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Bastrop County woman halves her weight
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AUSTIN (KXAN) - Jennifer Aldridge went from a weight of 605 pounds to just over 300 in only one year.
"To me, Ms. Aldridge is an inspiration to us all," said Dr. Stanley Wang, a cardiologist with Austin Heart Hospital . "She's really an example of what can happen if you're really committed to weight loss."
All this started for Aldridge as a teenager, when she had knee surgery, two years in a row. Virtually inactive for that period of time, the pounds began to pile on. Then, as an adult, things got even worse.
"I was married for eleven years and divorced that man to go be with a high school sweetheart that turned out to be very abusive," she said. "And I got more emotional and started eating more and more and more and there's where my weight gain happened."
"I could not walk; I could not move around; I couldn't tie my shoes," Aldridge said, choking back her tears.
She started thinking about her children and their children and began to worry about dying before she had a chance to watch the young ones grow up. According to Dr. Wang, the worry was well-founded.
"We know that obesity is associated with all kinds of cardiovascular disease: Anything from high blood pressure and high cholesterol to coronary heart disease or blockages in the heart arteries," he said. "And so, the longer you have obesity, the more your risk of having a heart problem is. And heart disease still is the number one killer in the country."
For the medically obese, though, there is a Catch-22, of sorts: "We want to help you lose weight, but don't look to us to help you lose weight," it goes.
"Many cardiac testing machines cannot accommodate patients over 500 pounds," said Wang. "For example, the stress test machine we're using today can't accommodate a person who weights more than 500. So even if Ms. Aldridge were having chest pain, we wouldn't really be able to evaluate or treat it."
There's another issue, too: Aldridge was so big, she would have been an excellent candidate for gastric bypass surgery, except for the fact that she was so big.
"A lot of patients who have obesity have a lot of heart risk factors," Wang noted. "For example, Ms. Aldridge told us that she had high blood pressure before she lost all this weight. That's very common, as is diabetes and high cholesterol and even sleep apnea."
The surgery can result in almost miraculous outcomes.
"Over half become cured of diabetes," the doctor said. "Almost half become cured of high blood pressure. So these heart risk factors go away after the fact. But beforehand, when they have all these risk factors, some surgeons are reluctant to put these patients under the knife and potentially trigger a heart attack, especially since a lot of them can't be evaluated because of their weight. Part of it probably is a liability thing. We are afraid to do the thing that will help you the most because we just don't know what might happen."
Aldridge can testify to that.
"I went to three surgeons here in Austin," she said. "They talked with me; they did the consultation, but in the end, it was, 'No, we cannot do your surgery,' because I was too big. They just wouldn't do it."
That's when she learned that her aunt's doctor in Iowa was willing to consider operating on her. That, too, however, went nowhere at first.
"He turned me down three times," she said. "I had to show that I could lose the weight. I had to go through psychological evaluation, counseling, medicines, all sorts of stuff, physical therapy, to show that if I started losing weight and they did the surgery, that I was willing to keep losing the weight and keep it up."
Bypass surgery, you see, is not a slam dunk.
"Even though you have the bypass surgery," Aldridge said, "a lot of people just think that, 'Wow, I had my surgery; now my weight loss is going to be done with.' No, that's not the case. You can restretch your stomach out; you can regain all your weight back. Then your emotional problems are right back where you started at. So it's basically up to you."
Finally, she got her wish. The surgery was performed and the pounds started to come off. The procedure gave her fighting chance, but she would have to be determined and diligent.
"My eating habits have changed," she said. "The things that I wanted to eat back then, I don't even have a desire to eat now. I'm exercising more, getting out with my kids; I take my dog to the park."
Not long ago, she pulled some ten year old jeans out of the closet, jeans she's been hauling around with her whenever she moved over the past ten years. They fit!
The work is not over, though. Aldridge still needs to lose another 125 pounds and then another surgery to remove all the excess skin that is already beginning to hang off her limbs and stomach area. Meanwhile, she's preparing for a total knee replacement. That's what took her to Dr. Wang. She needed a "chemical stress test" to be sure her heart can deal with the stress
of an operation. The results were promising.
The cardiologist showed her a series of donut-shaped images on a computer monitor, cross sections of her heart.
"This is a normal stress test," he grinned. "Congratulations, I'm so happy for you."
The American obesity epidemic is about to lose a statistic and Aldridge wants her story to push the numbers down even further.
"If you're overweight and wanting to do something about it," she said, "pick up the phone and call a surgery center; call a dietitian; start somewhere and you can do it."
"I think she is a remarkable success story," Wang said.
Additional information:
Gastric Bypass Surgery in the Yahoo! Directory
Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass Surgery Open and Laparoscopic
Cached
Gastric Bypass Surgery and Its Risks The Dangers of Bariatric Surgery
Obesity
Lap-Band Surgery Consumer Guide to Weight Loss Surgery
Weight Loss Surgery Gastric Bypass Gastroplasty Lap Band
- The Mini Gastric Bypass
Mini Gastric Bypass Surgery Risks and Benefits
Gastric bypass surgery Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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