I saw a new doctor yesterday and you won't believe what I found out. It was enough to make my jaw drop when he told me. I wanted to cry.
My first visit, as part of a medically supervised weight loss program (totally healthy, BTW), lasted an hour and a half and consisted of going over every aspect of my health and history with obesity. This included family history, diets I have tried, what I'm currently eating, and medications that I'm taking.
For once, I felt like a doctor was truly listening to me. Not only that, but he understood me. He has been researching obesity for years and has developed a program that is in its early years, but one that has seen a lot of success at not only helping people with chronic obesity related diseases lose weight, but go off of medications and also maintain the weight loss.
That gives you a small picture of the background of this program and I plan on blogging about it as I continue my weight loss journey. The last year or so has left me feeling like there truly was no hope left-- I actually found this program through a series of searches, beginning with bariatric surgery. I have been trying diet after diet and failing absolutely miserably at it. Not only that, my weight has PACKED ON over the last few years-- but at an even more drastic amount in the past year.
So what was so shocking that the doctor told me?
It all begins in early 2013 when I was switched to a blood pressure medication that was deemed safe for pregnancy. I have continued on this medication until just yesterday-- so over four years.
Yesterday, the doctor told me that I immediately needed to stop taking that medication because it has been known to cause depression and even considerable numbers of suicide. Wow. Just. Wow.
So it's possible that the pregnancy filled with anxiety and stress, followed by postpartum depression, severe anxiety, and overall the worst experience of my life-- could have been caused simply by a medication. Not to mention the fact that I've had a history of turning to food to cope.
And for FOUR YEARS, not one physician even brought up the possibility that it could have been caused by a medication. Instead, I was put on an additional three medications for depression and anxiety and also sent to counseling. Overall, I saw a total of seven physicians who all had my medication list. In one day at a new health system, a doctor and a pharmacist were baffled as to why I was on this outdated medication.
Not only that, do you remember this post? The one where I intentionally went to my doctor to ask her WHY I was still having such severe bouts of depression and that it was so out of character for me to feel how I was feeling? The one where she was downright disrespectful of me and basically just told me that I needed to lose weight?
That's right-- not one concern was shown for my intuition that something wasn't right. And I am here two more years later still dealing with those same bouts of depression-- the kind where I will suddenly feel like I don't even want to live any more. Thankfully, I have grown to recognize these patterns but I have spent years doubting myself and showering myself in guilt and shame.
It truly makes me begin to distrust the medical community. That's a broad assumption to distrust the entire medical community and I do know that my new doctor is certainly an exception-- his goal is to get his patients off of medication. Isn't that the way that it should be? Shouldn't we be curing illnesses rather than stacking medicine upon medicine in an attempt to mask the symptoms?
Let's not even mention the fact that one of the medications I'm on for anxiety is also known to cause weight gain. A combination of factors have led to the perfect storm and I'm left tattered.
My hope is now that I'm on a different blood pressure medication, my overall disposition will begin to return to who I was four years ago. At that time, I had been through some life challenges that were stressful and was trying so hard to get back on my feet again in the weight loss game.
I have been combing through my medical records and I figured this out-- from the time I began truly struggling with my weight, as in beginning to gain a little bit from my absolute lowest weight, only six months passed before I started the medication and the rest is history.
There's no use in getting hung up on the woulda, shoulda, couldas-- but it is still mind-blowing to think about it. I'm hopeful that things will slowly begin to change for me in the weight department and I can become the girl I worked so hard to become when I was on top of my game.
I guess the next year or so should tell!
