Hi Everyone! I am here for some advice, input, personal stories, etc. I am a 46 year old female and started my WLS journey back in March. My surgeon approved me as a candidate for VSG and my insurance required 6 months of nutritional counseling. I have also gone through the psych eval and EGD. I have my final pre-op with the surgeon next week and then she submits everything to my insurance company for authorization. I am starting to have serious doubts about going through surgery. I am terrified of losing my hair. I am perimenopausal and have hypothyroidism so my hair is already thin. I am also just scared in general of the procedure, and any possible side effects. Does anyone regret having surgery? Anyone ever get this close and cancel? I'm just a ball of nerves and honestly don't know if I'm making the right decision.

Further to this, RE: excess skin…

In my own experience, and sample of ONE, the “notice-ability” of excess skin for me peaked just before I got to “normal” BMI range. I did continue to lose weight after that and then the look of it went from “rolls” to just crepey-looking skin, which in my opinion looks much better on me. Though i credit this to exercise (and further weight loss of course) as the underlying flesh/muscle was more firm.

p.s. Full disclosure, i did end up getting plastics so my crepey skin is gone now (well, at least on my stomach and arms, lol. My inner thighs and a$$ are still pretty wrinkly-ish!)

My only regret is not knowing earlier that it was an option for me. Watching shows like 600lb life really skewed my perception of obesity. I really thought you needed to be in that category to qualify.
I’m really happy I did it and can barely recognize the obese version of me. I look like the high school version of myself and that is probably the top comments I get from people in real life.

Edited September 4, 20214 yr by GreenTealael

4 hours ago, GreenTealael said:

My only regret is not knowing earlier that it was an option for me. Watching shows like 600lb life really skewed my perception of obesity. I really thought you needed to be in that category to qualify.
I’m really happy I did it and can barely recognize the obese version of me. I look like the high school version of myself and that is probably the top comments I get from people in real life.

I was like that, too. I thought being in the 300s that I would be one of the smallest people in my cohort. Nope - I was the biggest. Although I'm not that great at judging weight, I'd say most of the women I went through classes with were more like 250-ish, give or take.

After I lost all my weight, I was a regular speaker for the pre-op classes. I did this until the pandemic hit, so three or four years. At least once a month. So I've seen hundreds of pre-op patients. I'd say in any given class, most people are in the 200s. And there are usually a handful that look like they're probably in the 300s. Maybe a very occasional person over 400. But never anyone the size of someone on "My 600 lb Life". I don't even think my clinic would accept them - they'd have to go to a bariatric surgeon like Dr. Now who specializes in high-risk patients.