to think that you should still be taken seriously by your GP if you're obese?

[parabella]

Just came back from the GP where we discussed some symptoms that are worrying me. First thing he says is 'well we won't do anything 'til you lose weight'.
Now I am losing weight but it's a slow process (lot's of weight to lose). Shouldn't I still get treated even if I'm not thinner yet?
I was quite persistent and he ended up telling me about potential cancer symptoms which I have and which he's agreed should be looked into further. But I have noticed his default attitude is to just say lose weight and expect me to leave. Does anyone else feel like this at the doctors?

But her weight and the fibromyalgia will be conspiring to make losing weight very difficult indeed. And if it makes her depressed, that makes looking after yourself much harder too.

I know what I need to do, to lose weight - each time I make a decision about food, I need to make a good decision - but when you don't like yourself, it's very difficult to care enough about yourself to make those good decisions. But then you lie awake, beating yourself up for every bad decision you have made during the day, sleep badly, feel worse the next day, and you're back to making bad decisions again, because you are depressed and hate yourself for being overweight and eating badly.

Part of my problem is that I don't plan my lunches. Each week, I write a menu for the week (so that I can be sure I have bought everything I need in the big weekly shop, and don't need to trek back to Tesco again), and I try to balance those meals out, so the vast majority are very healthy or fairly healthy, and only a couple are indulgent.

But I often don't think about my lunches - and I am a SAHP, so almost all my lunches are at home. For some reason, though, I feel as if I don't deserve to have things in the house, for my lunch - so most days, I end up scrabbling round and eating what is handy - which is often something on toast or a sandwich. But if I plan my meals, I can make sure I have healthy options available to me - salad stuffs, healthy soups, etc. I just need to rid myself of the conviction that I am not 'allowed' to buy stuff specifically for me.

My mum is slim and has had major problems with her back, resulting in three operations. She has been told more than once that they would not have operated if she had been fatter.

I just want to suggest aqua-jogging to those of you who find walking/running too difficult because of injury. You don't need to be able to swim, you just need an aqua-jogging belt. It is great for cardio health and is low impact so won't hurt your joints.

YouGotta - I am not making an excuse - I am saying that losing weight is just not as easy as some people want to make it out to be - and a bit of understanding of that would go a long way!!

I am a lot less than 30 stone, but my weight causes me real issues with walking/exercise - being that weight, and trying to walk would be like being a healthy weight person trying to walk round carrying two other healthy weight people!

I think it is vital for people to understand the reasons why weight loss can be such a struggle - the mental, physical and emotional struggles people like me have - because only then can the advice, support and help be properly targeted!!

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia way before I gained the weight that put me overweight. When I tried to lose it it was incredibly difficult even following calorie controlled diet plans.

I only lost weight when I didn't eat anything at all.

Until I had the RA drugs. Now I can lose it bizarrely through sensible eating.

I once saw a gynaecologist who told me to lose weight and I'll find a nice husband! Totally missed my fibroids though which had been causing me to bleed constantly for 7 months up to that point

I had one consultant who spent 8 minutes out of a 10 minute consultation out of the room trying to find a chart to show me how fat I was.

I'm in chronic pain and on morphine tablets and liquid; extremely limited mobility, PCOS and taking several other tablets which are known to cause weight gain. Like a pp said, Doctors are always surprised I don't have high blood pressure or diabetes which is always what they seem to be concerned about whenever I see them rather than what I'm actually there for.

Sometimes being overweight can be a very complex thing and not always solved by diet or exercise. The amount of fat shaming I've seen by medical professionals and the public would make you cry and never leave the house again. A friend of mine had a cake thrown at them waiting at the bus stop by some youths followed by a torrent of abuse; not one person said anything to them but stared at my friend. It really is the last socially acceptable ism.

There are so many heartbreaking posts here. for you all.

Gotta, your eating disorders are showing up in your posts.

you get help to stop smoking drug or alcohol abuse but the support for weight issues is very limited. I joined WW for 8 months and lost nearly three stone, I am fed up of the monotony of it all now but still have two stone to lose. It is so bloddy hard to have a normal relationshio with food. Gp's blame everthing on your weight. I had a health check recently and my cholesterol was 2.5, the nurse said she couldn't beleve it and it was the best result she had seen in two years ! I am 5 9 and weigh 15 1/2 stone so yes still a way to go , try again after xmas

I'm a couple of stone overweight and have been for almost 20 years. I have been advised to lose weight, and I have been trying. It is not shifting. My weight has been pretty stable throughout the 20 years, but when it began creeping up this year, along with other symptoms, I returned to my GP and was told it was 'my age'. Five months down the line, I finally was able to persuade the GP that my thyroid dose was too low and it was altered - the result being that the extra weight has gone, I can think again and most of the other symptoms are starting to ease. But during those 5 months, I was told it was my age and my weight. I am tired of constantly fighting to have my symptoms listened to, and not attributed to something else before I have even finished listing them.

My DM was always thin. She eats very small plates (just her appetite not for dieting purposes). She has never had a sweet tooth, never been one for junk food. She was always active.

Then she got very ill. She got even more thin because she was so ill. In the end she got diagnosed with severe osteoporosis and a bad heart condition. She was forced to see dieticians who discharged her almost straight away as she ate the way she was meant to.

After years of necessary pills and not being able to be as active as she was, she is now bordering on obese. Her eating hasn't changed, and its a known side effect of the drugs.

