The most important epidemic

"Cholera and typhoid," [South African Sanitation Minister Ronnie Kasrils] tells me, "kill so many million kids a year, which amounts to two jumbo jets full of children crashing every four hours."

As long as this is going on in the world, we need to stop spending even a single public cent worrying about fat people, and work on making these kids safe.

I'm also thinking that, if these were white kids, it wouldn't be happening.

Let's find real solutions to the impending doctor shortage

One of the most common arguments I see in opposition of healthcare reform is that there are "not enough doctors" if everyone in the USA were to gain access to health care.

This argument irritates the hell out of me. What this really boils down to is, if those who currently do not have health insurance are, by way of reforms, finally able to access affordable (for them) health care, then those who are currently privileged enough to have health insurance may have to wait longer to get an appointment with a doctor.

In other words, "I got mine, screw everyone else, and don't you dare try to inconvenience me so that others can receive care."

Instead of trying to address the actual problem of potential doctor shortages, these people would rather deny healthcare to less privileged people. They will also say things like, "They should get a job and get health insurance like I do, by working for it*," all the while blinding themselves to the obvious fact that if that happened, there would still be the problem of not enough doctors; how those doctors are paid--by insurance companies or by single payer--is not going to matter a whole lot when there still aren't enough of them to care for all of our country's citizens. But of course, the teabaggers are counting on a significant portion of US citizens remaining in the position of not having health insurance. They aren't forward thinking enough to try to work on ways for the doctor shortage issue to be addressed, they just want to make sure they keep the status quo.

So what are some real solutions to this impending shortage of health care professionals (and, actually, despite our having the oh-so-fabulous system we have now, we actually have shortages right now, especially of general practitioners)? Now that we've established that denying health care to a large portion of citizens is NOT an acceptable solution, I have a number of suggestions for both increasing the number of physicians, and for reducing the demand on them:

1. Medical school enrollment hit an all time high in 2008. Obviously, there isn't a lack of interest in the medical profession. However, this makes me wonder how many well-qualified candidates didn't get accepted. Somehow, we need to increase the capacity of our medical schools so that many more good students are able to attend. I feel that anyone who feels a true calling to the profession, and who is intellectually capable, should have access to a spot in a medical school.

2. We also need to de-privilege medical school enrollment. Applicants who show great promise should be admitted regardless of their socioeconomic status, and we need to find ways to help less privileged applicants fund their education.

3. Regions that are experiencing the most severe shortages could offer grants to help a local student pay for medical school, with an agreement that they will return to the region to practice family medicine for a specified time period.

4. These same regions could ease family practitioners' overhead expenses by providing a city- or county-owned clinic facility. They would have an incentive to make these facilities comfortable and attractive so that the physician(s) will want to work there. I have seen some of the incredibly ornate and beautiful public libraries in some places, so why not create similar places for public clinics?

5. Offer similar incentives and opportunities to educate and recruit more nurse practitioners and physician's assistants; they can take a huge load off the doctors by serving patients. For those who are not in the US, people in these two jobs are able to see patients and perform most of the things a family practice physician does, but must practice under a supervising physician.

6. Adopt a single payer healthcare system! Our doctors currently spend an obscene amount of time and money trying to get insurance companies to pay their bills. Insurance companies currently spend an obscene amount of time and money trying to avoid paying doctors what they are due. Between arguing on the phone, filling out and faxing a ludicrous number of forms, and writing a bunch of letters explaining WHY Mrs. Jones really DOES need her lifesaving medication, doctors are cheated out of time spent with their patients and families. They either find themselves rushing through a double-booked schedule and not getting the chance to really connect with their patients, or they are cheated out of the income they would get by booking more patients in the time wasted wrangling with insurance. Many doctors report that Medicare and Medicaid don't give them the same headaches and runaround as insurance companies, and doctors in the UK and Canada often say that the single payer systems in those countries leave them with more time for patients and less overhead spent on staff needed to sort out insurance snafus.

7. Improve our education system so that gifted and talented kids of all socioeconomic backgrounds have a good shot at becoming doctors if that is their dream. Find more ways for our best and brightest to get into college and on the right track to med school. It's ridiculous that we have college recruiters for sports teams, but not for academics. Why isn't there a recruiter sitting in the back row of a biology classroom to pick out the best and brightest, to offer them incentives to pursue a pre-med career? Isn't creating more health care professionals more important than winning a few ball games?

There are surely countless other ideas out there to ward off the physician shortage that don't involve telling 47 million US citizens to suffer and die. What are your ideas?

---
* There is the fact that many people have jobs that don't give them health insurance--to which the teabaggers will often respond that it's the person's own fault for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and getting a better job. There are countless problems with that, however, with just a few of them being:
- Not everyone has the ability to become an engineer, or a lawyer, or some other profession that has decent benefits

- Teabaggers are anti-union, so they're actually against workers gaining access to better benefits

- They also vote for the corporate whores who send jobs overseas and sacrifice lower level jobs for CEO and upper management bonuses and (temporary and unsustainable) inflation of stock prices (which often end up eventually gutting the corporations for the sake of making a quick buck for investment bankers--and by the way, studies show the seven percent rule is a myth; GE and P&G pulled it off, but they're the exception, and companies trying to emulate their layoff tactics are not getting the results they wanted)

- There are not enough of these health-insurance-providing jobs for everyone; if there were, we'd all be working them

- Regardless of anything else, SOMEONE has to do the "less desirable" work that currently doesn't provide health insurance, and you know these selfish teabaggers are going to be the first to whine when there aren't enough checkout lanes open at Wal*Mart for their liking

- It's inhumane for a person to have to choose to stay with an abusive employer (or an abusive spouse whose employer provides health insurance) because they've got a health condition that would be impossible to manage without insurance (and impossible to get insurance coverage for outside of employer-offered).

The Invisible Crutch

The Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege, conceived by Peggy McIntosh, discusses the many things a white person takes for granted, in list form. As a white person, many of these things were uncomfortable to read, but I also saw reflected in them the things that men, wealthy people, and non-disabled people take for granted.

I've decided to build an invisible crutch from things that constitute abled privilege, without repeating too much of what is in McIntosh's list (so read her list, and substitute "disability" for "color" for many of those things).

1. I can, if I wish, arrange to attend social events without worrying if they are accessible to me.

2. If I am in the company of people that make me uncomfortable, I can easily choose to move elsewhere.

3. I can easily find housing that is accessible to me, with no barriers to my mobility.

4. I can go shopping alone most of the time and be able to reach and obtain all of the items without assistance, know that cashiers will notice I am there, and can easily see and use the credit card machines.

