“Surgery is not El Dorado”: For World Obesity Day, five patients talk about their lives after the procedure

Jean-Jacques Fabre loved big dishes of green lettuce and tomatoes ripening in the summer sun. He “Can’t stand raw vegetables anymore” and now neglects the flesh when it was “A great artist. “Downfall” At 82 kg after weighing 157, the official also “Voluntarily gained about ten kilos back”, “It wasn’t me anymore”.

Like Jean-Jacques Fabre, 22,000 per year “People who will be sick for life” Often the first objective is to lose weight. But the impact of bariatric surgery, a last-resort option against obesity, highlighted on World Obesity Day on Monday, March 4, doesn’t stop at lost pounds and often improved health. At the other end of the scale, divorce, depression, nutritional deficiencies, burn-out, extreme fatigue, hair loss… the High Health Authority has just reframed the terms for care.

“Surgery is not a wave of a magic wand, it’s a kick in the ass…, a new birth”sums up Jean-Jacques Fabre, who has long marveled at the reflection of his new silhouette in the street windows. “It is not an end in itself and it is not El Dorado”Adds his wife Catherine, who also had an operation for obesity, tired of the canned message others would like.“We have surgery because we’re lazy and we take the easy way out”: “When you have surgery, you can’t tell yourself you’re going to be thin, beautiful, and fine. Yes, it will be different. But The problems will always be there. I don’t wish surgery on anyone.”

“Some patients still imagine that it will solve everything, that it will turn their lives upside down”, Hafida Ahansal, testifies to the ears of thousands of patients on the helpline of the National League Against Obesity, which was born ten years ago in Montpellier only on the initiative of the director of an association, Agnes Maureen and surgeon David Noka. It spread throughout France.

Presents questions related to surgery “One Call of Three”.

On the front line, the association’s patient experts actively participated in the new HAS recommendations, which the League’s General Secretary Catherine Fabre is pleased to see strongly. Claudine Canale, another expert patient, also: “I think there have been so many deviations in bariatric surgery, it’s good to redefine that pathway to redefine it.”.

“This work is for life”

“Obesity is not just a question of weight”recalls, as the eating season approaches “rebellion” “Big people”, this resident of Bouches-du-Rhône, who came to the Montpellier University Hospital specialist center for an operation in 2010, six years after her husband, to undergo another operation in 2023, a year after her son, for complications and persistent vomiting.

“In 2010, a sleeve allowed me to lose 35 kg. I was 130 kg, doctors told me that if I did nothing, I would not live past the age of 50.” Catherine Fabre, 58, testifies, “still obese” Weighing 88 kg for her height of 58 meters, she arrived in Montpellier after medical examinations, dieting, humiliation and a life of crime.

Since then, another existence began, “Without sleep apnea”, “Without joint problems”But under constant surveillance, “Because if you don’t back up, if you don’t follow through, if you don’t work on your illness, you’re back to square one. This work is for your whole life.”.

“My husband had a big fear that I would change mentally.”

Even surgery “Dietist, psychiatrist, psychologist, endocrinologist…” Claudine Canal, 62, had the operation twelve years ago “For my health, because I can no longer breathe”, He understands“We get tired” Meanwhile. “Since childhood, obesity has been a daily struggle, an agony. And still is today,” Witness a sixty-year-old man who went from 140 kg to 90 kg and then to 80 kg.

“For me, it’s something that works really well, but you have to follow through”she insists. “I meet a lot of people who don’t know that it’s not enough to cut or bend a piece of the stomach.” This Italian woman J “Love Food” Had to wait two years to eat pasta. “Al dente cooking was not right”. She now has to divide her days into four breakfasts “150 grams of food, no more”To digest well.

“For four years, I’ve been eating off a dessert plate. Dishes with sauces are difficult, my stomach can’t stomach them anymore. Neither is lasagna and anything made with tomatoes,” Johanna Ney, 36 years old, testifies, who is completely satisfied with the intervention, a “by-pass”, carried out in the private sector in 2020, at half its cost. “I did it for my children because I couldn’t continue. It was my third time. I respect the protocol, and I have no inconvenience”, Herault welcomes resident, J “Lost 50 kg in six months”.

“My husband had a great fear that I would change not only physically, but also mentally”She remembers, glad to get away like this. “There were six of us who were operated on at the same time. One is depressed, the other two are in great difficulty and are gaining weight again.”…

“I don’t want to scare people but you have to be aware of what can happen”

In addition to her own experience, Aurelie Quillet, both a psychologist and the League’s patient specialist, describes the difficulties she experienced: “Dental problems, sexuality, food allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, inequality” Support in specialist centers, but also according to regions… “I don’t want to scare people, but you have to be aware of what could happen.”

For her part, with forty kilos less, she “felt good” also has “Feel positive towards me, including men. One of my problems was sexual assault when I was 17. Totally insecure, I gained 10 kg in a short time”.

And a little more today, “I can’t tell you how much, I weigh maybe 115 or 120 kg… I no longer have diabetes, no more cholesterol, no more sleep apnea. But in terms of weight, we can call it a failure.”