To consider bariatric surgery?

[Ezlo]

I have PCOS and find losing weight really difficult. I'm now at 25 stone and desperately unhappy with my size.

Has anyone had bariatric surgery and would like to share experiences?

I started at 21 stone. I'm now 19.5 stone in 5 weeks.

I'm a huge comfortable eater and would say I have disordered overeating.

With mounjaro I'm not hungry, in fact I'm put off most food. I'm not interested in sweets, chocolate, biscuits. I physically can't manage a normal portion (for me) of food. I've not binged this entire time and I don't want to. I can't even manage two pieces of toast for breakfast, it's too much! 😂

Bariatric surgery is still an option for you, but people can still fail that by overeating.

I'm paying for this privately, but I'm saving more than it costs in food and beer alone.

I think weight loss injections are a better option to try first. If you don't get along with them, you always have surgery as an option later. Whereas the surgery can't be undone if you struggle with the after effects.

I was just under 23 stone when I started Mounjaro. I've been on it for six months now and have lost 5 stone. And although I've recently started to get side effects, I'm consistently still losing 2lbs a week with relatively little mental effort. It's the first time in my life that I've felt sure I can continue with a diet indefinitely and still have a quality of life.

Had to just do it!

But I knew that was temporary and that fear of death was more powerful than just injections to lower my appetite.

They were actually very painful

Well done you!

What side effects are you finding?

I had a gastric bypass, best decision I ever made. I was 22 stone, utterly miserable and spent my life on some sort of fad diet, which obviously never worked. I don't really think about food much now, I'm 3 years out and weigh 10 stone, maintained for about 18 months. I have had a baby during this time and didn't have any of the complications I had when pregnant with my first child.

I would have tried the injections had they been available at the time but I'm quite glad they weren't as this is just life now and I don't really think about it much. I just eat like a 'normal' person and don't binge eat the ridiculous amount I used to.

It's a completely personal choice, maybe try the injections if you're not sure first then you have something to move too if you aren't happy with them.

Hospitals are seeing a worrying increase in the number of patients being admitted with side effects of Mountjaro. Hasn't the NHS got enough to do?

Yes similar here, Ive lost half my bodyweight and really regret not doing it 10 years ago but then I didnt really know about it then

Although I would suggest to someone to try medication first, as I did and found it effective (when I used it!) there is the thing about being on a medication for a long time or perhaps life. That might be offputting for people

There is no right or wrong way, each person needs to find their own way. Mine was a sleeve, I eat 'normally', Im not sure what people mean when they say you cant eat normally, I just dont stuff my face anymore because I cant. There are some things which are uncomfortable to eat but then I wasnt really eating those things prior to the surgery as much anyway like pasta and bread, cakes etc. Potatoes can be difficult at times

But largely its protiens and veg for me and I still have sweet stuff now and then.

Before taking any drugs I'd suggest you look up the side effects. Some of them are really nasty including death.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6jg6nw2zeo.amp

It also has a track record in causing suicidal thoughts. It's not the panacea that previous posters are saying. If you have PCOS have you tried Metformin? It won't make you thin but it stops the up and downs of blood sugar which causes you to overeat

And this is why I had successful bariatric surgery 3 years ago, going from 27 stone to 12.5. I NEEDED the physical restriction as my over eating was due to food addiction. The injections wouldn’t have worked for me long term.

it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done, my health is probably the best it’s been in 30 years amdnd at 5’7 in my 50s, wearing a size 14 is perfect for my height and build.

Yes I have loose skin, yes I wear bikinis. If you have an issue with how I look, that’s your issue not mine

I'm another who would recommend Mounjaro. I've just done my first month on it and lost 1st 7.5lb. It's incredible- the desire to eat just isn't there, I don't drink alcohol anymore as I don't want to. I have a little nausea (it feels a bit like mild morning sickness!) that I manage with ginger. You really are full for much longer due to slowed gastric emptying - I had a small dinner last night at 7 and I'm not hungry at all and I won't be until later.
If you are completely honest with the prescriber and take as recommended then it really is an excellent option. It costs £30 ish a week for the lower dose but I save that on buying shit and alcohol! 😂

I think maybe you had to do some more research there, this nurse it seems had health issues that were not diagnosed and it is highly unlikely to be the weight loss injection.

i think there is an element of if someone gets ill it has to always be linked to the drugs, when actually people get ill anyway.

@GettingStuffed I think it's important that people understand risks and consider useful information about all the choices offered to them. Bariatric surgery has many risks and possible negative outcomes, including death. Many more people have died during or following bariatric surgery than have died due to taking weight loss injections. The risk of death is much higher for surgery than the injections.