5. I can turn on the television and see people of my ability level widely and accurately represented.

6. I can be pretty sure of my voice being heard in a group where I am the only person of my ability level represented--and they will make eye contact with me.

7. I can advocate for my children in their schools without my ability level being blamed for my children's performance or behavior.

8. I can do well in a challenging situation without being told what an inspiration I am.

9. If I ask to speak to someone "in charge", I can be relatively assured that the person will make eye contact with me and not treat me like I am stupid.

10. I can belong to an organization and not feel that others resent my membership because of my ability level.

11. I do not have to fear being preyed upon because of my ability level.

12. I can be reasonably assured that I won't be late for meetings due to mobility barriers.

13. I can use most cosmetics and personal care products without worrying that they will cause a painful or dangerous reaction.

14. I can usually go about in public without other people's personal care products causing me painful or dangerous reactions.

15. My neighborhood allows me to move about on sidewalks, into stores, and into friends' homes without difficulty.

16. People do not tell me that my ability level means I should not have children.

17. I can be reasonably sure that I will be able to make it to a regular job every day.

18. I know that my income can increase based on my performance, and I can seek new and better employment if I choose; I do not have to face a court battle to get an increase in my income.

19. My daily routine does not have to be carefully planned to accommodate medication or therapy schedules.

20. I can share my life with an animal companion without my ability to care for them being called into question due to my financial and ability situations.

21. If I am not feeling well, and decide to stay in bed, I will likely be believed and not told that I am lazy and worthless.

I am sure there are more that I haven't thought of. Do keep in mind that I've tried NOT to copy Ms. McIntosh's work, because there's no need--most of what she says definitely applies to this list as well.

A short one

Ill people are not obligated to be brave, cheerful, or optimistic for the sake of preserving the feelings of well people.

Fibromyalgia is usually associated with "tender points", which are specific areas around the body that respond with an inordinate amount of pain when pressure is applied to them. Researchers are beginning to accept that these are not necessarily a good diagnostic criterion, and that the tender points appear to be areas that are particularly sensitive for all people; they are just more so for people with fibromyalgia, who experience a greater level of pain with less pressure than people without the condition.

Even so, since I started to become ill, my upper arms have become so tender that I can hardly bear to even have someone brush against them--and if more pressure than that is applied to them, it is agonizing beyond description. Blood pressure cuffs are torture devices to me, and tourniquets used for blood draws are even worse. I've had people playfully punch my arm, and then get indignant when I start to cry because it hurt so badly. "I didn't hit you THAT hard!" Most don't believe me when I explain that my arms are insanely sensitive, but they do tend to refrain from repeating the gesture when I explain that the pain is probably similar to getting hit in the testicles, and that, if they do it again to me, I'll be happy to demonstrate to them how badly it hurt me.

The arm-punching scenario happened often enough that I now have panic attacks sometimes if someone looks like they are going to touch my upper arm. Usually I move out of their reach, cross my arms, and place a hand on each upper arm for protection, then explain to them why I reacted that way. I've gotten pretty good at anticipating people, so I haven't been hurt in a while by a person, thank goodness.

But the rest of the world isn't foam padded. I'm sure my blood pressure readings (which are usually very good) are higher than what my normal state would be because of the pain, and the anticipation of the pain. Short sleeves with elastic gathers are abhorrent to me. Sometimes ANY fabric touching my arms is intolerable (I wear a lot of sleeveless shirts). I sometimes bump into objects or get jostled in a crowd. There are many days when they hurt and throb even if nothing at all is touching them. It feels like the whole surface of my upper arms are very nasty, very fresh bruises all the time. And when something DOES apply pressure to them, the pain lingers for a short period once the stimulus is gone.

I don't know what mechanism of my illness causes this excruciating arm pain. If I did, maybe I'd have some idea of how to lessen or even eliminate it. This is just one small aspect of the myriad symptoms I deal with on a daily basis, and I thought that elucidating upon this one aspect might give others some insight on just how difficult it can be to face this in addition to the crushing fatigue, widespread body pain, sensitivity to aural and visual stimuli, and all the other things that my brain fog keeps me from enumerating. Not all of them can be managed or reduced with treatment or drugs, and just being alive and conscious is a painful chore some days.

It's about being civil

Even IF it is true that fat is unhealthy... (and it isn't)

Even IF lifestyle is the sole cause of being fat... (and it isn't)

Those are STILL not acceptable reasons for the things people say about and do to fat people.

Christopher Reeves' horse riding lifestyle choices resulted in him becoming a quadriplegic, yet it would have been socially unacceptable to scream insults at him about horses or paralysis. That's because it's asinine to do so. Well, it's also asinine to be nasty to fat people, regardless of their health or lifestyle.

How are you? Don't ask!

My aunt, who is only two years older than I am, has been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments for an inoperable brain tumor. The treatments are not going to be life-saving; they will, however, lengthen her remaining time and stave off the loss of function for a while. Of course, the treatment has the expected side effects of feeling really sick, hair loss, etcetera.

When the family was informed of her diagnosis, I made the decision to start writing her letters--real, handwritten letters, sent through the mail, which to me are so much more personal and dear than email. I wanted to make sure I said all the things that I wanted to say, but, more importantly, I wanted to give her something to enjoy and look forward to. She knows that I know she's ill, and that she's suffering, and all that, so I ignored those topics altogether, instead focusing in my first few letters on the things I admired about her.

After I had gotten the "have to say this" stuff out of my system, I then focused my writings on good things that were happening here in my world. We both love animals, so I wrote about my foster cats, my own cats, my reptiles, and some of the volunteer work I was doing. I wrote about my garden as spring arrived. I told silly stories about my husband and roommate. I shared experiences with favorite restaurants and recipes, talked about art museum visits, and whatever else was going on that was positive. I made sure to tell her that I was perfectly okay with her not responding, that I figured she would want to spend the bulk of her energy on enjoying her family.

At some point, my mother had a chance to talk to her at a family gathering, and she told my mother that she was really enjoying my letters, especially because they focused on the positive things. So I kept writing, and at some point, I called her to answer a question she'd had about a bird. She commented on how irritating it was that people kept asking her how she was feeling. I told her I absolutely understood--that even though my condition is not as serious as hers, it still makes me feel like crap all the time, and so I never know whether to answer the question, "How are you feeling?" with honesty or not. I'd rather not talk about how I'm feeling, because it's always bad, and if you are always answering honestly in that way, people start to get annoyed with me for never feeling good.

