Side Effects of Rapid Weight Loss

I can't recommend any websites, but I can tell you some personal observations as far as gastric bypass surgery.

I know 2 women who were both morbidly obese, who had gastric bybass. Both these women are nurses.

The percentage of comeplete protein MUST constitute a larger percentage of your diet after such a surgery, in order for you body to function properly.

In other words, since you are restricted in the amount of food you can eat (as in a stomach reduction) or the amount of nutrients absorbed, you have to take advantage of the nutrition in every food you eat.

Person "A" took excellant care of herself, eating much lean meat, not wasting her time on starches, taking supplements, and exercise. When she reached her proper weight, she had surgery to remove excess skin. Which required her to be even more careful with what she put in her body, as far as being able to heal properly..Your body needs protein to heal. Today, she looks years younger than her true age, and has general good health.

Person "B" at first lost a lot of weight, and looked better, as far as losing 100 pounds or more would make anyone look better. However, I was in her company 3 or 4 times to eat in buffet situations, and was surprised by her choices.....taking bread products, other food that were bulky but not particularly nutritious. She actually chose not to eat any protein at one of the meals so that she could have a piece of baklava

During that time she showed me her surgery scar....she'd had the operation a year before.....it was a angry red scar running down her abdomen. I said "Wow! That doesn't look like it's even healed!!!"
Her response was...."yes, it's hard to get enough protein for it to heal." Well, yeah, especially when you're eating pastry. Plus, she refused to exercise.
Last time I saw her, about 2 years after the surgery, she was back to being obese.

That said, I'd say one of the most important side effects of the surgery is the bodies ability to heal itself, depending on what you choose to put into it.

Hi Butrflynet, good to see you. Heard about the rough time you've had lately.

No specific advice, but good luck.

Glad to see you here, Butrflynet. My sympathy for all you've been through recently. I also don't know anythng about non surgical means to reduce excess skin. I'm wondering why they didn't do some of that in the surgery itself, but there are probably good reasons. Maybe some natural healing improves the situation, just guessing.

This information comes from years of osmosis from reading articles on diet and exercise. I can't recall every reading anything directly dealing with Size 18 skin and Size 10 body.

Age is very important. The older you are the more your skin loses elasticity. Loose skin hangs forever like funeral crepe.

Chai has covered diet.

Exercise seems to play a big part in helping your body absorb the loose skin and become contoured to muscles rather than to fat.

I understand your wish to avoid plastic surgery. I agree. Still, if because of age or exercise restrictions plastic surgery is the only way to go, see whether your discarded epidermis can be used for graft tissue for burn victims.

Noddy


Noddy, what a great idea. I'd never thought of offering excess skin to burn victims. I assume the burn victim's insurance would pay for the skin removal surgery.

BBB

BBB--

I don't know the legal ins and outs of skin therapy recipients paying for major pin-and-tuck surgery. A good dermatologist would know.

Unfortunately in this world, a number of badly burned patients are children without good medical coverage. Poverty is a dangerous place to grow up.

My weight loss isn't actually from gastric bypass, the results are just very similar. I have a friend who is also going through this adjustment period after having lost 134 pounds. She does the dieting part perfectly as far as the protein goes. She is just older like I am and doesn't have the time to devote to heavy exercise to tighten up the skin. We're going through the side effects together, trying to help each other out with it.

In my case, my weight loss was from the removal of a huge ovarian cyst. You've probably read about it elsewhere, if my mom is true to form. LOL! Before the surgery, I had also lost about 50 pounds through no fault or effort of my own other than just changing my diet and eliminating fast food, sodas and most processed food. No exercise involved other than an occasional swim and a flight of stairs to climb every day in and out of my apartment. All totaled, I've lost over 100 pounds if you include the cyst removal.

The surgeon did tighten up the skin a bit, but there's only so much he could do. For instance, when he repaired my hernia, he pulled some skin up over the navel. I no longer have a belly button, but do have a slightly tighter pooch there. The loose skin is mostly on the sides of my tummy. Looks and feels like deflated innertubes.

Trying to roll over in bed is difficult. The mass of skin gets in the way and I find my skeleton feeling like it is just rolling inside a sack of skin that remains in place. I'm trying to find out if exercise can help tighten that up after the fact. If so, it is a great incentive. If not, then I need to find out tips from others who have dealt with the nusance of all that abundant extra skin without going the surgical route.


The diet tips are great, but not really what I'm looking for. We're both past that and looking for help with the after effects of that diet.

We both also talk about the psych part of it too. It is difficult to adjust to the new body image. When I look in the mirror, I still see a fat person. When I sit on furniture, I still say a small prayer to myself in hopes that it will be able to hold me. As my doctor said to me before the surgery after I asked how high the chance of complications would be due to my weight, "Butrflynet, you aren't nearly as fat as you think you are." Nicest thing a doctor could have said to an old fat lady and neatly sums it up.

Thanks for all the good wishes. I'm really hoping to take advantage of this gift of a head start and keep the weight loss progressing. It's just going to take some time for my mind to catch up.

