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Showing posts from November, 2014

Mental Health After Bariatric Surgery

Today's blog entry is by Erin Schuyler, an advanced doctoral student in clinical psychology working in our practice for the year. When a person elects for bariatric surgery, several changes are likely to occur in their life. Physical attributes associated with unwanted weight will reduce as well as eating habits and food selections are adjusted. What about a person’s emotional and psychological experience? How are these factors impacted and what emotional changes can those pursuing bariatric surgery expect? Exploring these factors will hopefully provide further insight to persons considering bariatric surgery in addition to candidates who have already pursued this option. Research has shown many bariatric surgery candidates (BSC) have a history of depression, anxiety, binge eating and other mood disorders. In particular, BSC are five times more likely to have suffered from a major depressive episode in the past year. Following weight-loss surgery, more than one-thir

Psychosocial aspects of having an ostomy

This past Saturday, Tiffany and I had the honor of speaking at the United Ostomy Associations of America's Regional Midwest conference. I was assigned the task of speaking to the patients, and Tiffany addressed the partners or caregivers. I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from my talk. I only had an hour for my session, and with about 100 people in the room, it was not nearly enough time. I love bullet points, so here you go: We are all different! Every ostomate is different and not one size fits all for the emotional/mental aspect either. Who had months to talk about an ostomy and weigh pros/cons? Who was this a more sudden decision for? Who had cancer? Who had IBD? Something else? Who had an ileostomy? colostomy? urostomy? Who has a temporary? Permanent? Multiple temporaries? What age where you when you got your ostomy? Under 20, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60+ Who was single when they got their ostomy? With a serious partner when they had it? Some find a stom