“Surgery is not the El Dorado”: ​​for World Obesity Day, five patients talk about their lives after the procedure

Johanna Nay, avant et après l'intervention : “Je l'ai fait pour mes enfants, mon mari ne voulait pas”. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

Every year, in France, 22,000 patients with severe or massive obesity are operated on. One in two is no longer followed by the medical profession two years later. Midi Libre listened to five patients who tried this last resort option, while the disease continues to progress: 17% of French people are obese, and more than a billion people are affected worldwide.

Jean-Jacques Fabre loved large dishes of green salad and tomatoes ripened in the summer sun. He "can't stand raw vegetables anymore" and now skips the meat even though it was "a great amateur". "Fallen" at 82 kg after having weighed 157, the official also "voluntarily gained back around ten kilos", "this was no longer me.

Like Jean-Jacques Fabre, each year, 22,000 "people who will remain sick for life" have sometimes held the first objective, to lose a lot of weight. But the impact of obesity surgery, an option of last resort against the disease of extreme overweight highlighted on World Day of this Monday, March 4, is not being addressed. ;do not stop at soaring kilos and often improved health. On the other side of the scale, there are divorces, depression, nutritional deficiencies, burn-out, extreme fatigue, hair loss… The High Health Authority has just reframed the conditions of ;support.

"Surgery is not a wave of a magic wand, it's a kick in the… , a new birth", summarizes Jean-Jacques Fabre, long surprised by the reflection of his new silhouette in the street windows. "It's not an end in itself and it's not Eldorado", adds his wife Catherine, also operated on for her obesity, tired of another ready-made message, which would like that "we have surgery because'we're lazy and we choose the easy way" : "When you have surgery, you can't tell yourself that you are going to be slim, beautiful, and get better. Yes, it will be different. But the problems will always be there. I wouldn't wish anyone to have surgery.  

"Some patients still imagine that it will solve everything, it turns their lives upside down", testifies Hafida Ahansal , the ear of thousands of patients on the listening line of the National League against Obesity, born in Montpellier ten years ago just on the initiative of ;#39;Agnès Maurin, director of an association, and David Nocca, surgeon. It spread throughout France.

Questions relating to surgery represent "one in three calls".

On the front line, the association's patient experts actively participated in the new HAS recommendations, which Catherine Fabre, general secretary of the League, is delighted to see hardened. Claudine Canale, another expert patient, also: "I think that there have been a lot of excesses in bariatric surgery, it's good to reframe, to redefine the routes".

"This work is for life"

"Obesity, it's not just about weight", recalls, as the diet season approaches which "revolt" the &quot ;gros", this resident of Bouches-du-Rhône who came to have an operation in the expert center of the Montpellier University Hospital in 2010, to have another operation in 2023 for complications and incessant vomiting, six years after her husband, one year later his son.

"In 2010, a sleeve allowed me to lose 35 kilos. I was at 130 kilos, the doctors told me that if I didn't do anything, I wouldn't live beyond 50,& nbsp;testifies Catherine Fabre, 58 years old, "still obese" with 88 kg for her meter 58, arrived in Montpellier after a life of & #39;medical exams, diets, humiliation, guilt.

Since then, another existence has begun, "without sleep apnea", "without joint problems", but under constant surveillance, "because if behind, you are not supported, if you do not follow up, if you do not work on your illness , you return to the starting point. This work is for life".

"My husband's big fear was that I would change mentally"

Surgery but also "dietician, psychiatrist, psychologist, endocrinologist…" Claudine Canale, 62 years old, operated twelve years ago "for health, because I could no longer breathe", understands that' "we're getting tired" in the course. "Since childhood, obesity has been a daily struggle, a suffering. And even today", testifies the sixty-year-old, who went from 140 kg to 90 kg, after having dropped to 80 kg. 

"For me, it's something that works really well, but you have to be followed" , she insists. "I meet many people who are not aware that it is not enough to cut or divert a piece of the stomach". This Italian girl who "loves food" had to wait two years to eat pasta again, "cooking al dente didn't work" . She must now divide her days into four snacks of "150 g of food, no more", to digest well.< /p>

"For four years, I have been eating off a dessert plate. Dishes with sauce are difficult, my stomach can no longer digest them. Lasagna, neither, and anything tomato-based, testifies Johanna Nay, 36 years old, fully satisfied with the intervention, a "by -pass", practiced in 2020 in the private sector, half at one's own expense. “I did it for my kids because I couldn't keep up. I had my third after that. I respect the protocol, and I have no inconvenience, welcomes the Héraultaise, who " lost 50 kg in six months.

"My husband's great fear was that I would change not only physically, but also mentally", remembers- she, happy to get out like that. "There were six of us to be operated on at the same time. One person is depressed, two others are in great difficulty and are gaining weight… 

"I don't want to scare people but you have to be aware of what can happen"

Beyond her own experience, Aurélie Quillet, both psychologist and patient expert at the League, recounts the difficulties that she experienced: "Dental problems, sexuality, food allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, inequality" of care in expert centers, but also according to the regions… "I don't want to scare people, but you have to be aware of what can happen".

For her part, with forty kilos less, she "felt better" but also "felt the positive looks on me, including that of men. One of my problems is a sexual assault when I was 17 years old. Totally insecure, I gained 10 kg in a short time". 

And today a little more still, "I can't tell you how much, I weigh maybe 115 or 120 kilos… I no longer have diabetes, no more cholesterol, no more sleep apnea. But in terms of weight, we can talk about failure."

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