So what should you say to a person who is ill, in lieu of "How are you feeling"? Train yourself to ask a different question. Ask if they've seen any good movies lately, read any good books, that kind of thing. Whatever common ground you've had with them before? Now's the time to draw upon it and talk about those topics. And, if the person is actually wanting to discuss their illness, let them guide you to that topic. I know that I sometimes do want to talk about mine, if only to share experiences that might be helpful to others, or when I need a little support, but a most of the time, if I have the energy for socializing, I'd just rather focus on other things, and I'm grateful to folks who allow me to do that.

Ahhh-choo

So it's that time of year where I'd love to tell the trees and other plants to go **** themselves, but that's exactly what the problem is. All these plant gametes floating around in the air, stirring my immune system into a frenzy. I am grateful that Benadryl does NOT make me drowsy, because it keeps me somewhat functional--it just quiets down my overexcited immune system so I can go about my day. I need to be able to answer my phone without sounding like Alex Olsen (google it :P) because I've had a LOT of calls for my business lately (go me!).

This is what it's like, sort of:

Me: Excuse me, but this itchy eyes, runny nose, sneezing thing is really annoying. Is this really necessary?

My immune system: OH MY GOD yes, there are all these INVADERS and they have to be DEALT WITH!

Me: Yeah, um, about that...seems most OTHER people are able to get along with the same "invaders" without all that nonsense.

MIS: Maybe THEIR immune systems don't know the TRUTH!!!!!!!

Me: Riiiight. Just like the "truth" about peanuts, and how they must be fought to the (as in, my) death?

MIS: You mock me, but if you knew what I knew about peanuts... *looks shifty-eyed*

Me: That's what you said about my thyroid. And my joints.

MIS: LIKE YOU'VE NEVER MADE A MISTAKE BEFORE!

Me: Okay, okay, chill the **** out already. Here, have a Benadryl.

MIS: Ohhhh *nom nom nom* My favorite! Sleepy now, will be taking a break.

Me: Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for small miracles. Now if I could only train it to react with as much gusto to ACTUAL diseases, like the flu...

MIS: I HEARD THAT! *gets red and angry*

Me: Here, have another Benadryl, and STFU already.

MIS: Ooooh....ZzzzZZzzzZzZZ

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Five: Ovarian cysts

When I went to university just after high school, I met a very nice young woman who had a very rounded abdomen that looked like a near-term pregnancy. I lost touch for a while, but a couple years later, I saw her, and her belly was nearly flat. Still young, and not yet introduced to FA, I asked her about her weight loss. She told me that a volleyball-sized ovarian cyst had been removed from her body.

I was absolutely stunned. It was the first I'd heard of such a thing, and it horrified me to know that her cyst had gone undetected for so long--that she had spent so much time and effort trying to lose weight, when it wasn't weight that could be lost without surgical intervention.

Of course, not to be spared any of life's most wonderful experiences, four years ago, my own body decided to produce several cysts, one of them quite large, necessitating the removal of an entire ovary, the fallopian tube next to it, and a chunk of uterus, all of which had been engulfed in the cysts and could not be salvaged. It was an emergency surgery, due to the cysts being previously undiagnosed, and growing to a point where they suddenly caused acute, unceasing abdominal pain that landed me in the ER.

Ovarian cysts often go undetected because the women who have them are blown off as lazy overeaters. Instructed by doctors to "diet and exercise", patients can become frustrated and stop bothering to get medical care. The cysts continue to inflate--they fill with fluid, and can reach some mind-boggling proportions. A Texas woman had a 156-lb cyst removed in 1994. That pales in comparison to the world record, a 328-lb cyst removed from yet another Texas woman (what's in the water there?!) in the early 1900s, but a 156-lb cyst, as well as a 93-pounder and 66-pounder, are still problematic.

A woman carrying around a large ovarian cyst may experience disabling pain, and she may have her activity levels severely curtailed. With a reduction in activity, her metabolism may slow down, causing her to gain weight on top of having the weight of the cyst. By the time she finds a doctor willing to treat her actual problem (instead of berating her for being fat), she may have developed additional health problems related to being sedentary.

No amount of diet and exercise is going to make the cyst disappear. The rest of the body may lose mass, but the cyst will not shrink. There are generally only a couple of options for treatment; one is surgical removal of the cysts, and the other is hormone treatment in the form of birth control pills. Generally, most cysts will go away on their own once a woman starts taking birth control pills. Of course, weight gain is also a symptom of taking oral contraceptives; it would be great if fatophobes would understand that sometimes gaining weight on a medication is better than not having the therapeutic effects of the medication.

So the next time you see a woman that you think is OMGFAT, and you think it's somehow your business to get upset about that, consider the fact that the above is just one of many medical conditions that can make a person appear to be fat, and it is often one that goes untreated far too long because too much attention is paid to making people thin instead of making them healthy. You might also consider that she is on a medication that is keeping her healthy, and being fat is a side effect of that medication. Asking a woman about the status of her reproductive system, though a favorite hobby of aunts and mothers-in-law, is generally considered to be a gauche thing to do, so the best thing to do is assume that her health and reproductive system are private matters between her, her physician, and possibly her significant other, no matter how badly your screwed-up, bigoted aesthetic sense is upset by the sight of her.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Four: Drug side effects

Many pharmaceuticals have weight gain as a well-documented side effect. The weight gain can be due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, lowering metabolic rates, causing hyperinsulimia (especially in anticonvulsants like neurontin and depakote), and many other biochemical effects that are not easy to put into layman's terms. To put it simply, these drugs work because they have a specific chemical effect, but they often react with other biochemical processes in ways that are either not anticipated, or are considered to be less important than the intended therapeutic effect.

To put it simply, a living animal is not a laboratory calorimeter, where calories in and calories out are a simple function. We are infinitely complex, and adding a molecule to the living system can help some problems, but modern medical science is not yet fine-tuned enough to successfully target one tiny process. Our SSRIs and other antidepressants are often like taking a blunderbuss to a rifle range--you will probably hit the target, but you'll hit a lot of other stuff too.

