Is there any such that that overweight/obsese patiends don't make good donors?

[slicksilver]

I'm 178 cms / 5' 10" and weigh about 120 kgs / 265 lbs and was told by doctors in a hospital here in India that I wasn't ideal because I am overweight/obese. Is there anything like this in the western countries? My gut feeling is that it makes it more challenging for the doctors and they do not want to do that extra bit of work here. This was the sole reason for them saying that I wasn't suited.

What does everyone here think? Thanks in advance for your opinions.

[slicksilver]

oops wrong forum! please move to potential donors. Thanks!



EDITED:  Moved to Potential Donors, as requested.  Rerun, Admin

[Ninanna]

Being over weight puts you at risk during the surgery and increases your chances of developing other medical problems that could cause you to go into kidney failure yourself, particularly hypertension. It is to protect you. They practice this in the states as well. My dad never made it past the initial questionnaire because of his weight. Unfortunately he didn't change and two years later he got type 2 diabetes.  He would be in really big trouble now if they had taken his kidney.

[slicksilver]

Hi. Thanks for your reply. Do you know what is the recommend weight range or bmi for the donor?

[Ninanna]

Just whatever the weight range is for a normal BMI for someone of your height. My mom was towards the high end of the normal range and they told her not to gain anymore weight.

[cariad]

I tend to agree that extra weight creates extra work for surgeons, and they don't like this. In fact, I've seen surgeons admit this. There is very little scientific data on what extra risks a donor with a high BMI might face as doctors have to be so careful with who they allow to donate. If I remember correctly, donors with higher BMIs tended to require a switch to open surgery more than lower BMI donors. The studies didn't have the sample numbers required to say anything definitive. I don't believe that weight causes most of these conditions that people claim, I think there is strong evidence that it's the other way round, especially with diabetes: weight is the symptom, not the cause. More and more doctors seem to be coming round to this conclusion.

[frankswife]

My sister in law was turned down as a donor for my husband. She's not obese. They told her to lose 25# and then talk to them.

[slicksilver]

Thank you all for your replies!

[lainiepop]

I agree with Cariad about the surgeons. Both myself and my dad are on the lower end of normal weight and we were told we were the surgeons' dream. With less weight recovery is easier too and all my scars are very neat x

[dublin]

Hi. Thanks for your reply. Do you know what is the recommend weight range or bmi for the donor?

HI OVER HERE IN iRELAND FOR MALES ITS 90 KILOS WEIGHT THAT YOU MUST GET TO , I HAVE ASKED OTHER PEOPLE - MALE IN MY CLINIC 6 FEET AND OVER THEY SAY THE SAME IS FOR THEM I AM 5FOOT 5 INCHES GOOD LUCK

[Poppylicious]

I had to prove that I was in the process of losing weight when I first started being tested to be a living donor.  They were able to then do the testing in dribs and drabs and that gave them the opportunity to be sure I was still losing weight.  The goalposts were changed ... 'You need to be at this BMI' and when I got there, it became, 'Now you need to be at this BMI'.  Grrr ... But I got there and was able to donate.  I wouldn't have wanted to donate when I was bigger.

As a recipient my Blokey had to lose weight too; he's about 6' and had to get down to about 100kg before they would operate.

[amanda100wilson]

Bigger operative risk; that is the main reason.

[cariad]

Bigger operative risk; that is the main reason.

I don't believe they have proven this is this case. There is so little data out there about higher BMI donors - the last peer-reviewed journal article I read had, if I remember correctly, n=3. Absolutely nothing can be asserted at this level of participation. There is no clear path forward, because how can you prove the relative safety of a procedure if you won't let enough participants through the screening process to prove it? Rigid adherence to BMI charts has led to some ludicrous situations, like the professional athlete who was turned down to donate bone marrow because he fell into the obese column on the BMI charts.

I wouldn't have wanted to donate when I was bigger.

That's understandable, but those that do want to donate at a higher weight and are deemed otherwise healthy should be given that option. I remember the case of the woman in the UK who was told that her husband would not live much longer on dialysis, and she was an excellent match for him, but they wouldn't let her donate until she lost a certain amount of weight. Don't know how this was resolved, but I think it's unconscionable for doctors to put potential donors in that situation. This is all a result of doctors' insistence that there is a certain weight out there that on its own qualifies a person to be labeled unhealthy. As fat activists have been saying saying since the start of the movement "you cannot judge a person's health by their size".

[Poppylicious]

I wouldn't have wanted to donate when I was bigger.

That's understandable, but those that do want to donate at a higher weight and are deemed otherwise healthy should be given that option..

Absolutely true, but when I say 'bigger' I mean nearly twice the size I am now.  It would have been highly uncomfortable and *I* would have found the experience humiliating.  As it was, I'd been wanting to lose weight for a long time (I'm a comfort eater and being an anxiously worrying soul I do [still] do a lot of eating!) and so it killed two birds with one stone. And I can now shop in 'normal' clothes shops, which is an added bonus.