physc testing?

sunnysea · November 19, 2006

Hi, I am new to this board. I am looking into getting the lapband done, I have a consult appointment next week. I am worried that my depression that I suffer from will get in the way of me getting this surgery.??? Has anybody been in this situation or not passed their physc test? I will be a self pay, 100lbs overweight, severe sleep apnea, hypo-thyroid, high cholesteral, and boderline high blood pressure.

Joyful Day · November 19, 2006

I guess it would depend on your psycologist. I have anxiety and I spoke to my psy about this and she seemed willing to help. She feels that this surgery may help with it. She seperated the weight loss from the anxiety being that she was looking at the benifits for WLS to my physical health and then she was interestd in the mental health.

She did clear me for the surgery. I would be honest with the psy being that you do not want to do anything that will harm your mental being because of the surgery. I am sure you wont have a problem...JUST BE HONEST. And good luck:)

sleepyjean · November 19, 2006

Hi, I am new to this board. I am looking into getting the lapband done, I have a consult appointment next week. I am worried that my depression that I suffer from will get in the way of me getting this surgery.??? Has anybody been in this situation or not passed their physc test? I will be a self pay, 100lbs overweight, severe sleep apnea, hypo-thyroid, high cholesteral, and boderline high blood pressure.

I have a history of depression and I worried about it to before I was banded. Turns out it was a non-issue for me. My doc wrote a letter saying I was a good candidate and that was that.

What I have seen here is the psych eval ranges from a perfunctory scantron type of test to a casual conversation where the person wants you make sure you understand the mental and emotional aspect of this whole thing. This person is not going to diagnose you with a mental illness and it's likely it will be a social worker or something - not a doctor. Having been here a little over a year now and seen lots of others go through this process, that unless you are are severely unbalanced, they will not have cause to deny you the band. Think of it less as evaluation and more as preparation.