Stomach Stapling. Yes, No, Maybe?

[sunstruck]

Unless she's so fat she's physically incapable of movement (like 600-700+ lbs, so her joints are incapable of baring her weight), she should just get in shape – that would get rid of all her risks for heart disease and diabetes without her having to lose a pound.

How do you get in shape without losing a pound?

 

[Rhys]

I have a friend who did this. She threw up a lot the first year because she literally could not hold anything down. She finally had to grind her tablespoon sized portions up in a food processor in order to keep them down. She lost weight, but the underlying psychological problem is still there, as are her thyroid problems.

Basically, the surgery induces a form of bulimia. There are people out there who have had the surgery and have managed to restretch the stomach and they gained what weight they lost back. Not to mention that the surgery is dangerous and is really akin to a heart bypass. Another friend who's step daughter had the surgery, had to be resuscitated because she stopped breathing on the table. I think this society has a real problem with self image, so much so that it would go to incredible radical extremes to create uniformity of its members.

My friend was healthier when she was "fat." She knows this too and regrets the surgery. Basically, we all come in different shapes and sizes, and what really matters is your level of fitness not your mass or your drag from gravity. I think self mutilation in search of the ideal to be a scary concept.

 

[Rubyfruit]

I wanted to add, that I do think, being that doctors are as human as the rest of us, their personal prejudices come into play when they recommend this surgery.

I had a doctor tell me I should have it done when I wasn't anywhere near the weight guideline for it (100 lbs - although I think it's been lowered since then).

If anybody wants to see just how deep hatred for fat goes, just read DCL's thread on Vixen today.

 

[Calamity Jane]

My step-sister had it done. She's lost around 180 pounds since last Christmas. She's starting to look like the guy from Thinner, though, and it turns out that she can't eat enough to maintain weight. She's become sort of surgically anorexic. She's 5' 9" and currently, a size 2 is a little baggy. She's losing weight at about 2 pounds a week now.

 

[Rhys]

Lets talk about "fat" hatred for a second.

I went scuba diving with my friend and we both had to wear wetsuits. Instead of giving her a man's suit, the rental place handed her a woman's large and she had to stuff herself into it. Now, I have to add, that at the time, my friend was roughly a size 14...and I could see the bones of her ribcage. She had lost a lot of weight but the redistribution of her remaining weight was going a little slow so she had a pouchy belly (which I think is sexy as fuck but anway)

The asshole dive master tells her she should lose weight and exercise more when she complained about the wetsuit.

I was there. He said it in front of me. We dove that day but I went to the dive shop and demanded our money back (for a number of reasons not just this one) because that was really the final coffin nail. I know what a hell of a battle she had been through and this guy's remarks went all through her. I have a hell of a time today convincing her that I don't really care about her dimples on her ass. I think they are cute. I think most men don't give a fuck what you look like, only that you think you are sexy. Most women today, don't think they are sexy. This sort of shit pisses me off.

 

[sunstruck]

Ok I don't want to get into a debate about whether or not fat is sexy. To each their own so long as no one is hurting anyone else.

The reason Ann is contemplating this surgery has NOTHING to do with athetics. She has a devoted boyfriend and few if any self esteem issues.

I would NEVER advocate major abdominal surgery to fit into a smaller dress size. This is a helth issue.

Now if, after talking to her doctor and reading everything I can find on the subject I think it's too dangerous I will try my best to talk her out of it and I will get up an hour early every morning to drag her ass to the pool with me. I will do everything I can to help her. She's the closest thing to a sister I have. We grew up together. I'm not going to just stand by and watch her deteriorate.

Thank you to everyone who listed health risks they were aware of. I'm going to do some online research and find out how much of it is fact. If anyone has any links I'd love to see them.

 

[bad kitty]

Lets talk about "fat" hatred for a second.

...

The asshole dive master tells her she should lose weight and exercise more when she complained about the wetsuit.

This stuff happens all the time. I encounter it nearly everytime I go out and I have all my life. I am usually about a 14/16 unless I am pregnant. You sound like a true sweety to know.

 

[Calamity Jane]

This stuff happens all the time. I encounter it nearly everytime I go out and I have all my life. I am usually about a 14/16 unless I am pregnant. You sound like a true sweety to know.

Where do you hang out that people feel they have the right to comment on your size 'nearly everytime you go out'?

We're probably damn near the same size and no one except my sister has ever told me that I'm fat.

