I need to be on a 3 different types of psych medications that cause weight gain! I didn't want to take them, but my sanity and health depends on them and I was taking one of them before surgery.

I have asked for similar medications that don't have the weight gain side effect and it seems like there are none that would take care of my symptoms. So I've been taking these.

As a result, my weight loss has been very slow and compared to others minimal! I am at 13 months post op and have already gained 6 lbs after starting my last medication which was a month ago!

Now, I'm not saying I have been perfect, but I don't think I've ate so bad as to have gained 6 lbs! I'm ashamed to tell anyone, but I'm sure they can tell themselves! I have already stopped taking one of the medications that causes weight gain because it really wasn't helping my symptoms much. There are 2 other medications I take that cause weight gain but since these are in my system long term, I am afraid to stop taking them and seriously doubt my doctor would approve. I'm afraid of not taking them too.

I am seeing my doctor tomorrow, but I doubt anything will come out of it. There aren't many weight neutral psych medications! and it's already been difficult to get me stable so since these meds work for my condition, I doubt that my doctor will change them. And quite frankly, I am afraid to try other things since like I said, it took a long time and many trial and errors for me to become emotionally stable.

My weight loss surgeon said the meds makes it harder to lose, but they have actually caused a weight gain! He gave me phentermine to help, but it's been two weeks on them and I see no difference! My eating hasn't changed much from when I was losing. I still exercise daily and stay away from starchy food. I haven't been consistent with logging food, which I started doing again yesterday.

I'm 10 lbs away from my goal but I am not hopeful that I can lose these last 10 lbs. and I'm afraid of gaining more weight if I continue taking these medications.

I feel defeated and feel like a failure because of the 6 lbs I've gained back.

Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do?

Please share your experience if you have had similar issues.

Thank you

I'm sorry you are going through this. Medications and weight gain are difficult add wls and it feels like we have the world against us and we're peddling backwards on an uphill road. I think your thoughts to speak to your doctor is the right move. I wouldn't make any drastic changes to your emotional well being without consulting your physician first.

Have you tried to "reset" your pouch? Maybe approaching these 10lbs from a different angle is the way to go. It sounds like you're doing everything correct assuming you're still following your dietary guidelines and water intake upwards of 100 or more oz per day. The pouch reset would put you back into those first days / weeks post surgery.

You mentioned your surgeon put you on phentermine, did he make any other suggestions? I would maybe consult with him before you try a pouch reset as well. Sometimes changing up your diet helps, it confuses your body and suddenly you're back to consistent weight loss.

Thinking of you and hoping you get the answers you're hoping for from your medical team.

I'm in the same boat and most psych meds have weight gain as a side effect. I've been dealing with psych meds since I was 18. Some have made me gain A LOT and others have made me gain in the beginning of taking them. I'm on a new med right now that if I forget to take one and start taking it again the next day, I am magnetized to food. I have fallen asleep eating dry cereal and woke up with the soggy chewed up remains. Now, once I've taken it for a few days, that draw to food seems to be gone. I take this medicine at night because of the drowsiness. The next day I feel like crap after I've been bingeing on food. I take 2 different psych meds at this time and they have been swapping and changing for the past 6 months because of my surgery. I'm unable to swallow pills so I have to crush them or get the dissolvable ones and since my wls I have a hard time stomaching bad tasting things.

Oh, and it takes psych meds a little longer to get in your system and benefit. Has your dr added all of your meds at once or 1 at a time? Mine adds one at a time to see if it is working and what side effects I'll have.

Ok, so here's the deal. Most meds will not "make you magically gain" if you don't actually put the extra calories in your body that are gonna drive weight gain.

I say this cuz I know first hand. One of the worst drugs ever for weight gain cuz it def drives up cortisol and insulin is prednisone and even worse, IV prednisone! I was on IV prednisone for 3 months and during that time, actually LOST weight--about 60lbs. BUT, I was doing IF plus caloric restriction. And because I cut out high glycemic carbs and only focused on good lean protein, leafy greens, and low glycemic veg with a tiny bit of healthy fats, I was not hungry at all. I went into ketosis and that helped curb the hunger effects from the prednisone.

