How to Know When You Need Bariatric Surgery

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If you are obese and considering bariatric surgery, you have to meet several conditions to qualify, and knowing when it’s time to see if you do qualify is straightforward. Overall, bariatric surgery is extremely beneficial to those who qualify. Look at where you stand regarding weight and health to see if it’s time to consider this life-saving surgery.

BMI, Weight, and Additional Conditions

In most cases, you have to have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 40, or be more than 100 pounds over your ideal weight range. However, if your BMI is at least 35 and you have at least two conditions that are associated with obesity, such as sleep apnea and type 2 diabetes, then it may be time to talk to a surgeon about bariatric procedures. If you have conditions known to be associated with or aggravated by obesity, you have to take action.

Education and Counseling

Another sign that it’s time to look at bariatric surgery is that you’ve undergone some counseling to explore why you eat and how you’d handle emotional issues if food were not an available pacifier. Most people have some form of psychological attachment to overeating, often using it as a form of stress-relief. After bariatric surgery, you wouldn’t be able to treat food the same way. If you’ve started exploring how to deal with emotions without food, and you have the aforementioned weight and health conditions, it’s time to talk to a surgeon.

Previous Efforts

Finally, you need to look at how your weight loss efforts have gone in the past. If you’ve been successful with weight loss before and simply stopped following your regimen, it might not be time for surgery. In that case, you may want to turn your counseling efforts around and look at why you kept stopping when the program worked. However, if nothing has worked for you, even though you stuck to weight-loss programs religiously, surgery is a definite option.

Bariatric surgery has to provide you with more benefits than disadvantages, so it’s crucial that you talk to experienced surgeons about what happens during and after the surgery. Don’t give up hope—good surgeons want you to be healthy and will help you find the right weight loss path for you.