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ccrensh1

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Hi all,

my name is Carrielee. I’m 32, from TN. I’ve been overweight/obese since childhood and the weight keeps piling on as well as the co-morbid diagnoses. I was finally referred to Bariatric surgery earlier this year after an Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension diagnosis and just finally scheduled my initial consult. I’m scared and anxious and overwhelmed and questioning things but also don’t want to die early and that’s where I’m headed with things as they are so it’s time for a change. At 5’1”, I currently weigh 298 pounds, putting me at a BMI of 56.3.

I currently have Hypertension refractory to medications, Type II Diabetes, angina, high cholesterol and triglycerides, sleep apnea, arthritis in most joints, past history of pulmonary embolism, IIH, fatty liver disease, tachycardia. I’m on a fast track to early death due to obesity like my mom and grandfather faced and that isn’t what I want my reality to be.
 
Hello, Carrielee. I just saw one of your posts and replied there, but this one seems even more personal. I am very sorry about how obesity has affected your family and your own life experience suffering this disease.

First of all, I want to say something that has been probably said to you a thousand times already: obesity is an insidious metabolic disease that has little to do with willpower or lack of personal discipline. The mathematic way of approaching weight loss is inherently flawed. While it is true that you can only lose weight if you consume less calories than you burn, “eating less” is definitely not how you can achieve a healthy weight when you have been chronically obese for most of your life. That erroneous way of thinking is the reason why purely restrictive procedures, such as the gastric ballon or gastric band have such a high failure rate. Most informed physicians have started to refer to bariatric surgery as metabolic surgery. Restriction is only a small part of the reason it works. Surgery modifies your metabolism and helps the patient gain the upper hand against their body.
I am reiterating this to you because shame is something we have to suffer through most of the time. However, it really is not “your fault”. You did not “decide” to be obese. There is an undeniable behavioral element to obesity, but research suggests it has a lot to do with hormones and, in a good number of cases, with unaddressed trauma. Obesity is also hereditary. While it is not your fault you were dealt this hand, it is your responsibility to care and cure your body, using any and all methods modern medicine makes available to you.

You have a duty to yourself. You should take good care of you. There is no shame in taking all the help you can get. You are not a failure, nor are you destined to an early death. You are very young. You can take back control of your life. It’s okay to need help. It’s okay to take the help. You deserve any chance at survival. You deserve to have good quality of life. You deserve to be healthy. You deserve to feel well on your own skin.

Best of luck.
 
Alice, this might be the most well-put-together post I've ever read in this group. Thank you for taking such care in writing it. Carrielee, I hope you are finding it as affecting as I did. Alice chose perfect words to describe all the sides of this wrestling ring of horror. And most importantly, she stressed the most important thing: YOU CAN DO IT. Get happy, get positive, create a food plan and get ready to succeed. You will.
 
dianeseattle said:
Alice, this might be the most well-put-together post I've ever read in this group. Thank you for taking such care in writing it. Carrielee, I hope you are finding it as affecting as I did. Alice chose perfect words to describe all the sides of this wrestling ring of horror. And most importantly, she stressed the most important thing: YOU CAN DO IT. Get happy, get positive, create a food plan and get ready to succeed. You will.
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Thank you for your kind words! I am glad I could address some of the issues we have struggled with all of our life and how society and, sometimes, the medical community at large perceive our body weight as a personal failure of the patient. Obesity is a lonely, shameful experience with tremendous baggage and a lot of guilt. But we did not decide this. Food addiction and metabolism are not under our control. Nevertheless, with the right help, they can be. All of us are here because we decided to get the right help. Deciding to be healthy is our right and duty. Finding help and understanding is also our right. None of us are alone, we only need to be reminded of those things sometimes.
 
Hi Carrielee, welcome to this group. Please know you are not alone in your struggle. You are doing the right thing by considering surgery. I just had surgery 6 months ago at age 50 and only wish I had started this journey at a much younger age. You deserve to feel healthy and lead a long life.
 
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