Hi Tracey,
Great that you've taken that step! I hope it will all be fine and that you get the referral you'd like, and soon. It sounds like you have given it a lot of thought, so that can only stand in your favour.
I can't speak for any other similarities we may have but my BMI is roughly the same as yours, and my GP referred me as soon as I registered an interest in WLS (Glos NHS). It's very hard to know why this was but the following might have been factors:
- I have seen her regularly to get my health as good as possible
- have completed an exercise on referral scheme through her and have improved my habits
- I have tried Orlistat so am keen to try various approaches to achieving a weight loss
- I have recovered from disordered eating and have a healthy attitude to eating
- My BMI fits the criteria for my region of the NHS.
- She is a very nice GP!
But - who knows? If I'd done none of these things, she may well have still referred me! I guess I just wanted to share my situation with you. Might be worth mentioning anything you have done to improve your health (note I don't just mean lose weight) up til now so that the GP knows you're motivated. Also they are wary of referring people who have been pressured to lose weight by others. So worth letting your GP know you mean business
I was concerned that my GP would see that my weight was still (v slowly) creeping up and that she would ask me to lose weight before referring me, but she didn't. Which makes sense, because why make us struggle to do this BEFORE referring us to the team that are there specifically to support us in losing weight, right?
Good luck. Let us know how you get on!
Meg x