The most common risks associated with Batiatric surgery are general risks associated with surgery under a general anaesthetic - sepsis, PE, DVT.

I think if you're going to compare mortality or complication rates, then the only helpful way to do that is with actual statistics. "Much more likely to die" or whatever words you used are meaningless without context

I don’t think you need stats to back it up , not really you know the poster is correct. The drugs wouldn’t be on the market if they had the same mortality rate as surgery. And quite frankly you can come off the drugs, once the surgery is done it’s done. No going back.

You would have to pay for it because it's only available on the NHS for diabetes, I think. Unless the rules have changed.

wegovy is available for weight loss through the weight loss clinic tier 3, but the waiting list is like a year for the clinics. Nice have now recommended mj, but it will be the same, and of course it’s for folks with a bmi of forty and over with health issues.

its cost right now.

Have you considered Slimming World? Or I knew a lady who was very large and she went to a kind of group for people who had difficulty controlling their eating, similar to alcoholics anonymous but for people who overeat.

I ask because I have PCOS and prediabetes and weigh 25 stone but I was turned down for ozempic. I was on ozempic before due to diabetes in 2023 had to stop due to shortages . Now I'm just prediabetic and diabetes clinic says I'm not eligible for drugs. Dieting doesn't work for me because food is like a compulsion for me. I can eat huge huge quantities of food in a short space of time , either grazing and savouring it and wanting more, never feeling full or stuffing it down frantically and feeling hugely ashamed and guilty about it . I have thought about throwing up and tried it but I hate being sick . It's like some weird kind of addiction . I guess it's the PCOS but I developed PCOS age 16 and I struggled with the eating thing my whole life. As a child I would steal food and hide it just to eat it. It never seemed enough for me but portion sizes were large at our house so I wasn't going hungry.

@HobbyHorse30 for example, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5989948/#:~:text=A%20total%20of%2041%20241,(32%20of%2041%20241).

"A total of 41 241 primary bariatric procedures were carried out in the NHS between 2009 and 2016, with 29 in‐hospital deaths (0·07 per cent). The 30‐day mortality rate after discharge was 0·08 per cent (32 of 41 241)."

Of course the risks are to do with the fact that it's a surgical procedure, that's kind of the point. Surgery in comparison to medication.

There were no deaths at all associated with Mounjaro during all of the manufacturer trials carried out to date. On the UK Yellow Card scheme there is one death reported in addition to the recent highly publicised death of the Scottish nurse. There are tens possibly hundreds of thousands of people taking Mounjaro in the UK. The risk of death from injections is nowhere near the same level of risk of bariatric surgery, which is also very low risk hence it being continued to be offered by the NHS.

@Losingthetimber Who knows the poster is correct? I don't. I think armchair statisticians comparing a one-off event and its associated risks with what's potentially lifelong medication use are likely to come to flawed conclusions. That's a complex comparison that has many variables, however if you have the answers then I'd be delighted to hear them because there isn't much available

Hmm, ok, there is 15 million folks in the us alone on these drugs. I’m ok with you needing stats.

so 1 percent of people die from the surgery within a year, 6 percent within 5 years. At the moment there is no proven deaths from the jabs, since 2019 there has been 20 linked deaths in the uk , but not proven to be due to the jab, in the USA it is 260 odds, out of 15 million users. Also not proven due to the jabs, but the fda thinks a lot due to fakes or not following guidelines ie slim people taking too much that type of thing.

you can google it, but the drugs are way way more safer than the surgery. And I personally would try the drugs,as you can stop, before I went for surgery.

The mortality rate, and costs to the NHS, of remaining obese, far outweigh the risks and costs of weigh loss aids.

Be it surgery or jabs (I’m on jabs), you reduce your risk of stroke and heart disease, and lots of other obesity related illnesses .

The active ingredient in the drug have been shown to lower your risk of heart failure and stroke.

I feel the same, and weirdly I also struggle with potatoes. This is not an issue for me as I never really liked them much to begin with. I eat mainly protein now and smaller amounts of carbs, occasionally I have sweet 'treats' but limit them as I really don't want to regain the weight. I eat normally, just not what my normal was pre-surgery.

Slimming World is the WORST if you have disordered eating of any kind. They don’t look at the reasons why you’re overweight, answer do nothing to encourage healthy eating patterns, it’s all about how much you can eat of certain things, amd making foods “good” and “bad”. They speak about syns, which they’ll tell you means synergy, but of course everyone thinks of it as sin, as in “naughty” food. They even spout some bollocks about never mashing bananas 🤣
If SW worked long term, people would never need to go back, instead of the vast majority of people returning time and time again.

disclaimer other brands of weight loss “clubs” are just as bad

I agree that SW is awful if you're trying to actually relearn eating patterns.