Obviously when your a long way out you get to speak fellow by-passers and glean a lot of information along the way, I feel this should be shared with people starting out but it's not. The teams are not contacting long termers or following their progress so often don't even know this stuff is happening to lots out there.
The surgeons and their teams aren't doing this as yet especially in the UK (it is happening a little in the States). I think that's because as yet they don't understand 100% why it happens.
It's long been common knowledge that post bypass a lot of relationships fail, this can be down to a number of reasons, some people are attracted to larger people and when they lose weight they are no longer attractive to them, others as they lose weight their own personality changes making them a different person and so on, but for a large number it's down to the changes in hormones and mood.
Lots of post by-passers report going into depression and can't understand it (especially in the earlier days and particularly in women). The reason is two fold it seems and makes sense once you know why. I wish the teams would tell this because for-warned is for-armed and it also makes it so much easier to deal with.
Fat stores hormones (mainly Oestrogen), so when your losing that fat rapidly you are releasing large amounts of those hormones into your body, in essence overdosing on them hence the severe mood swings and depression, which is difficult to deal with. Then there is the releasing of other hormones into your body related to the actual bypass site that surgeons are only recently discovering (found this latest bit of info from an American study recently done), so it not surprising your going to suffer these mood swings.
I can only go by my own experience of this when describing it, but can tell you that it felt very much like having the baby blues for quite a while. It didn't make sense, yes I did have other post op problems but the weight was dropping off, I was in clothes shops I'd not been in for years, could feel hip bones (didn't know I had them) and should have been feeling elated but I didn't. I would cry at the drop of a hat, be awful to those around me and so on, but didn't realise just how bad I was being. That was down to this hormonal overdose in the main added to having to get used to the different way of eating and the head thing going on too.
There is good news though. It will pass as things settle down, so if it happens to you at least you know what it is and bear with it. It's worth I think explaining this to those around you too if it happens so that they understand it's not for ever and there is life after bypass.
The surgeons and their teams aren't doing this as yet especially in the UK (it is happening a little in the States). I think that's because as yet they don't understand 100% why it happens.
It's long been common knowledge that post bypass a lot of relationships fail, this can be down to a number of reasons, some people are attracted to larger people and when they lose weight they are no longer attractive to them, others as they lose weight their own personality changes making them a different person and so on, but for a large number it's down to the changes in hormones and mood.
Lots of post by-passers report going into depression and can't understand it (especially in the earlier days and particularly in women). The reason is two fold it seems and makes sense once you know why. I wish the teams would tell this because for-warned is for-armed and it also makes it so much easier to deal with.
Fat stores hormones (mainly Oestrogen), so when your losing that fat rapidly you are releasing large amounts of those hormones into your body, in essence overdosing on them hence the severe mood swings and depression, which is difficult to deal with. Then there is the releasing of other hormones into your body related to the actual bypass site that surgeons are only recently discovering (found this latest bit of info from an American study recently done), so it not surprising your going to suffer these mood swings.
I can only go by my own experience of this when describing it, but can tell you that it felt very much like having the baby blues for quite a while. It didn't make sense, yes I did have other post op problems but the weight was dropping off, I was in clothes shops I'd not been in for years, could feel hip bones (didn't know I had them) and should have been feeling elated but I didn't. I would cry at the drop of a hat, be awful to those around me and so on, but didn't realise just how bad I was being. That was down to this hormonal overdose in the main added to having to get used to the different way of eating and the head thing going on too.
There is good news though. It will pass as things settle down, so if it happens to you at least you know what it is and bear with it. It's worth I think explaining this to those around you too if it happens so that they understand it's not for ever and there is life after bypass.
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