New hope for morbidly obese patients?

[nkviking75]

The University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago is the first to offer robotic kidney transplants to morbidly obese patients and report fewer complications.  Obese patients (like me) are considered high risk candidates for transplant surgery.  My docs want me to lose 120 lbs before they'll even look at me for a transplant.  While I don't question that losing all that weight would be better for me, I also know that's no easy task.  I was evaluated for lap band surgery, and they said I was a high risk candidate for that because of my ESRD.  Maybe the UIC's approach is what ESRD patients like me need.  See what you think.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/571885/?sc=rsmn

[cariad]

Wow!!! Fantastic news!!!

I have long thought that keeping so-called obese people from transplant was discriminatory and had little to no basis in scientific fact. I have attempted to research this in scientific journals and found only mixed results, suggesting that they do not really know if it is dangerous, but that does not stop them from saying it is. I once heard from a surgeon that surgeons detest fat not for health reasons, but because it makes it difficult for them to see in operations. Oh, and one doctor that does gastric bypass says that holding open the abdomen of an obese person during surgery can give doctors a "sore back". How's that for compassion?

I am actually very happy that you were turned down for lap band surgery. They make it sound so benign and easy, don't they? I have read one horror story after another about lap bands and gastric bypass. I would strongly advise anyone considering it to run in the other direction.

Yes, I am an advocate for "size rights". I had a long look at how overweight people were treated when I was kid on high doses of prednisone, on a strict, low-calorie diet from  parents who would then accuse me of overeating (despite monitoring everything I ever ate). Most people just are the size they are and there is precious little that you can do about it unless you want to live your entire life on a strict diet. Health risks from being overweight have been greatly exaggerated, or in the case of high BMI and transplant, made up entirely.

I wish you luck!

[Chris]

I must have missed that in the Chicago Tribune.

[ChickenLittle56]

I wish that this was around in 2006 when a good friend was alive.  This operation could have saved his life because he weighed 195+ kg. I thanl God and the surgeons who perform this procedure that the morbidly obese do have that option now.