I am also on Femara (a cancer drug that shuts down hormones and makes you hungry and increases insulin). I gained a crap ton of weight on this drug when I gave up and was eating my crappy diet. But in the last 18 months that I'm back on low carb/modified keto and eating a calorie controlled diet and doing IF -- I've lost 135lbs.

So it is possible. My weight loss is slow. Only about 70lbs give or take since surgery in February. But I'm about 2lbs from first goal of 150 right now. It can be done!!!!

Hang in there. Take your meds, feel better, move more, go low carb!!!! Eat those leafy veggies and lean protein and a bit of healthy fats!!! Drink lots of water!!!! You got this!

So I assume you were stable on one medication a year ago at the time you had surgery and now you need two additional medications to be stabilized and your BS is giving you phentermine to counteract the weight gain. There has got to be a better option than taking all these drugs. Besides weight loss, has anything else happened to make you more emotionally unstable in the last year? If so, maybe that needs to be addressed.

IMHO, you need a good therapist, good support in your life, good sleep and daily exercise. Psychiatrists are trained that the only way to manage mental illness is via medication and I agree with this for people that are psychotic, schizophrenic, bipolar etc. but people need more than drugs to become emotionally stable.

I urge you to take control of your situation and not to believe that you have to take every medication a doctor prescribes. I am not saying you don't need any medication but it can not do the whole job by itself.

2 hours ago, MIZ60 said:

So I assume you were stable on one medication a year ago at the time you had surgery and now you need two additional medications to be stabilized and your BS is giving you phentermine to counteract the weight gain. There has got to be a better option than taking all these drugs. Besides weight loss, has anything else happened to make you more emotionally unstable in the last year? If so, maybe that needs to be addressed.

IMHO, you need a good therapist, good support in your life, good sleep and daily exercise. Psychiatrists are trained that the only way to manage mental illness is via medication and I agree with this for people that are psychotic, schizophrenic, bipolar etc. but people need more than drugs to become emotionally stable.

I urge you to take control of your situation and not to believe that you have to take every medication a doctor prescribes. I am not saying you don't need any medication but it can not do the whole job by itself.

This is such a lovely and well-written response!!!! Listen to this lady! She knows what she's talking about!!!!!

Unlike me, who should have her Jr. Dr. Kildare license yanked for giving med advice on a support board! My apologies! I did just assume with multiple psych meds you were quite likely dealing with a more complex issue.

I so agree with her about how exercise and diet are even better than many mood meds and also that you SHOULD take control of your situation and believe you have the power to effect changes without the use of more medicine than you might need! ((hugs))

I take a psych med with weight gain side effect too. I'm 3 wks post op and it has stopped working. Granted it's an atypical antipsychotic used for off label dosing for insomnia. High unreccomended in the psych world these days. No one said anything about the usage during WLS but I think it should have been addressed.

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On 10/26/2018 at 6:07 AM, tnks2hp said:

I need to be on a 3 different types of psych medications that cause weight gain! I didn't want to take them, but my sanity and health depends on them and I was taking one of them before surgery.

I have asked for similar medications that don't have the weight gain side effect and it seems like there are none that would take care of my symptoms. So I've been taking these.

As a result, my weight loss has been very slow and compared to others minimal! I am at 13 months post op and have already gained 6 lbs after starting my last medication which was a month ago!

Now, I'm not saying I have been perfect, but I don't think I've ate so bad as to have gained 6 lbs! I'm ashamed to tell anyone, but I'm sure they can tell themselves! I have already stopped taking one of the medications that causes weight gain because it really wasn't helping my symptoms much. There are 2 other medications I take that cause weight gain but since these are in my system long term, I am afraid to stop taking them and seriously doubt my doctor would approve. I'm afraid of not taking them too.

I am seeing my doctor tomorrow, but I doubt anything will come out of it. There aren't many weight neutral psych medications! and it's already been difficult to get me stable so since these meds work for my condition, I doubt that my doctor will change them. And quite frankly, I am afraid to try other things since like I said, it took a long time and many trial and errors for me to become emotionally stable.

My weight loss surgeon said the meds makes it harder to lose, but they have actually caused a weight gain! He gave me phentermine to help, but it's been two weeks on them and I see no difference! My eating hasn't changed much from when I was losing. I still exercise daily and stay away from starchy food. I haven't been consistent with logging food, which I started doing again yesterday.

