When Your Doctor ONLY Cares About How Much You Weigh. Response to Jill Castlen 

I used to be morbidly obese. All my medical interactions were precisely like your recreation. Then I lost half of my weight and am not even overweight. All doctors change 100% the way they interact with me. I hate that very much.

I had frequent headaches, diabetes, and high blood pressure .I adjusted my diet and exercise habits, but my condition didn't improve even though I lost weight. My doctor kept saying lose more weight. I ended up having a stroke. They did an MRI to check on the damage done by the stroke and found a brain tumor. I was diagnosed with Acromegaly. My tumor was growing for years while my doctor was telling me to lose weight. My diagnosis explains my health issues.

Two of neurologists, I went to, tried to blame my weight for trigeminal neuropathy. Turns out I have a neurovascular conflict in 2 places. It is a freaking quirk of my vascular system and has nothing to do with weight.

So I’ve always been slender, my normal is about 150 (male, 5’9). Last few years or so I’ve weighed in the 160’s, but didn’t look “fat”. Doctors would tell me my weight was fine. Cholesterol was “a little high”. Last September, at 38, I had quadruple bypass surgery after a heart attack. All of my poor eating in my 20’s and 30’s, paired with genetics, caught up to me. Do not look at weight and appearance as the only measure of good health. My weight was fluid from heart failure, and I’ve never done drugs, never drank and never smoked. Dig deeper.

My GP misdiagnosed a blood flow issue in my leg that damn near cost me the limb. It was only after switching GP's did the new GP send me for a scan that showed the veins in my leg had been damaged from a fall a couple years previous... What did the original GP blame the swelling and discolouration in my leg on? "Your obese, lose weight"....I was 115kg (the lightest I'd been in years). They won't fix the deeper vein damage now because after a couple years of terrible stress and depression I've gained 15kg and "you're not in the age bracket where this surgery is viable"....I'm 38, they won't do the surgery on anyone under 60. So now I have wracking pain in my right leg and can't keep up with my 3 young kids for long periods, let alone drive long distances...

My son started getting this odd, scar looking rash on the top of his hand. It was mainly on his knuckles, down his fingers and hand. We took him to the doctor and the doctor OBVIOUSLY never come across something like that, so instead of investigating medical reasons, he asked “do you rub or knock your hand on the desk at school?” My eyebrows instantly raised. Of course the answer was No… we continue with the appointment and at the end he said “it’s just because he rubs or hits his hand on the desk at school” I was furious. I look at the doctor and say “so you are telling me that he twists his hand upside down, just to RUB it on his desk, then he rubs in between each finger too?… for what purpose? And you are saying this scaring effect can happen in such a short period of time?” I was so so mad!!! Also, when I was about 13 or 14 I started to get a really sore throat. Every day it got worse and worse. Back then I didn’t like to complain or tell my parents when I felt unwell. But it got so bad that I told my mum. She had noticed I had stopped eating, so she knew something wasn’t right. She took me to the doctors and he looked in my throat, checked my ears and chest etc… the normal things they do for symptoms like that. He put his things down and huffed and just said “Is there any reason why you don’t want to go to school?… are you being bullied or something? Because you are perfectly healthy and your throat is fine” I wanted to cry… I said that I did in fact want to go to school, that everything was fine but my throat felt like I was being sliced with razor blades. My mum got angry at me and took me home. She scolded me and again asked why I lied to stay home… I tried to tell her I wasn’t lying, but she trusted the doctor. However, deep down I think she thought that maybe I was telling the truth. Days go by and I stopped talking due to pain and had tears when I would sip water or swallow.. Mum had been secretly watching me and asked to look in my mouth and when she did she did the biggest gasp and covered her mouth with her hands and started to cry. Then she started swearing and yelling about the doctor. Turns out I had the worst case of mouth ulcers that 3 doctors had ever seen. They absolutely covered the back of my throat and the roof of my mouth and the back of my tongue. I’m talking about my ulcers having ulcers… they went so far down my throat and it had started to swell. My mum wrapped me in her arms and cried. She felt so bad that she had doubted me. But boy did my mum go absolutely mental when she called the doctors office. She took me in just for that particular doctor to see my throat. She said “explain to me how you… a trained doctor could miss something like this?? Or is it because you were in a hurry and wanted us out so you didn’t have to spend time writing scripts? Tell me because I’d love to know how I could see it and you couldn’t?” The bosses came in and all. She never doubted me again. Now I’m a mother of 5 and I always listen to my kids, even if I think they are lying. I always make sure.

