Obesity Surgery Often Leads to Complications, Study Says
 

At the place where I used to work so many people who did not need this surgery got it, it was sick.
People who were less than 100 lbs over weight, people who could work-out... just did not make sense. Many of them ended-up with complications, for a long time our ins. covered all of them and I know it ended-up raising our rated for everyone and made it harder for those who do need the surgery to get it.
I feel that if the post surgery diet will get you to your target weight within a year or two, you don't get the surgery.
Makes no sense.
I asked several of them that, "if you just ate the post surgery diet what would happen?", they, without pausing, said, "I would lose the weight" and had no issue with it.
What is the deal here? Especially screwing-up the insurance for everyone else in the process.
Many of these people were perfectly capable of exercise too, had kids that they were gabling their futures on as well...
So confused....:eyebrow:

Obesity Surgery Often Leads to Complications, Study Says

Knew someone who had that surgery. Got in before the insurance stopped paying for it (which always makes me go back to insurance covering Viagra but not birth control but that's another rant.)

Anyway, after the surgery she couldn't afford to have all that excess skin cut off. I know she felt better in a lot of ways, but her personality changed as well. Here was a person who was very overweight all her life, gets the surgery, loses the weight, then divorces her husband (a nice guy; she regretted it terribly later) and goes on what I would call a "dating" spree that was completely unhealthy for her emotional state, IMHO. These guys she "chose" would want to date her because she looked OK (to them), but then they would embark (very quickly) on a physical relationship and she kept getting really hurt because, to be honest, many of them were repulsed by the appearance of the excess skin.

It was very sad in a lot of ways. I'm sure she felt so much better not carrying that extra 250 lbs around, but I also think she went through a lot of mental hell.

I had heard some time ago that they used to make people go through a series of psychological testing to see if they could handle such a dramatic, quick, complete and total change. I don't think she had to but I also know if she did she would have no problem answering the questions to their satisfaction...true or not.

She ended up losing her great job and moving away. Due to other stressors in our relationship I am no longer in touch. I wonder if she has overcome those issues.

Just me relaying my experience with this surgery.

Someone here at work had it done. The results were amazing. She went from huge to tiny almost overnight. She ended up quitting and getting a job elsewhere. I have no idea how she's doing now.

I can't imagine having it done, but as they say, you can't judge a person till you walk a mile in their shoes.

Sounds exactly like my sister-in-law who was, maybe, 80lbs overweight. She just married a guy after knowing him for three months and blew through the jack of the sale of her house after less than a year.

This is true, Glatt. I can't imagine having had the childhood by friend had. Definitely not judging, just recounting my vicarious experience.
:)

I think there are those who need it... but most who get it don't. The Dr's have made a damn cosmetic industry out of this very dangerous procedure.
It is sick.
I blame them.
Again, I think that the Dr. should state that if you can lose the weight within a year on the post surgery diet, you don't get it.
I think most who get it would lose the weight.

Sounds an awful lot like sex reassignment surgery. Right down to the "not covered by insurance", "can't afford necessary auxiliary treatments afterwards", etc.

The main difference being you can't do a "real-life test" period as a non-fat person first, I suppose.

rkzen and the article are right, though. I've dealt with probably six, seven patients who had this surgery --only two of them turned out without complications. One woman had to have IV feeds all night long because her intestine no longer absorbed nutrients (post surgery--nothing like that before) and one man, the son of a coworker, got a terrible post-op infection and died.

I worked at a County hospital for a while where many of these surgeries were done. Originally there were 3 surgeons performing the two different methods, but within a few years only one of them was still at it. Lawsuits started piling up, questionable deaths, post-op complications. Part of the problem was that this was sort of a Charity Hospital/Trauma Unit facility, and the lack of income or education in the people who came here seemed to be a factor; it seemed to me that they had expectations of a "miracle cure" for the fact that they had lost control of their lives, and very few realized that statistics showed even then that such a surgery seemed to cut your life short by at least 10 years, even if you survived it. Eventually there were so many lawsuits that our hospital ended up in a national scandal and the procedures were forbidden and the doctor investigated and he lost his license.

Because I worked in Data Entry for the physician oversight area, I got to read a lot of the transcripts and depositions on the procedures. Did you know that after the operation your stomach is the size of a peanut? And it will NOT expand if you eat more, you can't even drink much liquid without causing problems. But some people don't understand the trade-off, they want to pick up where they let off after the weight is gone, and that does not work. We were having fatalities mostly because of poor surgical quality though, if you are not sewed up right there is almost immediate death from sepsis and a second operation never seemed to correct what went wrong.

It alarmed me so much to read about all this that I begged the two friends who were considering the procedure (both living in Mexico) to not go through with it. One of them did anyway. She soon developed complications and an infection and had to be rushed back to the hospital. She lived, but it was touch and go for a while. And yes, she lost the weight very quickly after that. It was not even a year before she had men sniffing around and ended up pregnant. Now, her economic situation is more depressing than ever; before she couldn't work because she was too fat, now she can't work because she has an infant. She is effectively worse off than she was before.

I have come to the conclusion that this surgery should not be performed for cosmetic reasons. People who have poor judgment, no will power, and who will not take responsibility for their own actions are always going to be suffering. Whether it is being unwilling to control your eating or any other part of your body, there is no quick fix or miracle cure which will correct things for you if you refuse to do it.