That's what progress is all about, though. A hundred years ago, you probably would have died if you had an acute gallbladder, while today a doctor plucks the quivering organ from our innards with a watchmaker's precision, making a cholecystectomy a very simple and survivable surgery, with smaller and smaller scars as tools and techniques sharpen. When I was a teen, I waited anxiously at a hospital in Milwaukee, five hours from home, for my grandfather's quadruple bypass to be completed. Today, he probably would have had stents neatly slipped into his blocked arteries, with only a pinprick on the surface of his skin to show for it.

Before we had antidepressants and other mental health drugs, we had some of the most inexcusably abusive quackery inflicted upon the mentally ill. Historically, mentally ill people were often just dumped in prisons and jails (and guess what--we're still doing it; ask any social worker). Some were treated to cruel, sometimes deadly exorcisms. Women were presumed "hysterical" and went to doctors for vaginal "massage" to induce orgasm as a treatment. Lobotomies became all the rage in the late 1940s, with frontal lobes scrambled with an ice pick through the eye socket. Asylums were often notorious for their squalid, cruel conditions, with many exposed by family members who were horrified at their relatives' treatment.

In the 1950s, the advent of psychotropic drugs was the first ray of hope for mentally ill people. I feel that we're finally seeing the tail end of the birthing pains of psychopharmaceuticals, with more solid research and standards being applied. The system is obviously not yet perfect, but important lessons have been learned, with our ancestors' brave--albeit not always informed--foray into citizenry as research subjects.

So, today, instead of a schizophrenic being shackled into a cold cell, at the mercy of potentially abusive captors, that person may be able to function normally with the help of a drug such as Risperdal. They may be able to work, have a family, and enjoy their lives. If the drug that enables them to function also causes them to gain weight, I question those who wring their hands over the weight gain. Surely the fact that they can live their lives independently is a pretty good trade-off for the potential stigma associated with the weight gain? And, if it is indeed the stigma the hand-wringers are concerned about, what is preventing them from working toward a better world, one where a fat person is not subjected to social stigma? Is their aesthetic sense so deeply rooted that they can't stand to see a happy person who happens to have a body shape that is not attractive to them?

Some of the best-selling drugs today are antidepressants, especially the SSRIs. They have helped millions of people become reacquainted with life, to poke their heads out of the steep-walled pit that is depression. Anxiety, another condition treated by SSRI, can be so disabling that its sufferers sometimes cannot even leave their homes. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone would be so upset over the associated weight gain, when the drugs often make a person feel as if his or her life is worth living again. I'm tired of hearing the fatophobes shrieking about it, trying their damnedest to drag down those who have finally been able to stand up again, just because their bodies are different.

So tell me, fat-haters, are you really so shallow and juvenile that you would rather see someone institutionalized than fat? Hanging themselves instead of fat? I've really begun to wonder if the fat-hate is not just about fat, but about an excuse to be misanthropic to anyone who is socially vulnerable. After all, the mentally ill you used as a punching bag in ages past have now become functional fat people, so whom are you going to punch in their place? My suggestion to you is to find out why you need a punching bag at all, and then fix it, rather than continuing to delude yourself into thinking your victims deserve your abuse. Maybe you could even try one of the above drugs--it might even be good for you to see what it's like to gain weight without changing your eating or exercise habits.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Three: The 300-lb malnourished woman

All right, before I start talking about fat, I want to talk about a little economic conundrum. So bear with me; it's relevant.

So, there's this island. We'll call it, say, Nes, for the sake of expediency, but its name isn't important. Now, the island's dwellers survive by getting regular shipments of supplies. Because of unknown circumstances, these shipments are always exactly the same--the contents never change, although the frequency can alter according to the islander's needs. Within each shipment, there is a particular necessity that comes in red boxes. No matter what, the shipping company can only send six of these red boxes per shipment. Now, that's okay, because that's all the islanders need in proportion to the other stuff they get, so nobody's got a problem with this.

However, the shipments start arriving with less than six boxes. They have the same amount of everything else, but they show up missing some of those red boxes. They complain to the shipper, who responds by saying that the shipments leave their port with all six boxes. "Okay, but we really need more red boxes," the islanders say. "Then you're going to just have to order another entire shipment to get the boxes in it," the shipper responds. They don't have many options, so the islanders increase the frequency of their shipments. They get half as much of the red-boxed stuff as they need, which means they have twice the amount of other stuff--an amount they cannot use.

Well, what would you expect these islanders to do, exactly? Throw away the extra stuff? Or store it, in case the shipments are short on those items at a later time? So they store it, and store it, until the warehouses are crammed full, and everyone has an attic crammed with it. And then, they have to build docks and floating warehouses to store it all, because they don't want to throw it away.

Along comes a guy, however, who says, "I think I know exactly what your problem is..." He points out that, for the time being, they can slow down their other shipments, and order just the red boxes from another source. However, that's a short term solution--the real problem is that, en route to the island, pirates are attacking the ships and robbing them of the red boxes. They don't take all of them--if they did, then the shipments might stop entirely until the pirates are dealt with--but they take about half. The real solution is to eliminate the pirates so that regular shipments can go through unmolested.

So, that brings me to our malnourished 300-pound woman. We'll call her Myra. Myra is a big woman, and she is very hungry, all the time. She also has skin problems, her hair's falling out, and she feels tired and sick a lot of the time. Lots of doctors have told her to stop being such a fatty mcfatty moo cow. Stop eating so much, exercise more! But the hunger is unbearable, and her fatigue is crushing. Myra gets sick and tired of her doctors having no real help to offer her, so she does her own research and finds some doctors that have compassion and the ability to see and hear patients, due to NOT having their heads rammed up their rectums.

Myra and her medical team finally figure out that she has severe auto-immune problems, including some nasty food allergies. Basically, when she eats gluten, her digestive system becomes so inflamed that it cannot properly absorb many of the nutrients she eats--but does allow the calories to be taken in and stored. Because she is low on vitamins and minerals, her brain sends out FEED ME signals that drown out pretty much any semblance of sanity she has. So she eats more--and the calories get absorbed and stored, while the vitamins and minerals pass right on through her ravaged system.

And, the previous solution to this has been, don't eat so much. For someone who is literally starved--not of calories, but of other nutrients--this is a cruel thing to prescribe.

So Myra, now that she has sorted out her food allergies (and hypothyroidism at the same time; autoimmune stuff is harsh), she takes a megadose of certain vitamins to "catch up" until her body has recovered enough to get enough of those things from the food she eats. She's finally recovering, and, surprisingly to her, the stored calories are now being utilized as her body balances itself and goes down to her natural setpoint--through no effort of calorie restriction at all.

