From JunkFoodScience…
A snippet: (but I highly recomment checking out the full article at JFS. There are some really amazing and sad stories…)
The Mayo Clinic also reported that 20-25% of gastric bypass patients develop life-threatening post-op complications and even the recent Lap-Band U.S. clinical trials done to earn FDA approval had reported 89% of patients had at least one adverse event, one-third of them severe. A recent study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found that 56% of bariatric patients had 62 different gastrointestinal complications and abnormalities. The surgical complications and failures of bariatric surgeries are so significant, according to bariatric surgeons with Tampa General Hospital in Florida, that revisional (second) surgeries are required in up to 23% of gastric bypasses and in 5-36% of vertical banded gastrophy cases. Vomiting after gastric bypass procedures occurs in up to 68.8% of cases and can become chronic, resulting in severe malnutrition, according to Brazilian surgeons in a 2005 study published in Obesity Surgery. The long-term nutritional complications are even more extensive.
I did a quick DogPile search to find a picture to head this post with… but the first thing I saw was, “Is Weight Loss Surgery Right for My Teen?”… and now I no longer have the heart to rummage for a pic. It’s just too sad.
–AngryGrayRainbows
I saw that post of Sandy’s and wasn’t surprised by it all. Since my best friend, Pat, had 2 VBGs, and died from the second one, and I was stupid enough to go ahead with my VBG right after she died, and mine failed and I’m dealing with the complications from it still (almost 12 years later), what Mayo had to say was expected. And I belong to a Yahoo group of WLS survivors who are dealing with deadly complications and have had loved ones die from this surgery, but their stories aren’t ever publicized or counted in the statistics. It’s too bad, but even with stories like this, there are still people out there who will read this, and say “It won’t happen to me, I’m having this done, I want to be healthy (read “thin”).” When you have people saying they would rather be blind than fat, or lose a limb than be fat, dealing with possibly fatal complications is not going to be a deterrent, unfortunately. And doctors will continue to push this surgery, people will continue to have it, and they will continue to die or end up with a quality of life so poor that they would have been better off staying fat.
Vesta summed up what I wanted to say so beautifully, so I’ll just add “Amen!”
Oh Vesta, I’m so sorry. I wonder if one of these days there will be a class action lawsuit like there was against phen phen. One can hope.