Weight Loss Surgery

Yesterday as i was channel surfing, I stopped at an old Oprah talk show (2009) on a then latest weight loss surgery, which was still on experiment. It's a Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery for Weight Loss. Check out her website on this at http://www.oprah.com/health/Radical-Weight-Loss-Surgery How interesting is that, sounds gruesome but still interesting enough for me to keep watching.

Carol Poe is a 60 year old (that makes her 62 now) morbidly obese woman who has tried all diets, exercises including stomach stapling and gastric bypass to lose weight. She is only the second person in the United State who underwent this trial surgery.

Two electrical probes is inserted 4 inches into Carol's brain, to reach the part where our appetite stimulats are. It's a 3 hour surgery which requires the patient to be awake the entire time. The brain feels no pain, so only anesthetics are applied on the skin of the head. This 2 electrical probes are linked to 2 pacemaker like thingies located on lower left and right shoulder. So there has to be 2 wires running from her brain, down to her neck to reach the shoulders. After the wounds have healed, the devices are  turned on.

During the talk show, Carol said that she has already lost 11 pounds since the surgery 9 weeks back. She claims to have no food cravings after that and is making better choices on her diet.

Now, I wanted to know what is the latest update on Carol Poe and there seems to be no information of this on the internet. Perhaps i need to search deeper. But I came across a lot of conversations and remarks on this surgery. All of which i felt were negative and sort-of putting Carol Poe down for going through such desperate measures to lose weight.

In my point of view, she was EXTREMELY BRAVE to offer herself in this trial. Only another obese person would know how she feels being so overweight like that. A lot of times, I've felt i'd rather die than continue being like this, so i understand Carol's choice. She was actually excited about being awake during the procedure, she felt no pain and heard the saw drilling into her head. I was, like, WOW. She's awesome! 

Applause Please!

So, to Carol Poe, I admire your bravery and determination to overcome your problem. I will continue to find out about your progress, I do hope it was successful. If not, you have nerves of steel to go through that. At least you tried and i believe you will continue trying.