Many Paths Before Meeting Criteria for Bariatric Surgery

I have to admit I am somewhat absent minded. On occasion I will be driving along thinking about something else and miss my exit. Before I realize it I have gone quite a distance and when I finally become aware of my surroundings I ask myself, “How did I get here?” I think some of my patients are like that. They are amazed that they have arrived at a weight that is starting to harm their health.
There are many reasons people become over weight. Sometimes I hear someone explain that they had to be on steroids for their asthma and gained a lot of weight. Occasionally I hear the person had a car accident and was immobile for months and gained allot of weight at that time. Others tell of a traumatic episode in their life such as the loss of a child, a parent or even a divorce that led to depression and they started to gain weight while depressed and on antidepressants.

Dr. Tell, the psychologist that works with our program tells me that over 60% of the women in a bariatric surgery practice have been sexually abused as a child or young adult. Sometimes obesity is a way of keeping themselves at a distance from men and keeping themselves felling safe. However by the time they seek help from a bariatric surgeon they have often dealt with the trauma and are married and have healthy marriages and families but they feel trapped in their own body.

Often men tell me they were very active in sports during their teens and or while they were in the military but became much less active as the entered into the work force, found a sedentary job and have gained some weight nearly every year since then.

Women explain they gained weight with each child and now after their last child the weight seems to just keep coming. Or they gained weight during a depression following a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Still others have told me they were always heavier than their peers and cannot remember a time when they were not heavy or that food was used to manipulate them as a child and they just feel driven to eat to prove they are in control of this area of their lives.

Regardless of how a person of size arrived at their weight they usually seek help when their activity level and health are deteriorating. They often feel trapped and desperate and feel their life is slipping away from them.
What is important is that there is hope because with bariatric surgery obesity and related medical problems such as type 2 diabetes can be reversed.

I see it happen every day and I love to hear the stories of how lives are changed and how fun life is again. They tell me of new jobs, having children and having more energy to do the very things they thought they would never be able to do again. I remember John who had not been able to go on the yearly golf trip with his brother for years and the year after surgery he had lost so much weight he was able to take his brother golfing again and oh by the way he is getting married! I remember Molly who was so depressed with her life that she spent most of her time at home in bed but now she has lost all of her excess weight and is salsa dancing again and Sandy who after getting rid of most of her diabetic medicines and losing most of her extra weight took ball room dancing lessons and was recently a champion at a regional competition!

Some of my patients do crazy things like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, run marathons or going across valleys on zip lines. There are so many stories and so many changed lives. Life can be great again and you can begin to live again. Bariatric surgery can be your fresh start to life. I see it happen every day.