Success Story Helen
Helen Bush
Before
After 150 pound weight loss
I'm
a real fan of Drs. Clarey and Bruce and feel that they saved my life more
than once over again and have referred several people to them and most of them
have had the surgery as well.
I got married Dec 1, 2001 and then this past March we had a baby
boy and that keeps me pretty busy. I've lost 157 pounds total since the Roux en Y surgery in March,
2001. I'm still big, but much smaller than I was before surgery and much, much
healthier. Today I'm at the same weight as the day I found out I was
pregnant, so I didn't keep any of the pregnancy weight (in fact during the first
and second trimesters I actually lost weight instead of gaining). But now,
I'm at the point of having to do something about getting it going again. However,
even if I don't lose any more (and I hope to God I do)
the surgery has already given me a brand new life and saved my life, as I said.
Before surgery, I was diabetic having been put on Insulin just a few weeks
before the surgery. I had high blood pressure and had a lot of female problems
and was told that I probably would never have children. After the weight
loss, I am no longer diabetic, no more blood pressure problems (even during my
pregnancy it was on the low side), and no more female problems and obviously
since I had my son there's no infertility problems either :)
So, I lost 157 pounds and a lot of health problems and gained a
wonderful 5 pound 13 ounce baby boy as a result of the RNY surgery performed by
Drs. Clarey and Bruce. Also, I had had a hole in my heart (a PFO) that had caused me to have a
stroke in 1996 and then after having lost the weight, testing showed that the
hole had either closed up or reduced in size so much that it could no longer be
seen, to the point that I only have to be on Aspirin therapy now (to ensure no
clotting at the hole if in fact is does still exist) and not the prescription
anticoagulation therapy I had been on prior to losing weight. So, since the surgery and weight loss I got married (we were dating
before the surgery), gave birth to an amazing and wonderful baby boy and my
health problems have nearly all gone away.
I still want to lose more weight and am battling getting back to eating
for one instead of the several meals a day to ensure my son's healthy weight
gain during pregnancy. He weighed just 5 pounds 13 ounces at birth and I
had to really work during the pregnancy to get all the calories in me that I
could so that he would gain weight and grow healthy just for him to weigh even
that much at birth. I believe the Gastric Bypass caused the passing of a
lot of nutrients and kept my baby from getting his share. I'm hoping that he
picks up his weight now that he's born. He does seem to be doing that slowly but
surely. Now that I've had him, the only health issue I really deal with relating
to weight or the surgery is anemia which I also dealt with during the pregnancy,
but I'm taking lots of iron supplements and trying to eat iron rich foods to
take care of that. I don't "dump" very often like a lot of WLS
patients do (I wish I would because I like sweets way too much!) but there are
times that something that's really high in high fructose corn syrup (like milk
shakes) seems to cause me to dump, but that's few and far between.
Helen Bush (formerly Helen Wolfe)
Results will vary
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