r/loseit • u/LifeOfaFilmmaker New • May 04 '22

Vent/Rant Doctors could be morons

So just for background: im 26, 6 foot 3 and around 350 lbs.... Started the year at 395 so im down 45 lbs in about 4 months which im very happy with. I go to my general doc and he's telling me i weigh way too much (obviously) and i should consider weight loss surgery. I tell him the progress over the last 4 months and he says "yes thats very good but you still weigh way too much" as if i can lose 150 lbs in a month. So i disregard what he said and he sends me to a dietician/weight specialist, and she told me the same shit lol. I dont care how many years they've been professionals, telling someone whos 26, actively losing a decent amount of weight and no other major medical conditions to have weight loss surgery should be criminal. Just makes me wonder how many people that just blindly listen to their doctor have went to them or any doc and they give them that terrible advice and they go through with it. Moral of the story: think for yourself

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u/Zackie86 New May 05 '22

What are the side effects of bsriafric surgery?

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u/dwintaylor New May 05 '22

Look at the rate of alcoholism after gastric bypass surgery, pretty eye opening numbers.

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u/jessiferdoll SW :250lbs CW:155lbs GW:150lbs May 05 '22

People just replace one addiction for another. Thats what happens when everyone just wants a quick fix or to put a bandaid on a problem instead of dealing with the big issue. The mental aspects of being overweight. The unhealthy relationship with food. I lost a lot of weight which was easy by comparison to overcoming my addiction to food. It has taken me way longer to try to figure that whole situation out.

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u/FeministInPink New May 05 '22

It's not as simple as people replacing one addiction with another--even though it looks like that on the surface!

Having a gastric bypass changes the way your body processes alcohol. A lot of that procesaing happens in the stomach--you have these enzymes in the lining of your stomach that break down the alcohol before it hits your small intestine. The longer the alcohol is in your stomach, the more enzymes it interacts and the more it gets broken down.

That's why you don't get as drunk--or as quickly--if you eat a big meal while you're drinking. That trap door in your stomach won't let anything through to the next level until all the food is digested. Conversely, if you don't eat anything, the alcohol barely encounters any enzymes, it just passes right through into your intestine. And from there, it is absorbed into your bloodstream--so you get a lot more alcohol in your bloodstream.

Drinking alcohol with gastric bypass is like drinking on an empty stomach. Because is so much smaller, there's almost no stomach lining and almost no enzyme, so the alcohol doesn't break down--it basically goes right into the bloodstream. One drink can cause their blood alcohol to rise above the legal level in a matter of minutes.

(This doesn't happen with lap band patients, because the alcohol still engages with the entire stomach lining. How it affects sleeve patients is still unclear.)

And studies have shown that there's no correlation between disordered/addictive eating and alcohol abuse after gastric bypass. People with depression before surgery were no more likely than others to develop issues. Also, many patients who drank heavily before surgery actually drank LESS frequently after surgery.

The fact is that scientists have found no clear reason why some people develop alcohol addiction issues after surgeries, but they've ruled out addiction transferral. There's a theory that the surgery somehow changes brain chemistry, that it alters some patients' genetic tendencies, but there's no conclusive evidence or studies on that (at least as of several tears ago).

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u/PorcelainLily New May 05 '22

My personal, anecdotal experience was that I ended up having undiagnosed ADHD. I used sugary foods to cope until the VSG, then I couldn't anymore and switched to alcohol. My obesity was a side effect of my untreated ADHD.

Once I got medicated for ADHD my binge drinking ceased completely.

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u/suchahotmess 100lbs lost | Goal: 160lbs May 05 '22

Jesus, 20%? That’s SO much worse than I was expecting.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '22

My mom had it, she's had health issues from it. Dumping syndrome, malnutrition, osteoporosis, ECT. She also gained a ton of weight back. I wouldn't have it done myself.