Post: #1

Doctor shares what it's like examining a disgusting tub of lard who has stomach pain and blames doctors for "failing" to solve his health issues:

Quote:“My stomach hurts,” he says, his voice surprisingly high and childlike.

It is 10 p.m. in the emergency room, and I am already swamped with patients I’m trying to move through the ER before my shift is over.

Asked if he’s ever felt this kind of pain before, he says, “No, never. At least, not like this.”

“Well, what’d you expect?” the unit secretary mutters, only half to herself.

The patient is in his 40s. He spends his days on the sofa at home, surviving on disability checks related to his back pain.

Facing him, I feel momentarily put off. I’m not sure just where to start the examination, and when I begin, my hands look small and insignificant against the panorama of skin they’re kneading.

Quote:“Don’t put him in a room right over the ER,” whispers the unit secretary to the admission clerk. “The floor won’t support him. He’ll come crashing through and kill us all.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/h...tional_pop

Post: #2

Some sick people actually think that it's not their duty to care for their health, because that's what doctors are for. Then when they inevitably get sick they get angry at doctors who do their best to help them. And in our cherished "democracy" both these sick persons and doctors have a similar say in the future of a country.

Post: #3

Health insurance should be like home insurance. If you smash holes in your walls you are response for the repair. Not us and not the system.

This is why we are so fucked.

I tell people to give up bread and processed grains to see if that will Alleviate their myriad of symptoms and the common response is, "but I love bread."

Ok, so you love bread more than you hate being sick and tired?

It's really just like drug addicts. It's not even that they are uneducated it's that they are ignorant.

Post: #4

Quote:we try to shoot some X-rays. When we roll him onto his side, though, he turns an unnatural shade of blue-gray and can’t tolerate the position long enough for us to put the X-ray cassette behind his back.

We try a chest X-ray, turning up the power to the maximum setting. All we see is white: The patient’s body is just too thick to allow standard X-rays to penetrate to the bones; he is a walking lead shield.

Quote:He recites a litany of consultants he’s seen for his back pain, his headaches, a chronic rash on his ankles, his shortness of breath, his weakness, his insomnia and his fatigue.

“All of them have failed me,” he says, adding that the paramedics didn’t have the proper ultra-wide, ultra-sturdy gurney to accommodate his body.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act says that they should have the proper equipment to handle me, the same as they do for anyone else,” he says indignantly. “I’m entitled to that. I’ll probably have to sue to get the care I really need.”

Post: #5

I'm conflicted on this. While I don't necessarily think the doctors should be making comments in the presence of the patient (we can at least be professional), I also don't think the land whale has any reason to feel hurt. Let's face it, at a certain point, you know you're getting fat and something isn't working. That's when you get help! Not when you're a 600 lb blob of lard.

I hate the guys entitlement/lawsuit comment. The ADA should be rewritten to protect truly disabled people.

There's fat because you're disabled and disabled because you're fat. Huge difference.

Post: #6

I'm glad the article was written. I don't think people realize how hard it is to help people of that size.

There was a lady who was really big in our neighborhood. She had a lot of problems and it seems like the ambulance was at her house on a weekly basis. You knew when she had to be taken to the hospital simply because there would be many vehicles or sometimes two ambulances at her house. You see, it took around 4 to 5 MEN to get her out of the house and put her in the back of the ambulance.

Now you have 4 to 5 men working on one person while they could be helping others. Then you see the guy, in the article, start saying how he is entitled to this and that. Of course he doesn't realize it takes 2 to 3 times more people to give him those services compared to an average sized person.

It reaks of entitlement. I am glad he heard those things being said about him. There seems to be a common theme with these really obese people. They expect everyone to wait on them. Just watch, if you can, a show about 500 pounders getting stomach surgery because they can't stop putting food in their mouths. Almost all of them acted like victims and expected others to take care of them.

I say let them die if that is the case. I know it sounds cruel but they have no problem sucking the life out of others in order to be served. I think allowing them to be victims is actually hurting them far more than leaving them to their own devices. Once they realize no one will serve them they will lose the weight.

Post: #7

Post: #8

(02-27-2014 09:48 AM)MidniteSpecial Wrote:  I tell people to give up bread and processed grains to see if that will Alleviate their myriad of symptoms and the common response is, "but I love bread."

The problem isnt so much the bread, it's that the bread is garbage filled with GMO, sucrose, and other wholly unnatural ingredients. If youre looking at the ingredients on the back of a package of bread, and it's something other than flour, water, and yeast, then what you're holding isnt really bread. Outside of major cities, the US sorely lacks bakeries so these people are forced to buy the generic supermarket horseshit.

That being said, i get your point.

Post: #9

This is from a few years ago and I think somewhere on the forum I read an article similar to this one. But basically, in the UK they are buying bigger ambulances for all the fat people. I am sure this is happening in the US also. Also, think of the risks first responders are put in trying to rescue/save fat people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12287880

Quote:But the rising rates of obese and overweight patients mean even standard ambulances are having to be stocked with specialist equipment.

