Liposuction isn’t for everyone.
Today I was consulted by a young man with a sad story.
He was formerly a powerful and successful athlete competing at the national level. To maintain his huge frame at its most effective state he had trained obsessively six days a week and had naturally eaten all the vast nutrients he had required to fuel his prodigious training schedule.
Two years ago he was felled by a significant injury. Without surgery, a career-ending injury.
For whatever reason, he never pursued the surgery.
The training stopped. The competition abated.
But the hunger remained. Not metaphorical hunger. Real hunger. For food.
And he came in to my practice today carrying 160kg.
…..
Some doctors might have lined this chap up for a series of liposuction treatments. Some might have offered a “tummy-tuck”.
But this chap needs, absolutely, bariatric surgery – probably gastric banding.
I shared with him my vision for his future: Gastric banding > weight loss > eventually fit for surgery > surgery > training > more weight loss > eventually back to his pre-injury weight > return to competition at the highest level > reversal of gastric banding > back on the track he deserves to be on.
Previously directionless, he left my office with a new vision of his way forward, and a spring in his step.
And whilst I won’t be treating him myself, at least as far as gastric surgery is concerned, I was very glad to have had a hand in hopefully turning his life around.
As would be any doctor.