will i have to lose weight?

marmar · January 13, 2009

Hi all, I was just wondering something. I am 415 lbs. Will I have to go on a diet and lose weight before the doc will do surgery? I haven't met him and have an appt. next month. I'm just kinda scared something will be wrong and I wont be able to have the surgery done. I'm just nervous i guess. Oh one more thing. I have heart palpitations and am on digoxin. Its not that bad but will that prevent me from having surgery?I have high blood pressure to.

tashanicole1271 · January 13, 2009

Depending on your insurance, you will have to do a 3 or 6 months supervised diet. My PCP followed me during mine. She said the diet wasn't so much for weight loss, but the insurance company is seeing whether you make the effort and keep your monthly appointments.

The doctor who is doing my surgery (tomorrow!) did require that I lose any weight gained from my initial appointment with him. Meaning, when I had my first office visit on May 16th of last year, I weighed 242. I had my appointment to schedule surgery about 3 weeks ago and I weighed 248. I had to lose 6 pounds by today. I went to the office to weigh in today and weigh 240, so I am good to go! Good luck on your journey.....

tashanicole1271 · January 13, 2009

I forgot, the heart palpitations and high BP may help you get approved. These are cormobidities that you may have due to weight.

marmar · January 13, 2009

My insurance doesnt pay for weightloss surgery so Im paying out of pocket. Thanks . Glad to hear you lost the weight you needed to.

Stephanie1972 · January 13, 2009

I am in the pre-operative stages. Just waiting on insurance company approval, but the answer is yes...you usually have to lose weight. After extensive research, I have found that some doctors require a 2 week all liquid diet, however mine is a 2-4 week "diet" with no fried foods, no starches, no sweets. The purpose of losing the weight pre-surgery is to shrink the liver. My Dr. assured me that my liver would in fact shrink in just 2 short weeks if I followed the diet. They have to lift the liver to get that band around the stomach and if it's too heavy or thick, it could lacerate the liver, so instead of that risk, the dr will just sew you back up and wait until the liver did shrink. I hope this helps. Best of luck to you on your journey!