Butrflynet
In my case, my weight loss was from the removal of a huge ovarian cyst. You've probably read about it elsewhere, if my mom is true to form. LOL!

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2250391&highlight=#2250391

BBB

I know a woman who lost 200 pound through gastric bypass. Now she looks like a deflated balloon. She plans to have surgery to get rid of the excess flesh.

I watched a documentary on that recently. They removed like 50 lbs of excess skin.

I don't mind watching most types of surgery, but this was really something. It was 3 separate operations, with weeks in between to allow healing.

First they did her stomach and buttock area. Next operation was her legs. Then they were going to do her arms, and give her some breast augmentation (she had lost everything up there, there was a lot of breast skin to be removed and they were going to pretty them up some.

The thing was, she got over anxious with getting all this done...no soon that was she marginally healed from the torso surgery, she went back for the legs....because her health was still compromised due to healing, she developed some nasty infections in her legs, and more than she bargained for had to be removed.

This is where it got questionable to me....she was from the united states, but all of a sudden she was flying out to england to get the third part done....like her doctor wasn't agreeing to it here.

So, she gets there and see the doctor there, who after reviewing her records basically said to her he wouldn't perform the surgery either. He didn't say he would NEVER do it, but it was pretty obvious he thought it was too soon. She was a little pissed off about that....

To me, you gotta remember, Roma wasn't built in a day. She needed to get back into better health for each next step.

It's good to hear you are doing well. Once you're feeling better, I would recommend a strong weight-lifting routine.

Build as much muscle as you can, and drop your body fat to a lean n' mean percentage.

Not an easy way to go, at all, but you may be surprised at how much of what seems like extra skin right now is actually body fat.
Sometimes skin perks up incredibly with this combo of hard muscle+proper nutrition.

I don't know your age, or how much weight/how fast it went, but since you are recovering from surgery and health issues, take it slow but steady.
You lost a lot of weight: but not necessarily body fat percentage.
Do you know your bfp?

I wish I could help more, but I haven't been there, so these bits of knowledge are all I can do.
It's fantastic that you have a friend who relates. Maybe there are forums or local groups for support on after-weight-loss issues?

You're attitude is inspiring, and it's nice to see you! best wishes.

The best time to lose weight is when you're young and the skin can still "snap back".

I Googled "Weight loss flabby skin" and found:

http://www.bodyfatguide.com/LooseSkin.htm

http://www.bluesuitmom.com/health/personaltrainer/flabbyskin.html

http://www.ivillage.co.uk/dietandfitness/wtmngment/bodyimage/articles/0,,242_187070,00.html

http://www.bbcamerica.com/genre/home_living/what_not_to_wear/what_not_to_wear_advice_gretchen.jsp

There are dozens of other articles.

Thanks Noddy. That was exactly what I'm looking for. Did my own Googling but used the phrase "loose skin due to rapid weight loss" and didn't find anything relating to solving the problem, only a warning of the possibility of the problem occurring.

Have not been able to spend a lot of time at the computer sifting through all the junk and was looking for help in honing in on the information.

I'm really surprised I haven't found any forums of gastric bypass patients all sharing coping mechanisms for this and distorted body images.

Have read three of the articles, will read the others at a later sitting. Need to go rest my back now. But thanks again for focusing on my specific questions and helping me find some informative resources.

Thanks for the kind words. I Googled "Gastric bypass support groups" and found lots:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Gastric+bypass+support+group

Also:

Mild exercise makes a great deal of sense. Even isometric exercises--sucking in the gut and all that--should help.

Remember how much fat in animals is directly under the skin? Some of the skin can be tightened, and some has to be consumed by either plastic surgery or exercise.

Googling "Weight loss self image":

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Weight+loss+self+image

A 60 pound cyst must have had you listing to either port or to starboard depending on which ovary was involved. Do you find that you have to relearn how to balance?

It covered the whole front of my abdomen. I looked and felt like I was 9 months pregnant. Now I have flabby washboard abs! LOL

My doctor doesn't understand my back pain either. He says that if I was able to carry around that cyst, I should be having no problem after it was removed. I tried to explain it to him with an example of a basketball. The muscles and skin stretched enough to accommodate the girth of the cyst. Now that the cyst isn't there, the muscles and skin are still all stretched out of shape. My back and abdomen muscles are having to relearn how to hold up my torso. Alternate ones are doing extra work until the stretched out ones tighten up enough to be of help again. In the meantime I go around feeling like I've just done 150 situps and been punched in the back.

It's a slow process, but I'm seeing improvement every day. You're probably right though. My body is having to learn how to balance itself again, but it isn't a side to side balance, it's more of a front and back rebalancing act.

Have you talked to a personal trainer or a physical therapist? Perhaps some of the Gastric Bypass Buddy Sites could give you an idea of simple exercises.

Believe me, no one hates exercise more than I do, but though I do them grudgingly, exercises help with muscle tone, balance and mood swings.
I'm much more patient when I exercise.

Your abs must be stretched out like abused elastic. Pamper them.