adiposehysteria

I am seeing a bariatric surgeon at the request of my psychiatrist on Tuesday and I have some reservations about it. I think this is mainly because there is a lot of conflicting information out there about the safety of WLS for patients with mental illness. I have Bipolar I and between the medications that I have to take for that, along with PCOS and severe arthritis in my knees that makes it difficult to walk, I am now over 300 pounds. My metabolism is horrible and I can barely even move because of the pain in my knees, meaning that even maintaining this weight is next to impossible. What I am concerned about is that there seems to be many doctors out there that will not even consider doing WLS of any type on patients with bipolar disorder because of an increased chance of later complications with depression. So what I am hoping for is that there is someone else out there who had the sleeve surgery done who also has either bipolar disorder or major depression so that I know what I can expect when it comes to absorption of medications or any other complications when it comes to mental health (especially in the case of hospitalizations). If anyone else has issues with mental illness and WLS, please let me know what I should be looking out for.

Thank you all for replying. Because of all the health problems, losing weight has been impossible. When I was told by one surgeon a few months ago that no one would do the surgery on me, I lost hope. Now I see that it is possible to have it done, which eases my mind.

I have an appointment with a surgeon that was recommended by my psychiatrist this Tuesday because he feels the most comfortable dealing with this particular issue with him. I was told already by another surgeon in town that they won't do WLS on anyone with a history of mental illness, regardless of what the status of that was now. I was also told that was standard procedure for all bariatric surgeons and that the insurance company won't even consider approving me if I have a history of BPD. My psychiatrist, on the other hand, told me he has found the opposite to be true as long as there is strong support that the mental illness could possibly improve or at least be able to be handled. I guess I don't want to get my hopes up that WLS is a possibility because I really need this.