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How did you respond when health issues arose?

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kgainer

Member
Joined
May 4, 2018
Messages
8
When I started gaining serious weight I promised myself that I would stop or even start to lose weight when my obesity started seriously to affect my health. Once I was in the morbidly obese category I had periodic skin sores in the folds of my flesh, prominent stretch marks of course, and joint pains. But I thought that these were just normal for someone of my size. Then my sleep started to be disturbed as I developed sleep apnea. This was the first important test. Would I now moderate my liefstyle as I had promised to do only a few years before? Oh no! Soon to be installed by my bedside was a CPAP machine and mask. At first I found it uncomfortable but I soon became dependent on a mask to sleep normally and I take it wherever I go.

It was the first piece of equipment on which I had become reliant but I drew the line on filling my house the special bariatric equipment. That would be just too shaming.

Unsurprisingly, given my weight, I developed high blood pressure and high colestrol and was put on medication to control it. Previously I had been in dread of having to be dependent on medication for the rest of my life, particularly someone who was still in his mid-twenties. When the situation actually arose it did not bother me at all. So I have to take a few pills every day. Not a big deal.

Then the joint pain became worse and it was clear that I had developed osteoarthritis in my knees. Shedding some pounds would obviously have helped but I take anti-inflamatories instead and my weight continues to rise.

Even with the medication pain in my knees and starting in my hips and back have definitely slowed me down and I walk much shorter distances and take a car, escalator or lift whenever I can.

What I had not appreciated that obesity affects both the production of testosterone and the circulation. You've guessed it...I now find it difficult to become erect and to maintain an erection which is a real bore. I have used a pump and medications but I would have preferred not have to resort to them. Without them I am just flacid.

What I thought that I would resist I gave in to. I now have various pieces of equipment or furniture designed for the obese. Equipment like a long handled grabber to pick things off the floor or to help put on socks, long handled sponges for the shower and even a raised and strengthened seat on the toilet. With the sleep apnea I ordered a hospital style bed designed for a heavy occupant as I perferred having my torso raised rather that lying flat. Since then I have bought a recliner and dinning chairs which can take my weight. So another resolution has come to nothing.

I have high blood sugar and am classed as pre-diabetic. Unless I radically change my ways, Type 2 diabetes is an inevitability. A few years ago the prospect of diabetes would have horrified me. Now I am completely resgned io it and know when it comes I will simply take the medication and try to contro; it as best I can. Indeed what I have read is that with discipline you can control it.

In writing, I just wondered if others have had the same acceptance to the predictable consequences of obesity as I have had. It seems that it is just part and parcel of who I am and I am happy now to accept, in fact almost embrace, it.
 
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