She is now getting the 'you need to lose weight' treatment from her GPs. She's asked them how. She eats correctly - the dieticians confirm this. She is exceptionally limited in the exercise she can do. The best she is managing now is not gaining more.

wine My GP couldn't possibly understand how my asthma worsened when I lost weight. It should have been the other way around. But then he also decided my autoimmune problems were the menopause when he saw my age (mid 30s at the time!).

Go to a different doc! Yes you need to lose weight, which you know and you are doing, but other symptoms shouldnt be ignored!! Very strange of gp to have done that, i would have been complaining big time

strictlymum what happened with your asthma in the end? I just can't face going back. I'm taking the blue one at least six times a day which is far too much but it's the only thing that's stopping me pass out. I'm really struggling with my weight too, and it's so overwhelming.
The nurse couldn't understand that I lipread because I'm deaf either, apparently that was the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard.

oh wine that sounds far too much and awful. Sure losing weight would help you, but you need help in the meantime in order to be well enough to lose weight! And weight gain thanks to increasing appetite is a well known side effect of inhalers, especially the blue kind. Vicious circle. And how awful to be treated like that because you're deaf too. You need different Drs.

Thankfully I ended up seeing a different Dr who realised that having suffered with asthma for nearly 30 years I may know when its bothering me, and considering I knew the names and type of inhalers that were standard perhaps I may have been prescribed them in the past. I'm stable now other than my usual summer to autumn flare up.

Gotta, your eating disorders are showing up in your posts.

That was a pretty low blow, Garlick, and not even something I'm sure I can see there's evidence to back up. Gotta sounds like someone who has managed to lose weight, for whatever reason, and speaks from that position, nothing more and nothing less. IMO, of course.

Smillas there's a big difference between someone who speaks from the point of view of losing weight as a result of exercise and diet changes, and speaking from the point of view of someone with an eating disorder.

Id personally never give anyone dieting advice. I'm 5'11 and 7 stone (no idea what my bmi is refuse to do it) and I undergo 'intensive therapy' for anorexia (in and out of counselling/hospital for it since I was 8). Although I like to lose weight I wouldn't ever give anyone tips on how to do it even though I've been asked.

I wouldn't want someone who's 'overweight' giving me tips on how to gain weight and vice versa.

OP and others unfortunately lots of doctors will blame ailments on weight - due to being pushed to help with the obesity crisis I can honestly say it's the same for me though when I'm ill I'm told you wouldn't be if you was a healthy weight

Oops posted too early, I go back until they pay attention to me you should too and always ask for a second opinion if you're not happy with your treatment.

I'm lucky that I come from a family of doctors so I can sometimes press for certain issues but I shouldn't have to and neither should you.

jorah - yes, and my point was that Gotta hasn't, as far as I can see, though I might certainly have missed a post, said anything that seems to represent an unhealthy approach to weight loss.

She says that it's mostly diet - that's absolutely true. Exercise is not at all required and if the problem is injury during exercise due to excess weight, there is certainly no need to focus on exercise at all until you're down to a healthier weight.

Gotta, as far as I can see, has given absolutely accurate advice, and happens to also have shared information about her own struggles with eating disorders. The latter does not change the accuracy of the former. It is the same advice I would give, as someone currently losing weight quite successfully, and who has not suffered from an eating disorder.

Her advice might be hard to swallow if you're not finding weight loss easy, but it is spot on none the less (again, in the absence of me having missed something).

Over the past three years I've been told to lose weight to help my knee problems (I'm 8.5st, always have been, never vary), and been referred for CT scan with what my GP thought were red flag symptoms for bowel cancer based on being, to his eye, "a bit thin". He kindly said that "unexplained weight loss" meant he was obliged to refer me - except I hadn't lost any weight and my IBS had flared up because I'd been training for a fast 10k. Basically I'd given myself runners bowel, which is very common.

You can't win. I'm at a loss to know under what circumstances a doctor wouldn't reference my weight, they're obsessed with it.

Smillas I thought you were suggesting that Gotta had not said anything to suggest they had an eating disorder, apologies for misreading. I have struggled and continue to struggle with bulimia and prolonged periods of starving myself so I know that I should never ever be asked for advice on eating.

My hypermobility actually got steadily worse as I lost weight through not eating. I had to see my GP yesterday who remarked how surprised she was by how much weight I'd lost in a short space of time (a combination of physical illness and starving myself). I've dislocated and subluxed joints far more since losing the weight, which is strange if all joint problems are exacerbated by being overweight.

The thing is, no matter how much weight I lose, I'll still have hypermobility. I'll still dislocate and subluxate. I have teeny tiny baby hands and yet it's my fingers that I dislocate the most - so when someone says "It'd be better the more weight you lose", I tend to do a bit of a headtilt.

No worries, jorah.

Usually when people talk about excess weight causing joint problems, I believe it's the kind where the weight is putting pressure on the joints and causing friction and damage in that way.

Though I also have a hip that showed signs of early osteoarthritis when I was as young as 18 and not at all overweight, so obviously it's not always down to weight!

Do you agree that, unless people understand why someone is struggling to lose weight, it is a lot harder for them to give the support and advice that person needs, though? It isn't a one size fits all situation.

The reason I said that was because, as Smilla pointed out, you have gone out of your way to [a] keep emphasising your view that vast amounts of health problems are caused by excess body weight (invalidating the affected posters' point), and [b] offer advice on weight loss, which wasn't requested.

I may have spoken out of turn but, in my extensive experience around this, people responding as you've done generally have eating/body image disorders. I'm pleased to hear you've got yours under control sufficiently for your needs.