I haven't even gone into the biochemical feedback loop that creates even greater cravings (inflammation -> adrenalin -> hunger), but there is quite a bit going on that most of us don't even realize or think about. It's awfully easy to point fingers at someone for eating "too much" or being too sedentary, but unless you have lived inside that person's body, you have no idea what their situation is like. Mistreating someone for being hungry, fat, or sedentary is arrogant and ignorant--and it doesn't do anyone any good. If you truly want to help people be healthier (not "lose weight", but "be healthier"), you should advocate for better education about things like hypothyroidism, celiac disease, and other things that can create situations like Myra's. If you're not interested, however, then learn to mind your own business regarding other people's health and bodies.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Two: Hypothyroidism

About five years ago, I started developing severe symptoms consistent with hypothyroidism: crushing fatigue, widespread pain, weight gain, and other issues. I'd had them to some degree for several years before that, but for the first time in my life, the symptoms were interfering with my ability to work.

My doctor at the time, we'll call him Dr. H, did blood tests, and he told me that my thyroid levels were "normal". With every other thing ruled out, and some other things ruled in, he finally concluded that I had fibromyalgia, and got me started on some medications that were supposed to help. These medications helped the pain and depression somewhat, but I was still exhausted most of the time.

A few months later, I asked him to do another thyroid test. He told me that it was a good idea, since the standards for "normal" had been changed, and that my previous test, while "normal" at the time, now was outside of that range. The phlebotomist took a few vials, and I heard back a couple of weeks later that my levels were "normal". Now, at the time, I had not done my homework. I was still not fully aware of the extent to which I had to advocate for myself with doctors. Too trusting and naive, I didn't actually get told what the numerical results of my test were, only that they were fine.

Fast forward to a year ago, when I changed my primary doctor to someone I'd met through work, a very intelligent man who was very knowledgeable about hypothyroidism and fibromyalgia. Dr. D was of the opinion that, even if the test results appear to be normal, when a patient exhibits symptoms of hypothyroidism, it may be beneficial to treat for it anyway. He said that about half of the people in such circumstances show improvement with the thyroid medication.

Additionally, my previous doctor only tested for TSH, the chemical your brain sends to your thyroid to tell it to make the thyroid hormone. Basically, if you aren't making enough thyroid hormone, the pituitary gland keeps pumping out TSH, which reaches a high level because it's the equivalent of the pituitary gland screaming at the thyroid to step up production. So a high level of TSH will show that the thyroid's not responding enough to shut up the pituitary gland. In my opinion, that's a bit like determining if someone is deaf by whether or not their spouse is screaming at them to be heard. Maybe you can draw some conclusions from it, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything if the spouse isn't shouting.

In many people, the TSH test will not show hypothyroidism; people with fibro especially seem to be harder to test because of a biochemical feedback loop (and no, I don't know where my source for this is; I had it in a newsletter or something) that results in a normal-appearing TSH level. So, to see if there's enough thyroid hormone being produced, the most accurate way is (and don't be shocked here) to test for the actual level of thyroid hormone. Now, to me, that seems kind of common-sensical, but I guess it's more expensive to do the full testing.

The long and short of it is that, once Dr. D did the full panel of tests, it showed that I was, in fact, not producing enough thyroid hormone. He had already started me on the medication, however, preferring to begin treatment immediately instead of waiting. It can take a long time to get up to the proper dose, because you start very small and work upward toward the dose that works for you, so he didn't want to make me suffer any longer than necessary.

It has only been in the past couple of months that I've finally been up to the right amount of medication. My energy levels have noticeably increased--I can actually feel that my metabolism has revved up a bit. I feel cheated, though--I could have been feeling like this four years ago if my last doctor had been doing his job and using his brain. I don't know how much the years of hypothyroidism have actually damaged my body, and if I'm going to recover somewhat from that, it could take a very long time.

Left unchecked, hypothyroidism can damage the heart, kidneys, and mental state, and can cause osteoporosis and anemia, among many other problems. Because of the metabolic effects, it causes weight gain, and makes weight loss, even through intense dieting and exercise, nearly impossible. Hypothyroidism is NOT difficult to test for--and is fairly simple and inexpensive to treat. As such, there is NO excuse for anyone with the condition to remain untested and untreated; anyone exhibiting symptoms should be taken seriously by a doctor, instead of being treated like they are not worthy of medical assistance until they lose weight.

Educate yourself on the symptoms, and don't accept no for an answer if a doctor doesn't want to do the tests. Make sure you know what tests are being run, and if they aren't the full panel, ask why--insist that it be done. Don't accept a qualitative answer like "normal"--get numbers, and compare them to the latest medical literature. If your literature shows a result different from your doctor's qualitative answer (outside the normal range, when the doctor's said you're normal), find out why your doctor's opinion is different. If you find that you're not getting straight answers or considerate treatment, get another doctor. Remember, it's YOUR body, YOU have to live in it. It does not belong to your doctor, and you don't have to accept your doctor's word as gospel.

I sincerely hope that my experience can help others get the treatment they need.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part One: Medical Malpractice on a Victorian Scale

One of the most irresponsible things about the "obesity epidemic" is that weight gain and fat tissue is often treated as a disease instead of as a symptom. As such, fat patients are instructed to lose weight, sometimes by way of surgery, without any exploration as to how or why they are fat, and whether they are actually experiencing health problems as a result of it.

In the next few entries, I will discuss some of the conditions that result in weight gain, including my personal experiences with those conditions, and how medical personnel seem to have a blind spot regarding those conditions. I will also explore some hypotheses regarding why those blind spots exist, and what can be done to get past them.

It is my belief that many of the health problems attributed to fat may actually be the result of overlooked and untreated issues--issues which, as they continue to be untreated, can result in even greater weight gain. As the frustrated patient continues to be told "lose weight" in lieu of actual medical treatment, they may lose confidence in the medical establishment, not only refusing to go to the doctor when they really need to, but becoming depressed as a result of being essentially told that they are not worth the trouble of medical care due to their being fat.

