What are the psychological effects of gastric bypass?
We can put the psychological effects of gastric bypass into 2 categories: positive and negative. The positive psychological effects are a better self image, body image, self esteem, and the ability to deal with the world around you. A lot of patients who are overweight are afraid to go out, afraid to do things, afraid to meet other people, afraid to accomplish something. If they fail it sort of reinforces the image they have of themselves as a failure as a human being. By losing the weight and then actually participating in it it's not, as I said, just the surgery. But they have to do something to make it work. I think they gain a sense that they have control over the situations and they can do things, and therefore it improves everything else they do. The negative effects can be that they've lost something, a method of dealing with their anxiety. So their defense mechanism was eating and now they can't do this. If they do it they are miserable because of the surgery. So are they going to shift that need for relieving the anxiety to really relieving what the cause of the anxiety is and therefore making their life better, or develop another obsessive compulsive disease? A significant proportion of bariatric patients who lose weight will develop alcoholism. It is being written about recently. Nobody knows exactly what that number is, but even 5% or 10% would be a significant number. What they have done is they've shifted the psychological problem from eating to something else. Having problems with their relationships, significant others, family, people or friends who have been dependent upon these people being overweight and now they are not overweight mean more can change. That can upset the patient in a negative way, or the patient realizes that these people are not really my friends, they were there for some dependency upon me and now that my body has changed they no longer want to associate with me.
