[Tonchi]

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.