Last night I watched an episodes of Big Medicine and it featured a very lovely woman, a school principal, who had had bariatric surgery and then was left with hideous hanging sheets of skin all over her body. She described the effect perfectly when she said she looked like a "melting candle". I've seen this in so many people who have lost a great deal of weight and it's heartbreaking. To go through so much to help yourself feel and look better by losing the weight only to find out when you're done that, under your clothes, your body is still as hideous, if not not MORE hideous, as it was when it was obese. It's just hideous for a different reason now. The frustration and heartache of this is so unbearable, I know. There is a lot to be said about this issue, but right now I want to discuss the fact that this particular woman said she had lost a great deal of weight and you could see that she had by the way the skin was hanging off of her. However, this woman was, by no means, thin now, or even a little thick. She was still very obese. While the plastic surgery "before" pictures were, of course, horrible and the "after pictures were a great improvement, the "after" pictures were still pictures of an obese body. She had rolls of fat under her bra, she still had very fat arms, a very big, although GREATLY REDUCED AND SMOOTH, abdomen. And this is what she looked like AFTER a complete body lift, an abdominoplasty, a thigh lift and surgery to remove the "batwings" of hanging skin from her upper arms. I don't understand this. The woman was lovely and I'm not criticizing her at all. I could see that she had, indeed, lost a lot of weight just by the way her skin was hanging. I just don't understand why her doctors had her stop losing weight before she wasn't fat any longer. And why she would have plastic surgery before losing more weight. It was so confusing.

That was Kim, she posts on here all the time. She could answer your question better than I, but if you saw what a problem all that skin was, she had to do somethng. She said, it was uncomfortable and she would get rashes. She is young enough, that when she loses more weight, any loose skin should tighten up. Also, it takes a long time for the swelling to go down, she had a complete body lift.

Yes, I can see now that she must have been so uncomfortable that the reconstructive surgery couldn't wait. I know for myself with the rashes I get under the hanging skin on my abdomen and the in the deep folds on my thighs, it's going to get very weird when these folds are just hanging down more and more (I had my surgery on 7/7). She did a great job with the kids in her school, being so open with them really got through to the kids and you could see it. They loved her, and you could see that they cared about her and were so happy for her. I can't be sure, but I'll bet some of those children will hesitate before making fun of fat people they may see in their day-to-day lives after seeing what their beloved principal went through and how she was so open and warm with them, helping them to understand.

this is off subject i know, but that had been my problem in the past i have lost weight numerous times and the last time i did i lost over 60 pounds only to see a "new" and disgusting me everything on my body just sagged and hung it was so disgusting i looked into plastic surgery to remove the excess skin and was disappointed to find my insurance would not cover it. long story short i am back to my origional weight and all though unhappy/unhealthy things dont sag anymore