I'm 10 lbs away from my goal but I am not hopeful that I can lose these last 10 lbs. and I'm afraid of gaining more weight if I continue taking these medications.

I feel defeated and feel like a failure because of the 6 lbs I've gained back.

Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do?

Please share your experience if you have had similar issues.

Thank you

Congratulations on being so close to your personal goal. That takes work and moxy!

Weight gains can mess with your head. I get the fear of going back to where you started. You are not a failure. No need to beat yourself down. This is the mental battles with weight loss surgery. Time to press forward and build yourself up. Work with your Dr. We are all a work in progress.

Managing mental illness and keeping stable is work. Managing our weight loss is work. None of this is easy. You already know what you need to do. Stay the course.

Wishing you the best,

Jenn

Edited October 28, 20187 yr by skinnylife

ok my opinion - that and 3 bucks still wont get you a Starbucks coffee

do not stop your meds without medical supervision

if you have to choose between mental stability and being thin choose metal stability.

i dont think you have to choose but if it comes down to just those 2 options choose mental health.

you will take longer to get there but you have the rest of your life to finish this race.

eat the 3 walls of the grocery store - veggies , meats , dairy

nothing from the middle isles

as harsh as that sounds it really is that simple - dont consume processed carbs

sugar under 10 grams per day

carbs (from veggies) under 50 grams per day

all other calories from protein and fat whatever mix works for you.

if you dont eat sugar and processed carbs the calorie count will fall by default.

all the bad slider foods and liquid calories are covered by no sugar and no processed carbs with a total carb cap of 50g per day.

you can then work to a 16/8 eating cycle and use ketosis during the 18 hours of fasting to help nudge you along despite the meds messing with your body chemistry

and this one will be the most unpopular of all - NO FRUIT if your not losing weight

as a side note i believe some if not most of that 6 pounds you gained was water. it takes 24,000 extra calories to gain 6 pounds of fat and i just dont see that happening in a month.

water and fat are not the same and the water weight can go just as fast as it came but the fat is much harder to burn up.

please dont give up. post WLS is mostly a mind game so keeping yourself happy and positive is the best medicine.

tnks2ph, wish I knew what to tell you. I don't.

I don't have any clue about your mental health issues, so I sure as hell would not advise you to drop your meds. Frankly, I think anyone who would say that to a stranger on the internet after reading one post...really needs to do some thinking about how dangerously unwise that is.

I know that SSRI meds are infamous for causing weight gain. Some of the other ones are even worse.

And shockingly...none of them is anything like pred....which sucks, too....but can't be compared.

Best advice I can see that you've been given:

"do not stop your meds without medical supervision

if you have to choose between mental stability and being thin choose metal stability.

i dont think you have to choose but if it comes down to just those 2 options choose mental health.

you will take longer to get there but you have the rest of your life to finish this race."

For your safety, you need some professional medical expertise on this topic. You won't find it here.

Maybe try to get a referral consult with a psychiatric group who works with eating disorders? They might have more advanced knowledge on how different psychiatric meds effect diet and weight outcomes...and have strategies for overcoming the difficulties you're experiencing.

There are a lot of people in your shoes. Someone reputable has good answers. Just have to find them.

Wishing you the best.

Edited October 29, 20187 yr by Creekimp13

And I am the weird little bird?that took phentermine One Month and gained,30 pounds, while documenting every little bite of food that I took in. Another reason I started seeking surgery in August 2015 and finally had the success of surgery September 5 2018. Only med I am still on in your area is Wellbutrin, went from 150mg Extended Rekease twice a day to 100mg Three times a day. But I hope you can get some more help and get this all smoothed out????

You have some great advice here. The only thing I'll add is how much I agree with the nutritional advice above. If I eat the three walls of the supermarket and really limit added sugar and refined carbs I can eat well and maintain or lose. When I eat sugar or refined carbs I gain. That's it, it's that simple for me. I proved it over and over to myself. The slip I had post surgery was not due to volume of food which I simply don't have much room for post surgery, but all about carb quality. I feel better and I maintain my weight loss. It just works.