DS Safer than RNY

[more2adore]

Munchkin, I can so relate! I've put this off for so long because I have been so anti-surgery for most of my life. I'd heard horror stories and had friends & acquaintances die from complications with surgery. OR the ones lucky enough to not have those kinds of complications ended up fatter than they started, and now had additional health problems related to the surgery. I just didn't see the point. But I'm desperate now to be able to get out and live my life with my husband. I feel so trapped that we can't go out and do all these things both of us want to do. Not to mention the fact that I'm 35 and continually afraid I've waited too late and we won't be able to have children. Ugh. Lots of pressure! I really want to get this surgery done NOW, but I'm determined to learn everything I can about it and make sure I make well-thought-out decisions about it no matter how much time that ends up taking. I need to make the right decision for me and for my family.

Oh, and "overweight" would be perfect for me. I'd be thrilled!

 

[more2adore]

By the way, my first diet was age 2. Even though I was a perfectly normal, healthy child. I had an eating-disordered grandmother raising me and a pediatrician that was perfectly happy to let her do her thing. Disaster.

 

[JackieOnLine]

what the ...that's terrible! at 2?!

 

[jillc]

Wow and I thought I was early. That's insane. I was put on a diet at 7 or 8 (Grade 3). Mother with the best of intentions because she was overweight as a teen and didn't want me to be. I rebelled and stole cookies and didn't lose any weight. I was 105 lbs then. So I was a bit big.

But 2? That's child abuse.

 

[Larra]

There is only one good study that I know of where RNY and DS were compared when done by the same surgeons during the same time period on patients with similar bmi, age, and comorbidities. The results - the complication rates were almost identical, but the DS patients lost more weight, and the difference became greater as time went on. The authoris later presented data, probably on the same patients though I'm not 100% certain of this, on resolution of comorbidities, and again the DS patients fared much better.
There is also a crappy study from I think Sweden in which the DS patients had more complications, but the authors acknowledged that they were experienced in doing RNY and not in doing the DS. Well duh, of course the DS patients had more complications. Their sample size was also very small, and their nutritional advice was terrible.

And Jill, I just have to ask even though this is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, what the heck is UF romance??

 

[jillc]

OT @Larra UF is Urban Fantasy. Urban Fantasy is a bit like Paranormal Romance. The lines between them are becoming more and more blurred so I (and others now call it Urban Fantasy Romance)
Paranormal Romance Authors (clipped from a GoodReads article) - the ones I've highlighted I would classify more Urban Fantasy:

1. J.R. Ward. The Black Dagger Brotherhood novels will have you falling in love with the alpha men one minute and cursing them the next.
2. Kresley Cole. The stories read like a twisted version of Indiana Jones, with danger, adventure, and romance. Though, the heroes in these books don't change women from book to book.
3. Nalini Singh. Enter the divided world of the Psy and Changeling, as well as a world where archangels rule in the Guild series.
4. Larissa Ione. Demons need a little love too. I wish we had also a Underworld General Hospital
5. Ilona Andrews. With a her magical world suffered because of a magic apocalypse. When magic is down, guns work and spells fail. Great series with Kate Daniels
6. Gena Showalter. Unsure whether you're in the mood for demons, nymphs, or out-of-this-world beings? Love it all. Lords of the Underworld & Alien Huntress.
7. Lora Leigh. World of the breeds. There are purrs, growls, and some territorial marking.
8. Patricia Briggs with the The Mercy Thompson Series and Alfa & Omega!
9. Chloe Neill. Chicago graduate student's introduction into a society of vampires. On the first two covers she was just a girl but on the last one she is a hor sexy kick-ass twenty-eight-year-old killer.
10. Christine Feehan. I love the carpathians how is it possible to write 23 books of the same series and still keeping it interesting. Dark Storm (Dark #23) is coming up soon September 4th. She also writes the Leopard People series who reminds me a little of Nalini Singh's Changelings.

Make any sense?? I hope so. If you haven't read any of the authors in red and you lick kick-ass heroines, they're excellent books.

 

[Larra]

thanks, Jill. Who knew?

 

[more2adore]

Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous (diet at age 2, not UF romance. ). My entire childhood was spent dieting until I got too thin (being a four year old eating salad while everyone else got to have roast beef was a blast), then when I got as thin as my grandmother thought was okay, I'd be fed steak and potatoes and heavy desserts like the rest of the family until I got fat again, and then it'd be time to diet some more. I remember turning eight and being excited because it meant I got to have 800 calories, instead of the 700 calories I got to have when I was seven. I remember when I was 12 and I finally hit my "goal weight" as my pediatrician and grandmother had set it. I was so excited and so happy. We were going to have a party (with cake, of course. eyeroll.) to celebrate and I put on my fanciest dress. Then my grandmother made a comment like "you're still a little chubby, so don't eat too much cake." I realized in that moment that it was never, ever going to end. I would never be good enough. I was always going to have to be on a diet so I didn't get fat. I was never just going to be able to just enjoy my life and not obsess about every calorie that went in my mouth. I cried my eyes out - there are pictures from that party and I look miserable in all of them - and that was the moment I said "f*&% it" and started sneaking things out of my family's supply of junk food whenever I wanted it, and it was the start of my binge eating disorder which took me DECADES to get a handle on.

 

[more2adore]

Oh, and we found out years later that a medication I was on as a child causes... you guessed it...weight gain.

 

[Munchkin]

My first diet was 'prescribed' by my doctor. He told my Mom he was concerned because I never lost an ounce after birth and was gaining fast. And I was a breast fed baby! He told Mom to start replacing one of my feedings with a bottle of water every day!

 

[bearmom]

I don't have much to add, as Larra mentioned the studies I was thinking of, and yes, that Swedish one they gave only RNY advice to all participants, so it's no surprise they had issues with things that are DS specific (we need more of the fat soluble vitamins than RNY, and maybe less of the B's).

While I consider things like dumping or inability to take NSAIDs with RNY a drawback, it's not necessarily a "less safe" kind of thing, just more of an inconvenience.

What I DO consider a longer term safety thing is the possibility of reactive hypoglycemia. I know of several RNYers who have had issues driving when having a RH episode, one resulting in a wreck, and there was also a poster on another site that claimed she was not able to drive any longer because of it.