BMI of 21 getting gastric sleeve... thoughts?

[iloveorganicmilk1 10]

I am no longer going to reply or post anymore things under this account. so don't expect a response if you wanna say anything else to try and provoke me.

[Ebony Rose 133]

Even if your a troll this thread is entertaining...

Mmm gaining 30 pounds to get WLS is not the right way to go.

Your asking for advice from this forum, mine is to look into other options.

[Alex Brecher 10,516]

This user wasn't unbanned they created a similar ID.

I go back to older post don't feed trolls

@@Alex Brecher can't you block this IP ?

They did do that but I also unbanned their original account. Please stop calling this member a troll. I think they can use all the support can get .....

[Alex Brecher 10,516]

Let's please keep this conversation civil. It's against forum rules to call other members names etc. Let's just be NICE. if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it here.

[sammy246 235]

You're right Alex.

I wish you all the best, organic Milk. I'm sorry if my last post was overly passionate.

Edited October 7, 2016 by sammy246

[chycky 671]

Ok well my confusion based on your post.

Whatever these post all seem not productive.

Best to all. Out.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

again, my goal is not to lose weight from a vsg. I want to reduce the size of my stomach so that I can have more control over my portions. My endoscopy results from years back show that my stomach is much larger than the size of an average person's stomach. which is the reason why I am able to eat such large volumes of food.

I am planning on gaining at least 30 pounds before my surgery because otherwise it would be extremely unhealthy for me to lose weight at my current weight right now. Reading other peoples posts losing 30 pounds seemed like nothing for the first few months...

Do you have a good therapist? Have you talked this through with a professional who works with people with eating disorders?

to be honest i went through therapy couple years back but it did not help. I have not talked this through with a professional who specifically deals with eating disorders.

but trust me, i did EVERYTHING that i could think of doing to try to solve my eating problem with no avail. Saying that the vsg is my choice of last resort is an understatement.

I am going to have to disagree with you. If you had done everything you would still be seeing a therapist. You can't just give up after a few sessions. I think what you may not be understanding from the feedback you are getting is how much you have to work and how focused and dedicated to changing your relationship with food you need to be after surgery. Surgery will not cure you of what drives you to binge. It is a tool, not a magic wand.

I highly recommend you find a good therapist and consider attending support groups. You may find help with Overeaters Anonymous. You can find meeting lists and other resources like podcasts online at OA.org.

[LipstickLady 25,682]

At this point, we are not only allowing, but INVITING someone to make a mockery of the purpose of this site.

Have at it, y'all!

[LPNAshley 194]

Completely disagree with Alex. This person does NOT need the support of this group. They need the support of a properly trained mental health and psychiatry staff. Medically it is not safe for someone already at a healthy weight and with an eating disorder to get any type of bariatric surgery. Comments that have been made by the original poster suggest they have NO idea what this surgery and what life after it entails. You think she can't still binge on watermelon?! Shoot all you have to do is purée that. Steak might be harder but I seem to recall a thread about someone "accidentally" eating a 20oz steak pretty fresh post op. How many times has it been said: "they operate on our stomachs, not our heads." I sincerely hope this is someone just trolling. That would make a lot more sense than knowing there are surgeons willing to put reasonably healthy, "normal" weight people through this procedure.

[Ebony Rose 133]

Completely disagree with Alex. This person does NOT need the support of this group. They need the support of a properly trained mental health and psychiatry staff. Medically it is not safe for someone already at a healthy weight and with an eating disorder to get any type of bariatric surgery. Comments that have been made by the original poster suggest they have NO idea what this surgery and what life after it entails. You think she can't still binge on watermelon?! Shoot all you have to do is purée that. Steak might be harder but I seem to recall a thread about someone "accidentally" eating a 20oz steak pretty fresh post op. How many times has it been said: "they operate on our stomachs, not our heads." I sincerely hope this is someone just trolling. That would make a lot more sense than knowing there are surgeons willing to put reasonably healthy, "normal" weight people through this procedure.