This entrenched, dogmatic system of medical malpractice, seemingly based more on "common knowledge" than science, needs to be attacked, denounced, and demolished. It needs to be relegated to the status of quackery, where it belongs on the same shelf as "humours", phrenology, and hysteria--all obsolete ideas that, when in vogue, caused immense suffering and death, and often justified maltreatment of other people. Humour-balancing, often in the form of bloodletting, caused a great deal of physical damage. Hysteria diagnoses allowed men to treat women as fragile children, resulting in "treatments" that would be viewed today as sexual assault and false imprisonment. Phrenology, though less damaging, was still a quackery used to make value judgements based solely on a person's physical characteristics.

Today, the quackery of the obesity epidemic is resulting in the same abusive, damaging treatments that humour-balancing and hysteria treatment did long ago. We're given dubious medications that kill us (Fen-phen), encouraged to undergo inexcusably dangerous surgery, and treated to verbal abuse and shaming for the "crime" of taking up too much space--verbal abuse that is lauded as necessary and even beneficial. We're told that we deserve to be sick and/or dead because we are fat. We're told that we have ourselves to "blame" for any and all health, emotional, or social difficulties we have, regardless of their cause, because we are fat. Most obscene, however, is that we are promised that, if we stop being fat, all of our problems--health, social, emotional, and otherwise--will go away. We're told that, until we stop being fat, we aren't worthy of medical care, common courtesy, or even a single bite of food.

Fat is NOT the cause of all these problems. Often, a fat person's emotional and social problems are the result of unwarranted maltreatment by others. Often, a fat person's health problems are not the RESULT of their fat, but the CAUSE of it. It's a pretty damn big cultural meme we're fighting against here, but when so many people are so abominably ignorant, it doesn't make their misconceptions true by consensus. So that's what I'm here to do: Tell my stories, and hopefully change a few minds.

Next up: Part Two: Hypothyroidism

Goodbye to a family member

Please note: This was written a couple of days ago. My uncle's body lost the fight yesterday morning, on my one year wedding anniversary. Some of the information here has been changed for the purposes of privacy, so events may vary slightly from reality.

J's ankle was really bothering him. It hurt quite a bit, and wasn't getting any better. He got the brush-off from doctors who said the x-ray was fine, so there's nothing to worry about.

My aunt (J's sister) and her husband had a feeling that it was something fairly serious, and they suggested that the doctors test for infection--specifically a staph infection, because that was what his symptoms pointed to. My uncle's doctor did a CT scan on the ankle, and declared that there was nothing wrong. My uncle grew progressively worse, and started to have some back pain as well.

As you may know, you don't diagnose a staph infection with a CT scan. The usual method is to sample blood or fluid from the suspected site or do a nasal swab and run a culture--which can take 2 to 3 days to give results. I'm not exactly sure how they finally manged to talk the doctor into doing the test, but he finally did. The results revealed that my uncle was infected with MRSA, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.

MRSA is living proof of the existence of evolution. It is a strain of bacteria that has evolved to become resistant to many antibiotics, making it very difficult to treat, especially in already-compromised individuals. It kills more people in the US per year than AIDS, and it is a lot easier to transmit than AIDS. It is a very nasty microbe.

A few months ago, my uncle was hospitalized and very ill because he has liver disease. He was not expected to survive, but he rather miraculously pulled through and was able to go home. It was predicted that, as long as he never took another drink, and didn't take drugs (legal or not) that were damaging to the liver, he could expect to live a fairly normal lifespan. He had just enough liver function remaining to survive and eventually get well again.

The problem is, most of the antibiotics used for MRSA are also pretty harsh on the liver and other organs. Not only does the liver get damaged and possibly shut down, but the lack of liver function leads to shutdown of other organs, especially the kidneys. My uncle's kidneys began to fail; he retained a great deal of fluid (over 50 pounds of it), and metabolic wastes were building up in his system. When my mother called to tell me this, my first question was, "Why aren't they doing dialysis?" She didn't have an answer for me, except to call later and tell me that they decided to try it.

Now, the whole time he's been in the hospital, my family--grandma, aunts, etc.--has had to pretty much be there in the room non-stop. Not just because they wanted to be there for J, but because the staff kept doing idiotic things like giving him the wrong medications, refusing to do proper wound care (they passed the buck to about four different departments before the radiology department finally did it because they were exasperated at his dire situation and lack of care), and a lot of other little things. There were several instances where my grandmother had to interrupt a nurse who was beginning to administer a medication and ask her what it was, and who prescribed it, and the nurse looking at the chart to see that she was not giving him the right thing.

J had been struggling pretty hard, but Sunday afternoon, the doctor decided that he isn't responding to treatment, and so they are switching over to palliative care only. Color me cynical, but I wonder if he would have had a better shot at survival if they'd started dialysis sooner instead of waiting until the last possible minute.

His fight has reminded me all the more painfully that we must be vigilant and well-educated in regard to our health status, and that we need to have the courage to strongly advocate for ourselves and our loved ones, even when medical staff don't want to hear disagreement. Dr. Ego may feel a little bruising to his pride when we do so, but his mistakes and pigheadedness affect OUR bodies, to the point of possibly maiming or killing us. If you are not getting anywhere with a medical problem because a doctor is brushing you off, talk to another doctor. If that one won't listen, get educated about your possibilities, and then make them test you for what you believe is the most likely problem. Know what those tests are, and be specific--MRSA is not detected by a CT scan, and brain tumors are not found in pap smears. YOU live in your body, and YOU know better than anyone else what you are experiencing. Don't let someone belittle your experiences and blow you off. It could save your life.

Answering the wrong question

An article from BBC News announces that eating breakfast "keeps teenagers lean", quoting one anti-fat proponent as saying this revelation is "ironic". The researchers noted that those who ate breakfast were less likely to be lethargic and inactive, so their higher activity levels resulting from this morning fueling compensated for the calories eaten, and then some, leaving the breakfast crowd thinner than those who avoided eating breakfast.

What bothers me is that they were looking at how thin the subjects were, instead of how healthy they were. The message of "eating breakfast will make you thinner" is less important, in my opinion, than "eating breakfast makes you feel more energized, and lets you do better in school and other activities." The fact that they need to use the carrot of thinness to grab peoples' interest makes me very sad, because I know that, even if the researchers felt that feeling better is more important than being thin (and that's a BIG if), our anti-fat atmosphere really promotes thinness over actual health and well-being. In fact, thinness seems to be regarded as shorthand for health and well-being, even though that isn't really true.

