Here's another quote from William Leith in that NY Times article I linked to yesterday:
"I heard an item on the radio the other day," Leith recalls, "in which an obesity expert was asked, 'If the government could do one thing to stop the obesity crisis, what would it be?'
The man paused, and said, 'That's the trouble. There is no one thing you can do. You have to do ... everything."'
Is that depressing to someone who has tried and tried to lose weight and never managed to keep it off? Of course! No wonder so many desperate morbidly obese people look at bariatric (weight loss) surgery with hope. The problem seems overwhelming, and the operation can give some the "leg up" they feel they need to combat the disease. Been there, felt that way, but luckily, I didn’t have the surgery because my therapist shoved me in the direction of OA first.
I’m not sure if I would have survived it anyway. Hell, I’m just coming out of a slow five week recovery from major abdominal surgery (hysterectomy), and I was physically fit and healthy going in to it. How might I have fared if I had still been 300 pounds with hypertension and Type 2 diabetes? Things could have been much dicier.
I'm not a big fan of bariatric surgery, having met someone who had a gastric bypass at around 400 pounds and then just about died from a post operative infection. She did survive, but only after weeks of misery in a hospital, and a few years later, she still suffers from nutrition absorption problems and hypoglycemia. The surgery allowed her to initially lose about 200 pounds, but her stomach stretched again and she has gained back about half that. She is now in Overeaters Anonymous to try to deal with her food issues.
Our government-funded health system has settled on bariatric surgery as a viable alternative to a life shortened or made unlivable by morbid obesity. Yet the problem is just so much larger than losing weight. If it were, I would have licked it one of those first 3 times during my life that I lost sizeable amounts of weight of 80 to 100 pounds...
By no means is bariatric surgery an “easy way out” for those who have to endure it and its long term complications. But I do think that certain medical bureaucrats have latched on it as a simple fix for very ill obese people. Sure, the surgery seems to be a straightforward option, but at a conservative estimate of $20,000 to $35,000 US for one operation without complications, does it even make economic sense? What would the success rate be if a portion of this money was put into treatment programmes for the obese, similar to those that you now see for addicts, anorexics and bulimics?
2 comments:
I agree with you to an extent Maggie. I had lap band surgery and it made my disease worse. I had lost 100 pounds prior to the surgery by myself and then I lost another 40 pounds. I am now up 90 pounds. No bariatric surgery will take away an eating disorder.
Yet two of my friends also had bari surgery, and they have lost their weight and not gained it back, 14 months out, approximately. Of course that's not yet the long haul, but I think they're going to keep it off.
Making bari surgery too easily attainable will make it too prevalent and what we'll end up with is a bunch of people who've now tried everything, including surgery, and who still haven't met with lasting success.
Thanks for the feedback, Sheila. I know I was being pretty broad with my comments about bariatric surgery. In particular, lap band surgery sounds much less invasive (and usually reversible, right?) than my recent surgery.
It's not so much the concept of having the surgery that bugs me, because I try to live with the the belief that everyone needs to find their own unique solution to their disease. Obviously, some days I need to try a little harder! My distrust is with those who shallowly promote it as a quick fix when it is such a complex problem, or those whom I suspect are more concerned with enriching their wallets than helping people's lives.
Congratulations for finding the strength to keep on with the fight.
M
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