well, the point is this: the obese are here to stay. a good doctor will not blame the patient for their weight, try to find any underlying medical cause (which is not always easy and referral to an endocrinologist should be be hesitated), and offer various conservative to invasive plans to help them.

‘Making the Cut’ – Mohammed Khadra, I think you ought to give it a read. Absolutely shockingly good stuff, I blew off a weekend in Gosford to stay at home and read it. If memory serves me correctly, he did his urology training in Victoria. (Yeah, I know, urology. But it’s still pretty amazing.)

Obviously if you have a tumor in your brain, i’m not implying that the doctor should first take a look at your diet. That’s rediculous and I never said anything like that. It’s hilarious how you take every comment as if they were talking about you and your disease.

I’m sorry that I didn’t list specific diseases in my original comment so as to avoid confusion from you.

As Jeffrey said in this very post, and to which I was responding/adding to: “only as a last resort should surgery be recommended.” I was speaking generally about surgeries for weight loss purposes, as well as those that are performed for non-immediately life threatening problems.

You are insane for suggesting that Cushings patients shouldn’t have their tumor removed. I had my surgery done – not for weight loss. In fact, the pituitary surgery is NOT DONE for weight loss at all!

I can understand surgery’s for the purpose of weight loss ONLY. But pituitary surgery is not done for weight loss!

Please get your facts straight. Now, that is my tough love.

Speaking of “easy” way out, I do know of someone who falls within his normal BMI range, but still takes Xenical so as to be able to eat oily foods and such without putting on weight. I mentioned something called exercise to him, but he reckons that medication gives him the same end point with less effort.

p/s: Jeff, “fatties” is so not politically correct. lol

I agree that in the cases where a person can not mentally control their overeating, and could die at any moment due to heart failure or stopping breathing during sleep, that it could save their life. Even though their life will be risked even more when they are put under to perform the surgery.

I would speculate that these are not usually the cases in which a lap band or gastric bypass is performed.

Jeffrey?

In any event, if lap band surgery can save a loved ones life (not me – I’m not fat enough for that anyway), I like “fast”. That Mexican guy or people THAT fat are ticking time bombs where they can wait a few years to go from being the 1,000 to the 100 pounds that they are supposed to be.

thanks for stopping by to comment.

WOW, that guy Frank’s ‘tough love’ even left me feeling a little strange.

You make a great point I think, Jeffrey, about how a modifiable lifestyle should be looked at first before anything major like surgery or medication is even considered for a disease or pain.

Isn’t it strange how medicine and/or surgery has somehow become viewed as the “easy” way out?? I think that says a LOT about people and our culture in general, that they are so set in their ways and are so unwilling to look back at themselves that they are willing to have someone cut them open to “fix” the problem.

I think “easy” is being confused with “fast”.

Good post.

Lol, the author just got his first hate mail after 4 months of tough love blogging and he replied it with a post. its interesting to say the least.

well, i think saying the brutal truth comes with its pros and cons. people like Frank Drackman may have unknown motives, e.g. attract visitors. hence the controversial comments.

that said, i think some are still rather reserved to voice their deepest inner thoughts especially after they have built a certain positive reputation in the medical blogosphere.

Keep in mind, the internet is the one of the only places on this planet where people are the most honest.