Really well written!

[Mnicole 17]

The sleeve will stretch a little over time naturally, it's inevitable. But if you push it by binge eating then it will stretch more and you will be able to eat more and more and more and will gain all your weight back and some more. Unless you go to Mexico I really can't think of a surgeon who who perform this procedure on someone who is not overweight, you usually have to have a bmi of 35 with obesity related issues. Also a lot of patients get turned away because of their binge eating specifically because the sleeve is able to stretch back out if forced

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

[smg 471]

[ShelterDog64 2,364]

again, my goal is not to lose weight from a vsg. I want to reduce the size of my stomach so that I can have more control over my portions. My endoscopy results from years back show that my stomach is much larger than the size of an average person's stomach. which is the reason why I am able to eat such large volumes of food.

I am planning on gaining at least 30 pounds before my surgery because otherwise it would be extremely unhealthy for me to lose weight at my current weight right now. Reading other peoples posts losing 30 pounds seemed like nothing for the first few months...

Do you have a good therapist? Have you talked this through with a professional who works with people with eating disorders?

to be honest i went through therapy couple years back but it did not help. I have not talked this through with a professional who specifically deals with eating disorders.

but trust me, i did EVERYTHING that i could think of doing to try to solve my eating problem with no avail. Saying that the vsg is my choice of last resort is an understatement.

VSG is NOT the choice of last resort if you haven't seen a professional who deals with eating disorders. You haven't even used the choice of FIRST resort to solve an eating disorder.

This whole thread is just beyond belief: you're young enough to still be covered on your parents' insurance, have had a lap-band without the knowledge of one of your parents, fly back and forth to Korea regularly (but not regularly enough to have your lap-band filled/maintained), had an overnight hospital stay that your father (who is apparently in the dark about everything) has no knowledge of but claimed it on his insurance. Now, although you claim and acknowledge that you have a binge eating disorder, you're going to have a SECOND surgical procedure to hopefully eliminate the binge eating without treating your disorder. Do you understand how sketchy this all sounds? I'm not even sure what you're looking for here? "Hi, I'm thin but I eat too much healthy food, so I'm going to have a second weight loss surgery so that I don't eat an entire watermelon at a time." Does that not seem, pardon the expression, crazy as HELL?

You're either a gifted, if naive, storyteller or you need a great deal of psychiatric help. So, please, for yourself and us, do one of the following:

1) Take a fictional writing course to learn how to flesh out your story lines with more believable details or

2) Get yourself to a psychiatrist who deals SPECIFICALLY with eating disorders. Immediately.

Don't do the following:

1) Have a SECOND weight-loss surgery, while still under age 23, to correct an eating disorder.

Good luck to you in whichever of the prior is your situation.

[KristenLe 5,980]

Do you have a good therapist? Have you talked this through with a professional who works with people with eating disorders?

to be honest i went through therapy couple years back but it did not help. I have not talked this through with a professional who specifically deals with eating disorders.

but trust me, i did EVERYTHING that i could think of doing to try to solve my eating problem with no avail. Saying that the vsg is my choice of last resort is an understatement.

Weight loss surgery of any kind is NOT treatment for an eating problem / eating disorder. I'm not getting surgery because I have an eating disorder. You may want to look up the definition of bariatrics. What do you plan to do when you've lost the 10 lbs you need to lose and keep losing? You can't just say - okay - that's enough - put my stomach back. This is not only dangerous but any surgeon operating on someone that has an active / untreated eating disorder - and only has 10-15 lbs to lose should be criminally charged with patient endangerment. Go ahead and get the surgery - it will not stop you from binge eating.

[heidikat72 935]

I read this thread yesterday and had chosen not to comment when I saw Alex had banned the OP. I was disappointed when I logged on this morning and saw the thread still going and still more disappointed when I saw Alex’s post admonishing everyone to support the OP. And yes, taking the ENTIRE thread into consideration, I do consider it an admonishment. So my post here is directed more toward Alex and not the original poster.