What researchers really need to be looking at is whether or not something makes people feel better and live more fulfilling, productive lives. I can definitely argue that eating breakfast DOES do those things, which is a good reason to eat it. Instead, we're worried about what will make people thinner, and it's a neurotic obsession that drives people to waste their lives weighing food, deliberately going hungry in an atmosphere of plenty, and eat foods they don't actually enjoy. Even when we ask about quality over quantity, those seeking thinness claim that there can be no quality of life without being thin--and I, and all the other FA bloggers, want them to know that it is simply not true.

Believe me, I do understand that discrimination and cruelty affect quality of life--I do! But instead of torturing your body in trying to make it more acceptable, which is usually an exercise in futility, join us in fighting for social change. Know that you've got a whole group of smart, strong, outspoken fat folks who are ready to support you. Know that yours is a shared experience.

So ask this question when a new study comes out: How will this make my life better? Don't worry about whether it will make you thinner.

Too little time

I grew up with an aunt who was only a couple of years older than I. We played together when we were young, but had different interests as teens. As we entered our twenties, I didn't spend a lot of time with her, but always admired her for having the emotional fortitude to work at the local humane society, a kill shelter that euthanized a large number of animals.

There was a day when I had kittens to vaccinate for distemper. The vet showed me how to do it, and gave me the pre-filled syringes. When it came to it, I had a hard time, so I boxed up the kittens and went to my aunt's house, where she did it for me. She told me that the vet had provided needles that were too large to easily and (for the kittens) comfortably give the shots, and that they were probably used to draw the shots, so were already dulled by at least two sticks. She quickly and skillfully injected them, and gave them some cuddles before sending me on my way.

The shelter valued her so much that, when their mascot, a sweet, adorable dog named Shannon, was retiring, she went to live with my aunt. Loving and working with animals has been the one main thing that we have in common, but I didn't spend nearly enough time talking to her about it.

And now, she has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

I've been trying to make up for lost time by sending her letters. I know that this is a difficult time for her; she is having chemotherapy and radiation to extend her time and give her greater function for what is left. So I write often, telling her about my foster kittens, my own cats, funny, happy stories to hopefully provide a few moments of distraction. I also express my admiration for her work with animals, something I should have done long ago. I don't expect replies; I would rather she use her time to be with her husband, and do the things she really wants to do, and have my letters just be something good and fun that arrive once or twice a week. I hope she looks forward to them, at least.

Whom have you written to lately that really needs to hear what you have to say? Do it while times are good, and you can enjoy each other fully.

Maybe it's not the weight!

From Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting, by Gina Kolata:

By then he was truly fat, weighting 202 pounds...he was only 5 feet 5 inches tall..."I have been compelled to go down stairs slowly backwards, to save the jar of increased weight upon the ankle and knee joints, and been obliged to puff and blow with every slight exertion, particularly that of going up stairs."

Okay, look:
I am fatter than that. I am shorter than that. I HAVE ARTHRITIS! And I do not have to "go down stairs slowly backwards to save the jar of increased weight" blah blah blah. If the guy quoted was having those issues, it wasn't his weight causing it. It's said that he changed his diet, and "began to feel better immediately". Well, he cut out starches and sugars. He probably had diabetes (this was in the 1860s, so no insulin or blood sugar testing), and once his diet change got that under control, the symptoms of joint pain and shortness of breath went away.

I love how people talk about fat people's joints getting so much damage from omg fat. Your joints are MORE at risk if you're engaging in a lot of athletic activity; doctors started seeing a huge increase in sports-related injuries, and I've seen some say that they are seeing 70-year-old joints in 30-year-old people because of our national obsession with vigorous exercise. (I am sorry that I don't have a link for that; I thought I did, but can't find it now). It's funny, too, because when I look up information about this, they talk about how "All of that running, jumping, and pounding can easily damage tendons, cartilage, or bone", then, invariably, add "but omg don't be fat too, because fat is bad" as almost an afterthought.

(But wait, I thought we were all supposed to exercise ourselves to death so we didn't get fat, because fat is bad? It looks like you're doomed either way, and, honestly, I'd rather take the less painful route to bad knees.)

I have a better idea than all of these dire warnings: How about, in each individual case, we determine the actual cause of the joint pain, and deal with it that way? And, by actual cause, I mean, the doctor doesn't look at a fat person and say, "Your joint pain is because you are disgustingly fat. Eat less and exercise more. Goodbye," without so much as an x-ray or even looking at the joints in question. I wonder if my aunt could have been spared knee replacements if the doctors had caught her rheumatoid arthritis before she entered Stage IV, and had the cartilage in her knees completely destroyed--not by her being too heavy, but by her immune system going haywire and eating up the cartilage. I am just thankful that they caught it when they did, before the RA caused her organs to fail, but still.

As for being out of breath? I had asthma when I was a skinny child and teen. Because it was unmanaged, I had to deal with asshole gym teachers screaming insults at me for not being able to run a mile without wheezing and coughing. Now that I'm fat, of course, people will tell me I'm "out of shape". No, dumbasses, my airways are inflamed, and I need medicine to open them up. Asthma affects people of all sizes. If someone makes a dietary change, and their breathing is improved, don't be so quick to assume it's fat-related. My asthma improved remarkably when I cut certain allergens out of my diet (and I haven't had a major emergency since I eliminated peanuts from my life).

It just annoys the hell out of me when people assume that TEH FAT is causing the problem, when it isn't the only factor involved.

Open Letter To Those New To The World of Chronic Pain

Dear New Chronic Pain Sufferers,
Welcome to the world of chronic pain, a dark place where you may or may not get a definitive diagnosis or find treatment that helps.

I want you to know, first of all, that you are not alone. There are lots of us out there who have gone before you into this realm, who have been in it for years, and who have done our best to pave the way to make it easier for you. As you may be discovering, we have not made as much headway as we'd like. This is a difficult road, one where we have only just begun to be taken seriously, to have research done, and to have some therapies that work for some of us.

We still have a lot of lousy doctors out there who are either not well-educated, or not compassionate. Most of us have been through several doctors, usually around 7 or 8, before finding one that is willing and able to help us. You may have to do the same thing, and while that is a huge pain in the butt, it is not worth your time to continue seeing someone who treats you poorly, doesn't take you seriously, or doesn't know what the hell s/he is doing. If your doctor is unable to help, and unwilling to learn more about your condition, then find a new one. If that one fails you, move on to the next one. Remember, you are not there to be a good, passive little patient. You have to advocate for yourself, and if the doctor expects you to just suck it up and do what s/he says? S/he does not deserve your time or money.

