so i started seeing a new endocrinoligist today. my old one was 5 hours away in toronto where i used to live. anyway my experience today was so awful.
she told me the only cure for PCOS is to have gastric bypass surgery. that i will never lose weight, i will never get pregnant and that i'm going to have a low quality of life for what's left of my life.
yes i'm fat. even fatter than usual due the fact that i broke my foot recently and was complelely inactive for 3 months and ate a lot of unhealthly food during that time due to my boyfriends cooking and my own boredom. but i do not think i need gastric bypass! i am not unhealthy. i have good colesterol, low blood pressure, am not diabetic, do not have any of the diseases related to obesity. my weight was on the decline before i broke my foot. at this weight i spent 2 full seasons working 12 hours a day on an organic farm and was just as fast as everyone else. i eat healthy whole foods. i only eat food from scratch and i have also been gluten free for nearly a year since being diagnosed with celiac disease.
a whole bunch of things she said made no sense. she said gastric bypass would reverse celiac disease and "you don't even know you have it" uhhh yes i do. i had a blood test that was overwhelmingly positive that i have it and several family members have been diagnosed with it as well. and why would you want to take a body that can't absorb nutrients, and cut out the part of the stomach and intestines where nutrients are absobed? plus i eat a large volume of food although it is low calorie (salads roasted or steamed veggies etc) because i am so deficient in vitamins. i don't see how shrinking my stomach to the size of a walnut would accomplish anything.
the thing that really upset me was how dismissive she was. i have read hundreds of medical journals about pcos and celiac disease. any time i tried to ask a question she just gave me some one word answer. i was in tears most of the appointment.
she seemed to think bariatric surgery would give me a better quality of life, but i don't see how not being able to eat more than half a cup of food would make my life better. its already hard enough to be gluten free at restaurants. i would feel like a pariah. plus i'm an excellent cook, i love food i love making up new recipes and ideas. but i eat really healthily. i go camping and hiking and i love exercising and i have a really great life right now. i feel like my quality of life would be significantly worse.
don't get me wrong i think bariatric surgery is great for some people. but i don't think someone who is otherwise healthy shouldn't cut out major organs from their body. i really don't care if i'm ever skinny. i just want to weigh less than i do now and continue with the healthy lifestyle i've already been working on.
Sorry you had such a bad experience today. It amazes me how many people (professionals or otherwise) refuse really listen. I think you should try a different endocrinologist. Bariatric surgery is not for everyone. It makes no sense to recommend it to a PCOS patient since usually their weight problem is NOT related to overeating. It would be interesting to find out if this doctor is a surgeon that performs this type of surgery.
I hope you curl up to you boyfriend tonite and browse to you provider book to choose a different one
Good luck!
she isn't a bariatric surgeon. the funny thing is i saw a bariatric specialist to help me lose weight (educated at harvard no less) and he didn't recommend surgery for me, unless it was something i was interested in and then he would have discussed it with me.
the hardest thing to hear is "you'll never have babies" but i know from the thousands of cysters on here that isn't true!
I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. I know that weight loss is possible, it just may not be fast, I have lost over 30 pounds doing WW (not as strict as I should) over the past two years and I have kept off what I have lost. And like the other poster said, lots of women on here are mothers. I am not one yet, but am hoping that I will be someday. I was also told I should have gastric bypass and I am not going to because I will lose weight, but at my own pace. Don't give up, you can have a good quality of life, but it is difficult at times. I'd say get a new doc!
Tiffany
Hi, just wanted to say I had bariatric surgery, not the bypass, but the gastric band, and I think it is the biggest mistake I have ever done healthwise! I did it when I did not know I had PCOS or insulin resistance and I have put on 4 stones (50 lbs?) because of it, being very sick when I tried to eat healthy (I too used to eat healthy and a lot before the band, but with the band the food was getting stuck), being nervous about going out to restaurant and being sick at restaurants toilets, and ending up eating the easier to swallow bad foods.
Now I know I have insulin resistance and need to eat a low GI diet, it all makes sense, why the band did not work given wat I had revert to eat. I am slowly loosing the weight again but it is very hard and I don't enjoy food anymore.
The only difference with gastric bypass is that with gastric bypass you cannot eat sugary things or you get something similar to fits, shakyness and gastro problems immediately, so it could help PCOS... but not many people would want so much suffering for the rest of their lives.
I'd say try another endo if you can! I am sure you can achieve what you want in a more natural way Take care x
__________________ Maria (32), Pete (28), 2 dogs, 2 cats
TTC n1 since Jan 08, PCOS, IR, LH:FSH 2:1, overweight, gastric band s.06 (made things worse), anaov./oligomenorrhea
#1 CD1 4 Oct 09, CD18 O'd, CD26 P4 = 19, 33 days (Met 1500mg, AC, EPO, inositol 6g, other supps)
#2 CD1 6 Nov 09 (Met 1500mg, Femara CD3-7 7.5mg, EPO, inositol 6g, other supps)
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I guess the jury is out! Try another endo that is better suiited for a patient like you. The main thing is to get a hold on the PCOS issue first, then try surgery if it still merits it.
Hi Liz, thank you It can be reversed (so better than a bypass) but I already spent so much money paying to have it fitted, that I cannot have another operation to have it taken out as it is also costly (I am in the UK and paid for it privately). Last year I had an argument with the doctor that fitted it and said I wanted it completely loose around my stomach, which he did. It now still gives restriction but is much more comfortable and I probably get sick once every 2-3 weeks which is fine by me. Since it is loose, I have managed to loose a bit of weight by being able to eat a bit more healthy, so for now I can live with it, but if I could go back to 2006 I would never consider this as a solution anymore. What I have found is that I don't enjoy food anymore, I feel like I cannot eat X because of the band, and cannot eat Y because I have to do a low GI diet, and so find it hard to find anything I can or want to eat.
I see you are on Metformin and chromium, I hope that helps, I found that it helped me a bit to loose weight if being really careful with the low GI diet xxx
__________________ Maria (32), Pete (28), 2 dogs, 2 cats
TTC n1 since Jan 08, PCOS, IR, LH:FSH 2:1, overweight, gastric band s.06 (made things worse), anaov./oligomenorrhea
#1 CD1 4 Oct 09, CD18 O'd, CD26 P4 = 19, 33 days (Met 1500mg, AC, EPO, inositol 6g, other supps)
#2 CD1 6 Nov 09 (Met 1500mg, Femara CD3-7 7.5mg, EPO, inositol 6g, other supps)
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horrible endo experience today, i need some love! 
Take care x
