Diabetes Reversed by Bariatric Surgery as Viewed by Dr. Myers, Assistant Mike Palasek, RN, CRNFA

Mike Palasek. RN has been working with me as the surgical assistant for over 10 years. He is great help and has helped me with every bariatric operation that I have performed and that is over 1,000 operations. Mike has a “bird’s eye view” of how our diabetic patients do after surgery. He sees each patient after surgery in the office shortly before I see them and records their medicines and how they are doing with their weight and glucose readings. He often speaks to prospective patients who attend our Fresh Start Educational Seminars before I start my part of the presentation. I have heard him say, “I have been a nurse for over thirty years. When I first started nursing I had no idea we would be operating on people to improve their medical problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure. When I was first a nurse I gave insulin for diabetes but no one ever got better and off the insulin injections. We gave pills for high blood pressure but no one ever got off of their blood pressure pills. For me, as a nurse, it is very satisfying because instead of just managing these and other medical problems in our patients we are actually seeing these problems resolve. Now I see people getting off insulin and other diabetic medicines and it is not uncommon for patients to no longer need any medicines for diabetes. Patients who needed 3 or 4 diabetic medicines or are on an insulin pump before surgery are no longer on any of these medicines and they are no longer taking any insulin. It is surprising but we often see patients that are taking 70 or 100 or even more units of insulin every day prior to surgery taking no diabetic medicine or insulin at all with normal blood sugars. As a nurse, that is really rewarding.”