There's also an immense amount of quackery out there. Look out for doctors who promote snake oil or weird therapies. Especially look out for claims of a "cure"--that's the clearest indicator of bullshit. Guaifenesin, for example, works no better than placebo, yet there's a doctor out there making tons of money off of fibromyalgia patients with his quacky book that claims to cure the condition with guaifenesin. Look out for vitamin pushers; a multivitamin isn't a bad thing to take, but don't throw your money away on one that claims to be designed for your condition. Avoid magnetic products; they are quackery as well. Your best bet is to find a good online forum and communicate with other sufferers. Most veterans can tell you what works and what doesn't, which is very helpful in a realm where hucksters prey upon our desperation to make the pain stop.

Also know that everyone has a different set of symptoms, and different therapies work for some, but not others. It's important to have a lot of tests done, including Vitamin D levels, thyroid panel (full panel, not just TSH), Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis screening, and things like that. Rule out everything you can, and treat what you test positive for. Some people find that their pain is caused by celiac disease, and is helped by going gluten free. We all have to go through periods of trial and error to see what works and what doesn't. For example, many people get relief from Ultram, but it does absolutely nothing for me. I get relief from opiate pain medication, but that doesn't work for everyone. It takes a lot of time and effort to find the right diagnoses and therapies. You also will have to advocate for yourself a LOT, asking the doctor to let you try this or that, and if they refuse to listen, time to fire them and find someone who wants to help you.

Your family and friends are probably going to treat you badly over this. They may accuse you of being lazy, tell you that you just need to lose weight (chronic pain afflicts people of all body types), to suck it up, or that you're imagining it. They'll offer tons of unsolicited advice, and probably even get mad at you for not paying $100/month for a random herb that they read about in Reader's Digest. You do not deserve to be treated this way, and you do NOT have to apologize for your pain. You might just have to let go of some people, if they cannot get over your life change. You don't have to yell at them, but feel free to tell them that you are dealing with your condition, and it is between you and your doctor what therapies you try. If they can't handle that, then do your best to ignore them when they are behaving badly.

Finally, don't give up. Your pain is real. There is research showing the biochemical differences between us and normal people, and more going on even now. Therapies are being developed and improved every day. Keep a journal, either online or paper, and make it private. Write about your pain, your experiences, and what works for you. The information may help you or someone else someday. Network online with other people and share your experiences in communities; you will learn valuable stuff this way. Find a source of comfort, be it a spouse, friend, support group, cat, or dog; you need someone to hug you and be hugged by you. Finally, remember that you are not a bad person, and you don't deserve this. It's just a bad thing that happened to you, and, while it seriously sucks, there are more of us out here to help you find your way.

Welcome to chronic pain.

Love,
Rio

Kids & WLS, Part Three: Informed Consent

One of the biggest problems I have with WLS for children is that they cannot give informed consent. Not only can a minor not give consent, legally (their parents have to do it for them), but I don't believe that young people have the life experience and knowledge base to make that kind of decision.

There are a number of things that minors are not permitted to do, even with a parent's permission. They cannot get tattoos, drink alcohol, see certain movies, and, in some cases, have sex (especially with a partner who is not a minor). There are very good reasons for age limits on these things. In the case of tattoos, and some kinds of piercings, it is a way to protect that young person from doing something to their bodies that cannot be undone, and which may have negative consequences in the future.

Does that sound familiar? Now, to be fair, a tattoo is hardly comparable to WLS. After all, a tattoo is highly unlikely to leave you with diseases associated with malnutrition or kill you. Tattoos can be removed, albeit expensively, even years later. And, a tattoo does not require you to adhere to a strict daily dietary regimen that may be difficult for a young person to stick to. So, even if your mom gives you permission to have Tweety Bird tattooed on your ankle, it's only logical that you should not be legally permitted to do so until you are an adult, while she can happily sign off on getting your stomach amputated. Right?

Other types of legal restrictions exist to protect children from themselves, or from negatively impacting others around them. Young people need time to develop their bodies and minds. A 13-year-old who gets pregnant is more at risk than an 18-year-old, whose body is more prepared for pregnancy and childbirth. Young people need their decisions tempered with guidance, with veto power by a mature person, so that they are not punished for life by consequences of immature decisions (such as the aforementioned barely-teen mother). The same 13-year-old is also more at risk for getting an STD from a sexual partner, because she is not yet experienced or educated enough to take precautions. Why is it that these types of things are widely recognized as not age-appropriate for young people, but it's regarded as a-ok to have children undergo high-risk surgery to "solve" a problem that is not an emergency? If your daughter came home and said, "All the other girls are getting pregnant, and I want a baby of my own," you would do everything to dissuade her, and tell her that bowing to peer pressure to do dangerous things is a bad thing in the long term. Actually, you'd say, "If they were all jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?"

"Informed" is a key word in informed consent, as well. Not even adult patients get a proper education about the risks. WLS proponents are so gung ho to make a buck that they don't want to scare off their gravy train by telling them how it is. And while they can explain it to the parents, it isn't fair to foist the procedure on people who are too young to have the education and experience to put the information into context and understand the ramifications of WLS. A young person who is dealing with the social stresses of being fat will also be very eager to do anything to change that situation--even claiming that they are ready to make the rather intense lifestyle changes necessary to survive, but these same kids told mom and dad that they really truly would feed the hamster/dog/parakeet and clean its cage--and we all know how that turns out.

Simply put, it is not right or fair to have children undergo WLS when they are not even able to properly consent to having a tattoo because it is assumed that they might regret it later. I guarantee that if the tattoo and piercing industries started lobbying to eliminate age requirements, people would be in an uproar. WLS can have much scarier consequences, and the industry behind it is pushing hard and fast to get their hands on kids' bodies. If you are a parent, you SHOULD be in an uproar over that.

THIS IS IMPORTANT!

I will post at length about this topic later, but I want to open it up with a preliminary statement:
Having children undergo bariatric surgery is a bad thing. It's irreversible (even the banding becomes irreversible after a while), and growing young people need to absorb their nutrients for proper development of their bodies and brains.

There are very, very few, if any, situations where a child needs to undergo bariatric surgery to save his or her life--where it is such an emergency that they cannot wait until they are old enough to make a proper decision and give informed consent.

Is there anyone out there who cares about this issue? Or am I lone voice on this matter? I want comments, lots and lots of them, telling me how you feel about this!

I will discuss this after collecting some opinions from others who are interested in this topic.