While these vehicles cannot take the full-range of kit that a bariatric ambulance can, they can often carry heavy-duty wheelchairs and stretchers as well as the lifting cushions on newer models.

Cushions tend to cost about £2,500 and stretchers anywhere between £7,000 to £10,000, while reinforcing an ambulance tail-lift can set a trust back £800 per vehicle.

One ambulance trust - South Central - has spent more than £1m in the last three years to upgrade nearly two thirds of its 180-strong fleet.

West Midlands is another area which has started upgrading its fleet. It has also bought four specialist bariatric ambulances at a combined cost of more than £300,000.

Nigel Wells, an operations manager at the trust said: "It is all about safety for our patients and safety for our crews. We have got a greater number of patients who are larger in size.

"A few years ago - probably only 10 years ago - your average patient was 12 to 13 stone, now that's probably 17 to 18 stone. And we quite regularly see patients around 30 stone in weight and even bigger than that."

Quote:Bariatric ambulances - Specially-designed vehicle crash-tested to take heavier loads and equipped with full-range of obesity equipment. Cost: £60,000 to £90,000.

Wider stretchers - Different makes used. Most popular sits on trolley and extends to twice the normal width. Can take patients up to 50 stone (318kg) compared to 30 stone (191kg) normally. Also used in standard ambulances but cannot be extended to full width. Cost: £7,000 to £10,000.

Heavy-duty adjustable stretcher - No wider than standard, but able to take heavier patients and has lifting mechanism so it can be moved up and down to make it easier to get large patients on and off. Cost: £7,000.

Lifting cushions - Inflatable cushion which can be used to get people off floor. Cost: £2,500.

Heavy-duty wheelchairs - Wider and stronger than standard. Cost: £400-plus.

Hoists - Tend to be fitted in bariatric ambulances. Used to lift obese on to stretchers. Can take weights of over 40 stone (254kg). Cost: £4,500.

Stronger tail-lifts - Capable of taking weights up to 75 stone (476kg). Cost: £800.

Post: #10

I wouldn't be averse to just ignoring people like these and denying care.

It sounds cruel, but these people are beyond help. 600 lbs is unacceptable. They should be publicly shamed and made to feel bad.

The only way these people would change is if the ambulance shows up, the EMTs look at the person, and respond with a, "Nope too big!"

Then leave. I'd be willing to wager that they would immediately stop their habits.

I know a doctor who has turned land whales away from his office on the basis they never change. Diet, exercise, but why is your blood pressure so high?

Yeah it's because of the McDonalds you eat three times a week.

Post: #11

One of my friends used to be a bariatric EMT. They used him cause he was huge and strong. The reasons he quit was how depressing it is and because of their attitudes.

Post: #12

(02-27-2014 11:47 AM)Cunnilinguist Wrote:  

(02-27-2014 09:48 AM)MidniteSpecial Wrote:  I tell people to give up bread and processed grains to see if that will Alleviate their myriad of symptoms and the common response is, "but I love bread."

The problem isnt so much the bread, it's that the bread is garbage filled with GMO, sucrose, and other wholly unnatural ingredients. If youre looking at the ingredients on the back of a package of bread, and it's something other than flour, water, and yeast, then what you're holding isnt really bread. Outside of major cities, the US sorely lacks bakeries so these people are forced to buy the generic supermarket horseshit.

That being said, i get your point.

Bread turns to sugar in the body which converts to fat. So one of the main problems is bread and other processed grains. People are fat because they eat it at every meal and then wash it down with sugar water (soda, juice, sweetened tea) Bagel for breakfast sandwich for lunch pasta for dinner. That's the recipe for being fat.

Just read the books 'wheat belly' and 'grain brain' if you want some real eye openers.

Gluten is also an anti nutrient that robs the body and breaks down the villi in the small intestine. Are there exceptions? Of course. There is in everything. And they definitely not growing crops like they used to. So yeah.

Post: #13

Hope fully the medical community is coming to the realisation that there is only one thing they can do for the chronically obese. And that is prescribe one of the bariatric surgeries. It's heartening, but misleading, when you hear of an obese person who has slimmed down due to his own will power and dieting/exercise. For every one person like this there are 1000's more who have no statistical hope of achieving something similar. Not that it cannot be done. of course it can. One of Newtons laws says so. It's juts that outside of actual internment the person will never stop eating.

IMO obese patients should be given an ultimatum. One of the more extreme bariatric surgeries (where they cut away most of the stomach, leaving it the size of a golfball or two), or a denial of care, including at the ER.

Post: #14

A 600 lb. person surely can't walk to get food by himself. There must also be an accomplice in a crime of this gravity (pun intended).

Post: #15

They all have enablers! The fatties cry and complain about food and guilt weak minded people into feeding (pun intended) a bad habit.