Well said

So I just discovered your channel and am so happy I did. Thank you for informative and research backed advice. I am curious to what you think of all these recently promoted "weight loss hack" that keep popping up on social media feeds. The ice hack, the rice water hack, the coffee hack. Anyway thanks again for your efforts I will be sharing this find with my friends as a number of them have or are trying some of these bogus programs like vshred and others.

I just think many medical "professionals" don't like their job, and dismissing someone cause they're too fat is very easy But I've had enough dismissive interactions with my current gp that weren't about weight. Like "younger generations just only wanna ever be happy" when I expressed I didn't really have a baseline for happiness and joy, and saying I thought it was due to childhood trauma, which she has a basic awareness off. I responded that maybe happiness seems like the only somewhat accessible goal to pursue, when majority of young people will never be able to buy a home. She was pretty quiet after that and just booked an appointment with a psychologist... Like I'm a relatively smart, well spoken, white man under 30 I pretty much have the easiest time and I still have to make sure I'm being heard, there's no way people aren't straight up being hurt by this laxness 😮‍💨

Same happens when you smoke, or have any obviously bad habits...

Emphasis on "seemingly"

That's not just weight. Doctors like to think they know what's best for you in every aspect. My wife is 'still' breastfeeding, following the international recommendation. When our baby was 9 months my wife broke her feet and the doctor, which was not responsible for that area nor asked said 'I think you should stop breastfeeding, it is not necessary anymore and you will cause dependency to your kid'.

I'm a nurse, and I will say that doctors should not be brushing off their patients by automatically blaming any and every issue the patient has on their weight. However, patients also need to understand that medical providers need to tell you to adopt a healthier lifestyle and lose weight if you have conditions or symptoms that are either caused by being overweight/obese or exacerbated by it. Initial blood work and other labs still need to be performed, as some health conditions can actually aid in making people obese by making them fatigued. Therefore, the patients are less likely to eat clean meals because that takes time and effort, and they're also less likely to exercise because of low energy. Contrary to popular belief, hypothyroidism does not actually cause "obesity" in the vast majority of people. Even with unmedicated hypothyroidism, people will only carry around an extra 10-15 pounds on average if they're actually living a somewhat healthy lifestyle. With medication added, they will be a perfectly normal weight. I feel bad for people who have legitimate health conditions that are overlooked due to their weight. Everyone should know, however, that you get jaded after watching a majority of your patients act like entitled shitheads who wreck their bodies with bad habits and then expect medical providers to just give them a pill to fix it. Like.... "sorry, Sharon, but there isn't anything we can do to save that diabetic foot at this point. We've been telling you for years to eat healthier, monitor your blood sugar, and take your insulin as prescribed. We told you this would happen if you didn't change your habits." Sadly, there are tons of patients out there like that. I just always recommend to patients to be doing everything they can to be healthy. At the end of the day, medical providers can't save people from themselves. We aren't around all the time to know what your lifestyle is like. We can only look at the results of it sitting in front of us. So, while a lot of people say they get brushed off because of their weight, chances are that losing weight would actually improve whatever condition you have regardless of whether or not your extra body fat caused it. Edit: I'm not just saying any of this as a nurse. Im also someone who has lost about 100 pounds from my heaviest point.

Please please respond to Eddy Abew

The truth is that obesity predisposes people to many conditions. Excess fat causes excess of inflammation, excess of estrogen, and has a mechanical effect on your body (eg bad joints, hypoventilation, low levels of activity etc). Respect towards patients is absolutely paramount and doctors need to meet patients where they are in their weight loss journey. But also, not talking about obesity for the fear of “offending” is malpractice.

Not to defend doctors, but... 1- They probably see tens of patients with weight-related issues and are ignored. 2-Medicine is more about "discovering" the disease and treating it and sometimes recommending weight-loss fixes the issues altogether (even if they are not related) 3- People overly rely on medical professionals making them a lot more prone to this kind of stigma