To think I still deserve medical attention despite being overweight

[Frequency]

Every time I have a medical issue and seek help for it I get told to lose weight, which is fair enough, I understand that, but that is all the support I get.

For example, I went to the GP recently about crippling pain in my left knee. I can't walk far, I can't sleep, and it often escalates into shooting pains up and down my leg or stabbing pains in the side of my knee which make it really hard to concentrate on anything but the pain.

I was prescribed 3 months of Orlistat. Nothing for the pain in my knee, just three months of weight loss drugs and told to come back after I had lost 5% of my body weight to discuss my knee.

I've been on it for a week now. I still cannot walk or sleep and last night another condition I have had previously flared up which I think is related to the Orlistat/weight loss/diet.

It's something I have had previously, only ever when trying to lose weight. It's like a really sharp, unbearable pain across the top of my stomach. The pain is so bad it causes vomiting and shortness of breath. I would honestly rather spend the rest of my life in labour than to experience that pain again and now it's back. I've only had it once up to now but I know the pattern, it will become more and more frequent until I'm having daily attacks that last hours. If I seek help during an attack, then I know a Dr will take one look at my weight, tell me it is because of all the fatty food I eat, and send me away in tears to buy myself some Gaviscon and lose weight.

It never happens when I eat fatty food it happens when I try to lose weight but they never believe me.

So now I am stuck, I can either be fat and never walk without pain again or I can continue losing weight and have hours of childbirth-like pain every day.

AIBU to think it shouldn't be like this?

well, and orlistat too

Tudca, castor oil, phosphatidylcholine will help your gallstones and also help weight loss. Also chanca pierdra the stone breaker herb is useful. I look into natural medicine now as i dont find GPs helpful. Do you have a lot of edema around your knee? If so horse chestnut would he useful. And maybe comfrey oil on the knee to repair any cartilage or ligaments.

Did the oristat help with your weight loss?

What does the castor oil do?

I'm not sure. I was already restricting pretty hard when I started this thread and it's gotten worse since.

I'm now counting fat, calories and carbs. I don't know if you've ever tried to do a low fat, low cal version of Atkins but as a diet plan that allows you to actually eat food, I give it 0 out of 5 stars, do not recommend.

Unfortunately, my brain is broken and I am not mentally capable of sensible eating. I eat all of the food or none of the food. There is no balance.

If you're asking if it would work for you, I don't know. It's supposed to work by blocking up to 33% of the dietary fat you eat. I typically eat less than 20g of fat per day so I don't think it does much for me. The leaflet says you're supposed to eat up to 15g of fat per meal and have 3 meals a day.

That being said I did have one day where I ate normally for a family occasion and I did notice orange oil in the toilet the next day so it does what it says on the tin. Whether someone eating sensibly could stick to it or see results from it, I don't know.

Hi OP, you sound like you need urgent help for your eating disorders. Could you go back to the GP now as you have lost so much weight since you last saw them?

Just giving you an enormous virtual hug, OP. Sounds like you've had a really tough few months. X

Op I hope you are getting some help

You're not being unreasonable. I read this article by the brilliant Michael Hobbs and changed my mind about a lot of the nonsense we've been brought up believing:

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/

@Frequency

Atkins will obviously not work when you cut fat - you need help for your disordered eating and to understand what you’re actually trying to achieve

Your knee needs an X-ray and you need a scan on your tummy to see if you have kidney or gallstones. How stupid to send you off with weight loss drugs - which everyone on MN says are terrible anyway except in this instance because it’s being used to punish you for being fat. What proportion of the population in the UK is fat? Plenty I bet. Get another Dr OP you poor love you can’t start a health program when you’re in pain and sick!

@Merryoldgoat my disordered thinking behind that was that if I went into Ketosis without eating dietary fat then my body would be forced to burn fat stores as an energy source, however, there is no research to back this up, probably because it is incredibly difficult to eat a sensible amount of calories when counting everything. Plus, logically, my body will use fat stores anyway because I'm in a deficit and there is no way to calculate what is being burned because of ketosis and what is being burned because of the calorie deficit.

As far as disordered eating goes, I don't feel like I'm ready to get help nor do I feel like I'd be taken seriously as I still have weight to lose and experience has taught me that people with excess weight are not taken seriously when they ask for help. Asking for help and being told I'm not sick enough would make me worse.

