Karen’s Story – Gastric Sleeve Patient

I seem to have always kind of struggled with weight my entire life. It seemed to get worse after I had children, harder to lose weight and as my children got older and you know, I just found it was difficult to keep up with a lot of their activities and stuff, kind of due to my weight. But still as a mom, I still just kept doing what I was doing and then it got to just a point where I was getting a lot of health issues because of it. Then realized that maybe I should look and see what can I do to better my health and went to my primary care and mentioned some things. We tried to do different diets just things still didn’t seem to work. You know life and so I went back to my primary care and she said “well I know this amazing doctor and maybe she might be able to help you” and she referred me to Dr. Malladi. When I first met her we went over my health history and the issues that I was dealing with. The deciding factor was just the health issues that I was having. They weren’t going to get any better, you know, if I kept living the same life that I was living and not improving my health.

I had the gastric sleeve procedure and so it has been about a year and a half. Now, I’m at the 90 pound mark. People see me and they are like you are literally half the person you were, and I am. I feel great. I am excited about my new life and shopping and you know before I always dreaded shopping because clothes never fit right, and I just didn’t feel pretty. I didn’t like the way that the clothes fit on me. Now I can shop where the teenagers shop and so that is kind of fun too. I turn 40 next week and so I’ve been telling people that I am nervous about turning 40. They are like “40 years old, you look like you are in your twenties”, which is nice as well. I feel more youthful and it was the best decision. I am so glad that I did the procedure, and I have recommended it to people and people have been inspired. They have seen my story and how much weight I have lost, and I have been able to recommend people to come here as well.