Conflicted

In my last blog I had mentioned I was on a doctors supervised diet and have to be on one for six months… well, I am still doing that but also I have attended the required weight loss surgery seminar and tomorrow I am going to my surgeons consultation. I am very conflicted though, not because I am not sure of having weight loss surgery but because I cannot choose which one would be best for me… I am weighing the pros and cons of the lap band and the gastric bypass and both have such drastic con’s that it is hard to choose. My concerns for the Lap Band are that some people do not lose a single pound with it because it is easy to eat bad. Another thing is food that gets stuck and hurts until it gets “unstuck” I don’t want to have to swear off vegetables because they get stuck easily. Another thing is… most health insurance does NOT cover gastric banding because the insurance company views the procedure minimally helpful since the outcome (success) is so patchy… they don’t want to take a risk on a procedure that has such a low overall success rate. Now my concerns for the Gastric Bypass are MANY and they are big ones…. there are so many risks involving the procedure that it almost puts me off just thinking about it. First there is the whole dissection of stomach tubes and stuff which is risky because HELLOOOOOO your guts are not meant to be sliced and diced and rearranged… and if it goes wrong you sort of die. Secondly there is the malabsorption thing, which is nice in a way since it makes some of the food you eat unable to be made into more fat on my body but it also means that the nutrients you eat or drink are also only partially absorbed so it is easy to become deficient in a lot of your vitamins which when you read up on what these vitamins do for your body you learn that you can actually die if you get low on some of them…. serious side effects can occur if you do not get enough vitamins so they make you take a boatload of vitamins and a lot of people have to give themselves injections of B-12 a few times a week. Last there is the whole Dumping syndrome thing… sure the doctors are happy you can’t eat a candy bar but seriously, if I eat a cookie I do not want to pass out from it. So those are my major concerns about these two procedures… I know I am leaning more for the gastric bypass only because it is what they call the “gold standard” and you are guaranteed to lose on it, it is just up to you to keep it going and maintain after the honeymoon period. I have heard many horror stories about both procedures so right now im going to sleep on it and tomorrow I will have my decision written in my chart.