I am eating two meals a day and I'm not letting my calories fall low enough that I start feeling physically ill, so in that sense, things are more under control than they have been during previous efforts to lose weight.

I am being weighed regularly by the GP, so if things get too out of hand, hopefully, they will notice.

Thank you all for your concern, but honestly, at the moment, I am not doing too badly. I realise what I am doing is unhealthy and I'm keeping a close eye on things, if I start feeling ill and I'm still unable to eat normally, I will reach out for help.

Wow, respect for the weightloss, that’s amazing!

Totally misleading thread title. The OP did get medical attention, but the doctors didn't say what they wanted to hear.

They diagnosed me with osteoarthritis which an x-ray has since proved I don't have and prescribed weight loss as a treatment for the thing I don't have which triggered a cycle of extreme calorie restriction and disordered eating.

In what way is that proper medical care, please?

Oh thanks for responding-
reason I ask, I was on these capsules years ago but hardly lost any pounds.
recently asked the Gp to refer me to a surgeon for gastric by-pass, will go back on these until I hear back from the specialist

I think you need to change your diet at the same time for it to work. Obviously, not as extremely as I have, that is not sustainable or healthy but swap out high-fat food for leaner alternatives and try to stick to whole foods as often as you can.

Reddit has a few good threads on Orlistat and what to eat and not eat, if you're looking for tips on what to eat and how to maximise results. I'm the wrong person to ask for diet advice.

Good luck with it and fingers crossed you get the op soon.

Your thread title referred to medical attention. Which you got, and disliked. Whether you were right or wrong to dislike it is a different matter.

Your definition of medical attention is very different to mine. To me, it means having a professional actually listen to my symptoms and do a proper investigation based on what I am saying not making a snap diagnosis based on how much it looks like I weigh and prescribing a treatment that a quick look through my notes would have shown to be dangerous for me.

I could have gotten the same result asking the woman who works behind the post office counter what was wrong with my knee and how to fix it.

I’m so sorry that even now @Frequency you are still getting GFs coming on your thread to poke at you to feel better about themselves.

Re your ED you say your brain is broken but is it any fucking wonder given how people with weight issues are treated at every step of life on and offline by people who equate fat with moral failing.

I am glad your issue is not arthritis but I am sorry you are in such a hard cycle when it comes to restricting and asking for help. I 100% get why though. 💐

I don't understand how your stomach is fine but as soon as you reduce calories you're in agony and vomiting?
As someone with pcos, coeliac and is overweight please don't feel like I'm being rude but is it possible you're self sabotaging yourself? Are you reducing too many calories or changing your diet massively?

I'm so sorry I didn't read the thread.
Congratulations on the weight loss, has it helped?
Rather than counting calories have you tried weight watchers? It goes on points and if you have 50 points a day try to use them all up so you know you're eating enough

@TashaTudor someone way back up the thread suggested I was eating too much raw, acidic fruit and veg.

Previously when trying to lose weight I would naturally reach for low-calorie, high-volume foods like lettuce and salad. Tbh, my diet consisted mostly of lettuce and pineapple. As soon as I swapped to cooked veg like broccoli and cauliflower the stomach pain stopped. I've had no episodes of pain and vomiting since starting this thread.

I still eat salad but I stick to a max of one small salad a day and I don't have fruit with it.

It's an issue that could have been resolved quickly and at no cost to the NHS years ago if any of the numerous professionals I reached out to for help had asked what I was eating or listened to me when I said I was mostly eating salads.

That's really interesting, I'm glad you're no longer in pain but how frustrating for you

There is just so much the medical profession still does not understand about metabolism and weight problems.

If the so-called simple advice to cut calories and up exercise worked then we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic.

Who is teaching medics about bedside manner? Nobody. Because the hurtful comments don’t usually help - they are guaranteed to be utterly demoralising and will either drive people straight to a comforting Mars bar or will cause an eating disorder.

All I can say is there is now a cure - the various weight loss jabs. They reduce your appetite so much that the business of trying to lose weight is no longer a massive internal mental struggle to resist food. They make it easy. This seems to be why thin people are obsessed with sneering at the jabs - because they can’t bear to see their slim privilege undermined.