references to the amazing things I was seeing following bariatric surgery. Surprisingly, I found very little. In fact I found only three books that even mentioned bariatric surgery and only one mentioned bariatric surgery could improve diabetes.
Why is there so little information in most books about diabetes about the amazing improvement for diabetics after bariatric surgery?
I will share more thoughts about this dilemma in postings over the next week.
See patients telling their stories on YouTube by googling DrSteveMyers and selecting my channel.
I am 14 months out of surgery. I lost 120 lbs. met my goal weight and haven't had to take medicine for my diabetes or high blood pressure since the day I had the surgery. My blood sugar was averaging 160 with medicine(4 pills a day). I took my blood sugar reading last saturday morning and it was 77! Gastric By Pass surgery was the best thing I could have ever done for myself..it was well worth it!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteI am delighted for you! Your experience is like so many of my patients. I want to do all I can do to help diabetics understand there is hope for most of then with bariatric surgery. Thank you for leaving your comment.