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that doctors have trumped this operation up into an 'industry', most doctors hate performing these types of surgery for the exact reasons people have been posting. Surgery on very overweight people is always complicated and the risks increase enormously even for simple procedures. That being said, the doctor rarely has the power to effectivly block unfit patients who want the surgery and can pay for it (sometimes you can block it through insurance). I can assure you that a doctors worst nightmare is a single-minded, uninformed patient that refuses to believe what they are told and pushes for their prefered treatment. The blame always comes back to the doctor. Both my parents are physicians (father is ER doc, mother is family doc) and I've heard all the senarios.

Obesity causes many dangerous illness. We should be aware of this,

I have seen people who are less than 100lbs overweight get this procedure. People, as I said above, who admitted to me that they would lose the weight if they just ate the post-op diet...
Where I worked before becoming disabled I knew over six people who had the surgery and knew of at least five more, of them I can say with some certainty three or four were not cosmetic.
If you can change your diet and lose the weight, you don't need the surgery.
It ain't hard.
This has nothing to do with what we are talking about. It just reinforces the fact that they don't need to be introducing more problems by getting a dangerous procedure that they don't need if they can just become more healthy by changing their diet and habits.
If a Dr. knows that they can lose the weight by doing that and gives them the surgery anyway it is immoral.

Right, but it isn't the doctor telling them they need the surgery. They come to the doctor and insist on having it, if they can pay the doctor can't turn them down. Tonchi has the right idea with education being a big factor, these are not often adults in the habit of controlling themselves.

What the hell are you talking about?
You can't make a Dr. perform surgery just by throwing money at them... good lord, what an idea!
You might want to review the Hippocratic Oath.

My wife had biliary bypass surgery last December. She has lost over 150 pounds since then and is much more active and positive about herself. There are some difficulties, to be sure, but none as extreme as the eventual stroke or heart attack she was certain to have had she remained at her original weight.

*Everything* in medicine is a tradeoff. Virtually nothing is 100% beneficial. There are no guarantees when you screw with the machine that is the human body. You look at the big picture, consider the cost/benefits analysis, and then act based upon careful evaluation of all factors. It took my wife over a year to get everything put together to do this. The insurance requirements alone were staggering. They don't pay for this procedure unless they think it will save them money over the lifetime of the client. Her doctor wouldn't do the surgery unless she met very strict criteria, and unless she agreed to participate in an ongoing study of the procedure.

She has excess skin, yes. She has some frustrations and issues over her eating habits before and since the surgery. She experiences some bouts of pain and gastric distress for various reasons. It isn't all roses for sure.

However, she is going to be around for a lot longer, she looks more like the person she always envisioned herself to be, and she has a vastly increased wardrobe potential. Those things make her very happy, and I am happy for her.

That is great and she may or may not be one of the people we are talking about. You did not specify if the surgery was done for cosmetic reasons and if she could have lost the weight on the post surgery diet or not... which is fine.
It sounds like the Dr. took the time and effort to work that out with her... that is not what has been happening with the majority of those I have met around here
I am very happy for your and your family.

Specifically *not* for cosmetic purposes. Mrs Elspode had been chronically hypertensive for five years. She now has a resting BP of 120 over 68 and now takes no medications. When she was a teenager, her father gave her a beating severe enough to have dislocated a vertebrae in her lower back. This caused her extreme pain and radiating numbness down her leg. Gone. No more shortness of breath, dizzy spells, or headaches of mysterious origin and interminable duration.

We are currently documenting photographically and with copious notes any problems which occur in the areas of excess skin. If you can document a medical need for abdominoplasty, it can in fact be covered by insurance.

Outstanding... again, I did not know and made no assumptions & am very happy for you, her and your family for the success of the surgery.
*sending loving and healing energy*

Unfortunately, at least around here, I feel that your story is the exception, not the rule.

I am overweight and cannot exercise, being on hormone therapy makes it next to impossible to lose... however, I just eat less and watch what I eat... Lately I have lost some, very, very, slowly, but am just trying to be patient. The idea of surgery is preposterous to me. Less food, less fatty food, goes in, I don't gain weight.
Again, it ain't hard.

Hang in there, RZ. Discipline is key in weight loss, and Gastric Bypass isn't for everyone, that's for sure. For my wife, it was the last choice in a decades-long pursuit of weight loss, and a step not made lightly (pun intended). Still, don't discount it as an option unless you are specifically unsuited for such a procedure.

When facing life or death situations, sometimes the choices are very, very hard.

My immune system could not handle it, even if I considered it. However, I just don't see needing it as long as keep control of my eating habits.
I understand her choice and know it must have been a difficult one.
This is why those who make it as a cosmetic choice confuse me so much.

Something I did not bring-up. One friend of ours, and two that I know of, were told to gain weight so they could meet insurance criteria for the surgery.
Our friend, who was told to do this, is diabetic… she is a single mother, told to gain thirty or forty lbs so she could get the surgery on insurance. She is one of those who told me, to my face, that if she just ate the post surgery diet she would lose all the weight she wanted easily.
Think of it, a Dr. asking a single mother to risk her life for cosmetic reasons.
His license should be pulled & charges should be filed IMO.

What type of office did this doctor work in? Also, is this person a specialist, familiy doc, or a surgeon? That is definitely grounds for an investigation so a letter to your Board of Physicians would be the best route.

To the best of my knowledge, different surgeons.
As I stated, it is a local thing.

Shit! In the middle of moderator elections they come and catch us with our pants down.

Shoulda used the belt and the suspenders.

If you are going to quote the spam at least remove the link

It was 2:57 am. I thought about that this morning when I woke up but I couldn't remember what thread it was in...