TDoern

I have to give you points, that’s an awesome question, and actually one of the things I thought long and hard about before I had my gastric bypass “Roux-en-Y” (RNY) surgery on December 6, 2007.

Weight loss surgery is not the magic “fix everything” button that some people thing it is. WLS, in my opinion, is a tool that can be used to change your life and habits.

First, I want to say I had the RNY surgery, and my experience is my own, and my opinions. I suggest before setting your mind to one surgery or the other that you research all of the surgery options that are out there. I also suggest finding all the bariatric surgeons in your area, going to their seminars, and finding what surgeon you want to use. Then sit down with your primary doctor, then the surgeon you have picked, and talk to them about what surgery will fit YOU the best. Just because the RNY was my surgery of choice doesn’t mean it would be the surgery for my mom. Picking a surgery and surgeon is a very personal choice depending on what you are looking for.
As I said, I had the RNY, so my experience is limited to that surgery. Also, as I said, I did not look at WLS as the “EASY button”, my surgery was a tool that I used to live healthier. The RNY surgery does a few things that help a person lose weight, and keep it gone.
1. The RNY surgery DOES make you eat less, at first. Coming out of surgery a gulp of water would fill me up and make me uncomfortable. At three weeks post-op I was allowed to have one egg each day in addition to my two protein shakes each day. Even now it’s hard to imagine, but ¼ of and egg made me full, I’m talking about two teaspoons of scrambled egg.
2. The RNY surgery makes you chew better. Chewing better helps get food down in the beginning and after awhile, even now at just over a year post-op I have to chew food really well or I risk something getting stuck. Getting food stuck hurts. It’s one quick way of correcting yourself, if you do something that hurts you won’t want to keep doing it. Chewing your food better means it takes longer to eat. The longer it takes you to eat between bites the more time your stomach has to get the message out that you are full.
3. The RNY surgery also takes out or moves part of your intestines (I can’t remember which). Taking that part of your intestines out of the picture, and having the smaller stomach for food to go in means that you aren’t absorbing everything you used to. This was one of the reasons I chose the RNY surgery, I knew I’d done plenty of diets where I starved myself that didn’t work.
4. The RNY surgery (for the most part) tells you when you screw up. Most people who have had the RNY surgery end up experiencing something called dumping. Basically dumping happens when you eat too much of something you shouldn’t be eating. For example I can eat two of the tiny chocolate chip cookies you get from the refrigerated section at the store, but if I eat a whole big cookie I feel sick as a dog. I can eat about three tablespoons of ice cream without problem, but after that my stomach says I’ve eaten too much. Dumping for me feels like a really bad fast flu. I feel horribly sick to my stomach, I get sick from both ends, get chills and sweats and just feel crappy. I am lucky in that I’ve been very strict with what I allow myself to eat, and in the past year since surgery have dumped maybe a handful of times. Dumping was also one of the reason I chose the RNY surgery, I knew I needed a consequence to eating wrong or I would never learn. Having your body beat you over the head with the fact you ate the wrong stuff makes you pay a little more attention to what you eat.

As I mentioned, the RNY surgery wasn’t the “EASY button” for me. The surgery allowed me to change my lifestyle and eating habits permanently. Post-op just getting in enough water was work in itself, then adding in trying to get in enough protein to keep my body healthy was more work. I didn’t have time to think about all the foods I wasn’t eating, I was too worried about getting in what I HAD to have. I HAD to eat slower, I HAD to chew better so that it didn’t get stuck. I can still remember the first time I caved in to a craving, it was some cookie dough, and I can tell you that little bit of cookie dough was not worth what I went through. To this day I can’t even think of eating cookie dough without regretting it.

Does WLS work for PCOS? For me, it has. I can’t say that everything is like new and all, but all of my symptoms are less if not gone. I weighed 297 pounds the day I got home from surgery, Before my surgery I hadn’t had a period without medication since I was twenty in 2000, and even with stuff like provera or birth control pills my period might just be a wipe, or never come at all. Hubby and I did a year of fertility medications, and nothing, we couldn’t even get me to ovulate let alone get pregnant. I had a super hairy face I was shaving or waxing or epilating every other day or so, I had tons of back hair, chest and stomach hair too. I had HUGE dark black/brown patches on the back of my neck, underarms and such from insulin resistance.

What’s changed? I am now having a period every 29 days like clock work, whether I want to or not. The dark patches under my arms and on my neck are gone. I no longer feel the ups and downs from sugar and carbs. My facial hair and such aren’t completely gone, but I can tell you it’s much less than it was. I only have to do something about it every week or two versus almost daily. As of this morning I weigh 151 pounds.

What did I change in my life to get where I am? I made a commitment to exercising even though it’s painful. I have some back problems that I’ve had since 2000, that are still getting worse, my L4-L5-S1 in my lumbar back ruptured and was fused together, I have degenerative disc disease, my L2-L3-L4 are bulging, and I have nerve damage in my back and legs from the disc problems. Just about anything hurts including walking and sitting and such, but I still do it. I no longer live on carbs, carbs are at the bottom of my list instead of the top When I sit down to eat I eat my protein first, grilled chicken or beef, baked foods and such first, then if I have room some veggies and last if I still have room a bite or two of a carb. For example yesterday I had about two scrambled eggs, with a bit of cheese and bacon for breakfast. Lunch was Tuna salad with some lettuce, I had a snack of edamame (soy beans), then dinner was grilled chicken with asparagus, my desert was about two or three spoons of ice cream. I drink water all day long now too instead of juice or milk, or soda, and things. I enjoy water. If I’m craving something sweet it’s normally fruit, not candy.

I didn’t have WLS to cheat, I didn’t allow a surgeon to go in and rework my insides to quit. There are people I have talked to who did screw up. One person on a support site is now three years out of surgery, she had the same surgery as me, and she can eat half a pizza, and guzzles soda. She’s also gained back most of her weight. There are people I’ve talked to who did the same thing, they saw the surgery as the fix it, without changing anything in their lives, that’s not the way it works. Surgery isn’t a temporary diet, it’s a life change. You have to work to get results, and you have to stay true to your new ways of eating and living. MY WLS changed my life, but that’s because I changed too, if all I done was eat less I’d be exactly where I was, and I would be doing the same up and down dieting I’d done all my life.

I’ m not sure if any of that answers your question as well as I wish it did, but I hope it helps at least some.
Tammy

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