Context...

Weight = 276

Well, let me start by telling you a bit about myself. I am a 40 year old male with 3 kids and I live in Alabama. I am around 270lbs and have been overweight since I turned 24. I have been consistently unsuccessful in losing my weight and have tried many methods to lose weight. Anyways, it has been a seesaw for most of my adult life.

Well, about 6 years ago I developed gout. This was the beginning, I was 34. Then, about 2 years later I developed low testosterone. Around this same time, I was having significant problems with fast heart rate and palpitations. I ended up going in the hospital a couple of times with these problems. Finally, I had a sleep study and found that I had sleep apnea. My fatigue had continued to get worse and things were just not good.

Anyways, with the positive sleep study, I get a CPAP and am sent home to go make this CPAP thing work. I cycled through a few doctors with all saying that I should go home and learn to sleep with the mask. The problem was, I couldn't. Plus, I was becoming increasingly worse and had started to disconnect from reality at times. I was absolutely so tired, I could not process day to day activities. I began to contemplate disability, since I was increasingly unable to work. I had severe panic attacks and just varying degrees of misery. Plus, the heart palpitations were really bad. I got an atenlol to lower my heart rate.

Add to all of this, the gout was worse than ever.

I went to a ENT, on research about pillar implants for the sleep apnea. It cost me $1800 dollars, since the insurance company did not consider it an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnea(OSA). The procedure was incredibly painful and I was in pain for several weeks. The back of my throat felt like there was something there. Anyways, all of this, and it did not help.

My OSA continued to become increasingly worse. I was awakening several times a night and to top it all off, I had developed a serious case of insomnia. It was hell. I started to take Ambien for the insomnia but that made the OSA worse, which in turn made the sleep worse. It was a vicious cycle.

Meanwhile, the docs were pretty much worthless. Actually, beyond worthless, because they stole my hope and took my money. One pill to the next and one script after another. In case you haven't figured it out, I have a very low opinion of doctors and the medical profession. I should know I work in healthcare and know them. Most of them are sleazy and money hungry, they are also given way to much credit in the intelligence department and way too little credit in the ego department.

So, a few weeks ago I began to toy with the idea of a lap band, based on a nurse friend's recommendation. Nothing else worked, so I figured that the only path out of this living hell was something really drastic. The Lab band seemed like the solution. Out of this chaos, I started to make appointments and calls to begin the process of looking into this surgery.

To be continued...