I have not been obese my whole life.....when I was a child I was "squeezy" and then I hit puberty! Puberty and hormones really did a number on me! In middle school wsa when I realized I was bigger than the other kids, and the other kids made sure that I knew it! Kids can be cruel. This I already knew. My mother had been overweight my whole life and even before I hit puberty kids would make fun of my mom for being obese. Kids do not realize how much those words hurt....and how long they stay with you.
My family is big. My husband refers to my family as being like that family in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" - except mine is a big, loud, noisy, Italian family. The mother in that movie actually looks a LOT like my mom (even the bathrobe she wears I think my mom has). I have a very large extended family, and my cousins are more like brothers and sisters than cousins. The majority of my family is overweight and obese, and 5 of my relatives have had weight loss surgery of some type.
In my last post, I mentioned that not only is family genetics a factor in the obesity in my family, but our family's eating. For example: my grandmother was a diabetic and a sugar-hoarder. We have a picture that we took when we found her "stash" of sugary treats......they were packed in her never-used oven! My mother now has diabetes, both of my parents have high blood pressure and all of my grandparents and an uncle have all died of heart-related problems. My older sister had surgery to correct a heart problem in her early 20s. This STRONG family history of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart problems make me worried every day about whether or not I will live to see my children graduate, get married and have their own children.
Last year I was dedicated to losing weight without surgery. I went on Weight Watchers and I watched 40 pounds disappear. Then, I stopped losing weight. No matter what I did, I never lost another pound. Then I got frustrated and stressed out and I ended up gaining almost all of it back again! Ugh! I was so disgusted with myself. It was then that I realized that my problem was so much bigger than willpower....I was hungry all the time.....and I could not tell if it was stomach hunger or head hunger, I just knew I was hungry!
So, for the past many months, I have done research on the different types of weight loss surgery. At first, I was pretty set on having the Lap-Band surgery. BOTH of my sisters have had this type of weight loss surgery (WLS) and have seen success. Two of my cousins have had it and have not had as much success, but have lost some weight. One of my other cousins had Gastric Bypass (GB) surgery and has lost all of his excess weight and kept it off (within about 20 lbs up and down) for several years now. I had all my reasons all lined up when I went in to talk to the surgeon about having the Lap-Band (LB) surgery, but he brought up some statistics and other issues that I was unaware of, even with all of the research that I had done.
1. The risk of complications with GB lower the further out from surgery you are. Once you get past 6 months out from surgery the complication rates drops to almost 0%. The risks of complications from LB surgery raise the farther out from surgery you are, so the likelihood of having to have another surgery to correct, repair, or remove the LB are pretty high.
2. People who have GB lose more weight and keep it off at a higher rate than people who have LB.
3. If, for some medical reason, you need to have GB reversed, it is possible. They do not remove any part of your interior, they just change the way things are routed. This was one of my biggest concerns going in, that at some point in the future I might have a medical problem that the GB would cause problems for. But now that concern is gone.
4. I was concerned with the morbidity rate being higher for GB than LB, but this surgeon has a morbidity rate of 0% - he has never lost a patient.....I like those odds!!
So, now on to more research and decision-making!!!
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