First let me start by saying, you have created a wonderful forum where literally thousands from around the world have been able to come and do research, receive inspiration from others’ stories and get their own questions answered by those who have been there and done that. I commend you for that. This site has been a valuable resource for me and your personal success story an inspiration as well. I typically find your posts thoughtful, informative and understanding. Which is why the turn of this thread has concerned me.

So often on this site (and seems to be more prevalent by the day), the idea of “support” has come to mean condoning and even so much as encouraging poor and potentially dangerous decision making. And often the ones who dole out the “tough love” that isn’t what a poster wants to hear are sadly vilified as not being supportive when in actuality they are often the ones most concerned with other’s health and understand that sometimes the harsh reality is what someone really needs to support their long term health goals. Support should never be equated with “enabling”.

To recap: the OP is currently at a healthy/normal BMI for her height, wants to get a lower weight within the healthy/normal BMI range and admits she has Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and will be getting a VSG as a cure for her BED.

Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy nor any other weight loss surgery is NOT an approved, safe, effective treatment let alone cure for BED. I’m including a link below where even for obese patients with BED, the author is cautioning patients to not consider VSG as a treatment for BED. The author correctly asserts that WLS is helping to treat the obesity – a SYMPTOM in this case of BED, and is NOT treating the actual eating disorder.

https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/binge-eating-disorder/binge-eating-disorder-bariatric-surgery-or-the-sleeve

Binge eating disorder is a legitimate and very serious psychological disorder that has a tremendous negative impact on the lives of those suffering with it. There are several approved safe and effective treatments for managing BED while the patient continues to be in appropriate psychological treatment to get to the root cause that triggered the disorder and help them discover better ways of handling those trigger rather than binging. And yes, I am familiar with those treatments because I was member on a team of scientists and others researching, developing, and testing in many clinical trials to prove safety as well as efficacy, and eventually obtaining approval for one of those treatments.

I reiterate that WLS is NOT considered a treatment/cure for any eating disorder. As most of us on here realize, it is not a CURE for anything. The surgery is merely a tool to help get the obesity under control while we address the mental aspects that led to the obesity. The reason WLS surgery is an appropriate tool for this is because the further complications that the obesity leads to (sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes etc) can and often will short our lives significantly thus making the need to get the obesity dealt with worth the associated risks/potential complications of a major surgery. Again, the WLS is treating the symptom – obesity – not the cause whether that cause be BED, emotional eating or any other issue that leads to a poor relationship with food. Even with WLS, for long term success and maintenance the cause ultimately has to be dealt with as well.

The OP stated she has “tried everything” for her BED yet didn’t mention a single treatment specifically. Based on all of her posts, she appears to be of the thinking the surgery alone will cure her. Honestly I spent a lot of today trying to find sources or any studies of WLS in healthy BMI patients with regard to eating disorders. You know what? I couldn’t find a single one. All studies I found regarding WLS and eating disorders – were on obese patients. Because the studies recognized that the WLS really was only treating the obesity and the studies all seemed to conclude the same thing with regard to eating disorders – WLS showed temporary effect on the eating disorder itself but that long term, the eating disorder needed appropriate treatment on its own – WLS is NOT a cure for an eating disorder.

Using steak as an example (since the OP mentioned that as a food she binges on), WLS will reduce the amount you can eat in one sitting but it won’t stop you from eating 3 oz of steak every hour, 24 hours a day.

Now to the Original Poster. You have clearly already made up your mind to have the surgery. In fact your initial post you said you were ADAMANT about going through with the surgery – so I’m not really sure why you posted asking for others thoughts when you said up front your mind was made up. So I won’t try to talk you out of surgery. I hope you do come to realize though that surgery is not treating your actual medical disorder and that you see a reputable doctor specializing in binge eating disorder and seek appropriate treatment for the BED otherwise, I feel you will be very disappointed with your longer term results.

apologies for the VERY long post above, but this has bothered me all day and I felt these things needed to be said.