Weight Loss Surgery is Scary

There's a young woman who went ahead with a gastric bypass operation seven weeks ago. She is also one of the best writers I've encountered anywhere online.

She has been blogging about her weight loss struggles for over two years.

She made the decision to go ahead with weight loss surgery after much thought. And before she went through with it she had horrible second thoughts. But she went ahead with the operation on November 7th. A few days later she told us how painful it was. However, since November 20th she has not posted at all. Her blog seems to be abandoned and a lot of her readers (including myself) are very worried about her.

Her site is at Hello, I am Fat.

Update January 19th: Relief and good news. She's back and just posted on her blog again. She's lost a lot of weight already, still having a very hard time post-surgery but appears to be recovering and feeling better each day.

No More Binge Eating for Boston Guy

Chris Stockbridge was all set to get weight loss surgery a couple of months ago. He weighed 340 pounds and wanted to lose more than a hundred pounds.

But the story happened to get out that he was binge eating as his surgery approached. The Boston Herald took photos of him binge eating at a buffet. And many radio stations interviewed him.

His doctor was upset with him. He thought he was setting a bad example for other people who were about to get weight loss surgery. But he's since found out that it's quite common for people to go on a big binge before their planned weight loss surgery.

However the doctor was upset and told him he had to lose forty pounds first on his own, before he would accept him for weight loss surgery.

The good news is that Chris Stockbridge has now lost 56 pounds (in less than three months) and he had changed his mind about taking the surgery route. He thinks he may now be able to lose all his excess weight with the lifestyle change he's made over the past few weeks.

See the full and very interesting story at CalorieLab.

Obesity Surgery has High Risks

A new study has found that four out of every ten people who undergo weight loss surgery experience complications within half a year. Many of these complications are so serious they have to go to emergency rooms.

The average cost of the surgery and six months of follow-up is $29,921. But for patients with complications that require re-admission to hospital, the average cost is $65,031.

Past studies found that ten to twenty percent of people had problems after the surgery. But this study done by federal researchers found that forty percent had complications within 180 days of surgery. The most common ailments include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal hernias, infections, pneumonia, respiratory failure and leaking of gastric juices.

Magazines about Weight Loss Surgery

I was surprised to find out there is a magazine market devoted just to weight loss surgery. I didn't think there would be enough readers interested in this drastic option for weight loss.

There are at least two magazines that I've seen on Amazon. One is WLS Lifestyles (short for Weight Loss Surgery Lifestyles) and the other is called ObesityHelp. They claim to give unbiased facts about surgery for losing weight. For example, the publisher blurb about WLS says;

Dedicated to the pre- & post-operative bariatric surgery community. Our goal is to provide unbiased, medial-fact based information to those who are considering and/or have decided to change their lives with gastric bypass, lap band, duedonal switch or any other form of weight loss surgery.

I personally can't see how these magazines could portray an objective view of the risks associated with this surgery. They make their money from advertisements in the magazine, and I would assume it is mostly surgeons and weight loss surgery clinics that advertise there. How could they write detailed articles about the dangers involved and still maintain their advertising client base? Would you ever see a bad-news story about surgery gone wrong in one of these issues?

I haven't read either of these magazines but would appreciate any feedback people have about this.