 

[Raina]

From : The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Benefits

• Right after surgery, most patients lose weight quickly and continue to lose for 18 to 24 months after the procedure.
• Although most patients regain 5 to 10 percent of the weight they lost, many maintain a long-term weight loss of about 100 pounds.
• Surgery improves most obesity-related conditions. For example, in one study blood sugar levels of 83 percent of obese patients with diabetes returned to normal after surgery. Nearly all patients whose blood sugar levels did not return to normal were older or had lived with diabetes for a long time.

Risks

• Ten to 20 percent of patients who have weight-loss surgery require follow-up operations to correct complications. Abdominal hernia was the most common complication requiring follow-up surgery, but laparoscopic techniques seem to have solved this problem. In laparoscopy, the surgeon makes one or more small incisions through which slender surgical instruments are passed. This technique eliminates the need for a large incision and creates less tissue damage. Patients who are superobese (>350 pounds) or have had previous abdominal surgery may not be good candidates for laparoscopy, however. Less common complications include breakdown of the staple line and stretched stomach outlets.
• Some obese patients who have weight-loss surgery develop gallstones. Gallstones are clumps of cholesterol and other matter that form in the gallbladder. During rapid or substantial weight loss, a person’s risk of developing gallstones increases. Taking supplemental bile salts for the first 6 months after surgery can prevent gallstones.
• Nearly 30 percent of patients who have weight-loss surgery develop nutritional deficiencies such as anemia, osteoporosis, and metabolic bone disease. These deficiencies usually can be avoided if vitamin and mineral intakes are high enough.
• Women of childbearing age should avoid pregnancy until their weight becomes stable because rapid weight loss and nutritional deficiencies can harm a developing fetus
  

 

[sunstruck]

Raina is my favorite poster today!

Thank you VERY much.

 

[Raina]

Thanks.

I am the google goddess.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Thank you to everyone who listed health risks they were aware of. I'm going to do some online research and find out how much of it is fact. If anyone has any links I'd love to see them.

Gastric Bypass Lengthens Lifespan

Medical Malpractice Increases

Here's an article you may want to share with her, Sunny.

Lap-Band:
An Alternative to Stapling
Dr. Jeff Allen believes obesity is an addiction.
"One thing I tell people is that obesity is an addiction people can see. If people walked around with transparent livers, you could see who the alcoholics are. Since obesity is an addiction people can see, it makes it even worse," says Allen, a surgeon at the University of Louisville and founder of the Louisville Obesity team.
Allen is trying to help people overcome their addiction, make them look better and save their lives; and he is accomplishing this by installing a Lap-Band around their stomach. The Lap-Band is a silicone elastomer band, about the size of a watchband, which is placed around the top of the stomach and inflated with saline, forming the stomach into an hourglass.

"It's a simple procedure," says Allen, the only surgeon in Kentucky credentialed to perform the procedure. "And the really wonderful thing about the Lap-Band is that it's adjustable. If someone is not losing weight, it can be injected with more saline to narrow the hourglass. But if they are losing too much weight, saline can be taken out."

Until recently, the only surgical procedure used to treat obesity was stomach stapling. "There is a huge difference (between the Lap-Band and stomach stapling)," Allen says, "With the Lap-Band, nothing gets stapled and the stomach is never exposed. And unlike the stomach staple, it' easy to reverse.""

Allen said another positive thing about the Lap-Band is that when women become pregnant, the band can be adjusted to allow for normal eating and after the baby is born it can be adjusted back for weight loss.

But the Lap-Band is not for everyone. Candidates for the Lap-Band must be approximately 100 pounds overweight, who have unsuccessfully tried other weight-loss methods.

"This is not for any recreational overweight individual who wants to drop a few pounds," Allen says.

Louisville resident Michalle Mattingly made the personal decision in October 2001 to get a Lap-Band. Mattingly, 36, had always been an athletic individual, but after she became pregnant at 18, she began putting on weight. One day at Norton's Hospital, where Mattingly is a nurse on an oncology unit, Mattingly and Allen ran into one another. Allen told her about the Lap-Band and Mattingly began seriously considering it.

Mattingly knew she didn't want to have her stomach stapled, so the Lap-Band was a great alternative.

"I didn't want anyone touching my colon," she says. "A gastric bypass (stomach stapling) is more invasive and I would never have that done. Never."

Five weeks since her Lap-Band was installed, Mattingly has lost 26 pounds. Her goal is to lose more than 200 pounds.
Mattingly says although she feels better since having the Lap-Band installed, there are some drawbacks.

"You can never eat steak again," she says, "because you can't chew it up enough. You even have to be careful when you eat tuna."

Mattingly says she has also learned to slow down when she eats and make healthier meal choices.

"It's sad that it took surgery to make me eat healthy," she says. "These five weeks are the best I have ever eaten."

For more information on the Lap-Band visit the Web site www.louisvilleweightloss.com.

 

[Raina]

*Hands PCG the Google Goddess crown*

 

[Temptress_1960]

I have known people for whom this has worked very well.

And I knew one person who died a few days after the surgery, from complications.

It is very dangerous, but for some folks the benefits may out-weigh the risks.

 

[sunstruck]

Thanks PCG! I'd never even heard of a Lapband. Ann didn't mention it, so I'm wondering if the hospital told her about it.

It sounds like a MUCH better alternative if for nothing else than it's flexability.

 

[bad kitty]

Where do you hang out that people feel they have the right to comment on your size 'nearly everytime you go out'?

We're probably damn near the same size and no one except my sister has ever told me that I'm fat.

Well i don't go out much. We went to a bar back home once and an entire table of dimwit college boys and their barbie dolls thought it would be funny to make fun of me all night, my doctor is regularly making comments about how I would feel better and my arthritis would do better if I lost weight. Hell every doctor I have had complains about my "obesity." Those are the only ones that have stuck with me worht mentioning. It's pretty freakin sad when a doctor harasses ya, I mean really. Like a person doesn't know when they are overweight.

Yes I suppose I overexaggerated. It is more like 25 - 50 % of the time.

 

[Angel]

You have to wonder how much nutrition you'll get from one chicken wing,

Is a vitamin plan required to go along with this?

A vitamin plan should go along with it.

A friend of mine who was seriously obese in high school got it done three years ago. She'd spent years working out, on Atkins and various other systems and finally got fed up and had the procedure done.

She's healthier, has great eating habits now, and is smaller than me, lol.

She was set up with a nutritionist after the surgery who helped her to plan the menus to follow as well as a vitamin supplement plan. It's worked for her all around the board.

 

[DéjàNu]

I say if they dont fellow a diet with it they would all take the weight they loose.

Last year they find a cancer in my mom stomach, they have to remove most of it for her to have a chance to well.. live. So its a bit like that weight-loss surgery. Those first days were awful, pain, hungry but couldnt eat... it last a couple of days even weeks before she was able to eat a little bit without having pain. She said that she was hungry like before and if she didnt take care of how much she was eating she would eat too much and end up in very much pain... Its a very panic couple of weeks for those who live with them.

My mom become very tiny but take back all her weight since then... oh and she is doing well!

Anyway I do hope Ann is taking the right choice for her... and Sun you wont probably like what you find in your research about that kind of surgery... what are you going to do with that infos? Will you try to make Ann change her mind? or keep it for you? because its already a big decision for her to make. I remember trying to find info about what my mom has, I just stop reading it was too bad, I didnt need to know after all...

Good luck to her!

 

[sunstruck]

Sun you wont probably like what you find in your research about that kind of surgery... what are you going to do with that infos? Will you try to make Ann change her mind? or keep it for you?

Odds are if I find a substantial amount of negative information I will show it to her. In fact if there is any legitimate info I find that she is unaware of I will make sure she knows about it.

The only way I would seriously try to talk her out of it would be if there was a high mortality rate or a great percentage of failure.

We'll see.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Yes I suppose I overexaggerated. It is more like 25 - 50 % of the time.

Craziness. Maybe I just don't pay attention to what people say about me.

*Hands PCG the Google Goddess crown*

LOL

Thanks PCG!

You're welcome.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

I would prefer not to have my stomach stapled, thank you. I stapled my finger once, and that hurt. It wasn't as bad as a kick in the nuts or anything, but I had to put a band-aid on it.

 

[heavenly body]

I think the surgery is very invasive but for some folks it is the only way to a more healthy lifestyle. I guess I think that for people who are morbidly obese (over 100lb overweight) it is a possible solution. I will not make any value judgements about their "will power" or discipline since I do not think this is necessarily the reason they are obese. I believe for some people that for whatever reasons.....addiction or mental problems losing weight is a nightmare. It is not like you can just never eat again. Lots of research is needed about this topic. For those who had the unkind and smart ass responses it makes me think that you have a far more serious problem. I do not see any reason for making those comments. No one thinks they are funny just mean.

 

[Semler]

Three in 100 die on the operating table.

I bet her loved ones would rather have her fat than dead, but I'm just guessing.

Actually it is a .5% mortality rate. 1 in 200

 

[Cleopatra]

I've heard about this type of weight-control, but only in extreme cases. If Ann is going to be serious about having a healthy life from now on, following diet and exercise etc., and her doctors feel it's necessary for her, then I'd have it done.

If this is just a way to avoid diet and exercise, I'd predict failure.

Just my opinion, however.

 

[Guest]