Weight change & associated health problems

It’s a lifestyle change but I’ve had to change my lifestyle dramatically from what I used to do.

In which ways?

I used to every winter go skiing. I would go hill walking in the summer. Loved walking. Can’t do any of that now. It’s an impossibility and I probably isolated myself from friends. The more restrictive or the less that I could do, the less I wanted folk to see me, you know.

Was that because you have put on weight or…?

I think it was a combination of both. One, because I could hardly walk, hardly move, and secondly, because I was getting bigger and bigger, you know, and I was, don’t get me wrong I had a few close friends that, ‘Look Joan, you know, what are you doing?’ and I was like, you know and I think over a period of time I spoke to my GP and I said, “Look could you just refer me to the weight management service,” and they was like, “okay,” you know. But I mean it took about six months for me to get assessed for that. It was a long period of time.
 

Yeah that would be good wouldn’t it. If I could actually walk without pain would be wonderful. But then you know, my ankle is playing me up and my feet are in a really bad state. So it’s not just these joints. It’s all of my joints: fingers elbow, wrists, shoulders. You know, all of my joints are completely wrecked.
 
I was just really, really heavy and my joints were beginning to fail. You know I had catastrophic failure in one joint on my hip. And eventually went and had it replaced, hip replacement because I really had to. I was actually in a wheelchair by the time I had it replaced. So there was no choice.
 
I was I couldn’t walk at all. And if we were going anywhere we took a wheelchair with us. And my husband would push me around shops and things like that. I could get in, I could walk to the car, so yeah.
 
And that was it?
 
That was it really, yeah.

I said, “Obviously I’m struggling just going upstairs, I struggle. Trying to do something, trying to be helpful around the house, I struggle. I get out of breath. It’s horrible, just going for a walk sometimes. Just trying to walk up to the village. Took me, took me two and half hours to walk up the road and back about two weeks ago. It’s hard, hard work.”

So you don’t do much in terms of,

I don’t and again this is where this [pats tummy] suddenly is now and even more of an issue. Not only can I find myself, I can’t put my socks on and some of my personal care I can’t do, I find now that I can’t walk. Let’s just go for a walk. It has to be planned like a military operation. I can’t just say, “Let’s go for a walk.” Because I can end up somewhere up the road not being able to get back and it’s happened. A doctor called the, called an ambulance for me. I made it to the doctors and he said, “I’m calling you an ambulance here.” Rushed me into hospital. So, you know, again, this sudden weight is impacting on,

So you notice more the effect of the weight now…

Yeah. On everything.

…. on your level of activity?

Yeah, yeah, on, on. I just can’t do it. I can’t, you know pick that up now, pick this envelope up here now. As soon as I get to here, I can’t, this is now in the way. Now if I didn’t have this [pats tummy], it would still be an effort because of my heart to pick that up. To bend over and pick that up with my heart. I’d then get up and go [breathes heavily]. Now how the hell do I pick it up when I’ve got this thing in the way? I’ve never had, what’s this, you know, and believe you me it looks worse when this top’s off. I won’t show you, don’t worry, you’re, you’re all right but I’m, you know, I’m nearly at the stretch marks stage. This thing has just appeared and suddenly it has effects on everything I physically, that I try and do.

There was one stage when I could have done my car. I like, I like cars, I like motors and I, I started to do that car the way I wanted it. I can’t do it anymore because if I get down to do something on the car, I can’t get back up or I’m struggling to get back up or when I get back up [heavy breathing] and it has an impact where I say, “Not doing it.”

…and the other thing that I didn’t mention as far as health issues are concerned is you constantly injure yourself. Therefore, your joints and there’s always a joint or something which is giving you real problems.

That’s part of it. If you, I don’t know how many people you’ve been interviewing who’ve had sticks and various assistances for daily life, but I would have said there’s a pretty high proportion of people who are disabled in some way or another to varying sort of sad degrees.

Last year I had, what did I have last year? I ended up having, oh my right foot wasn’t working properly, giving me, you know, fairly tedious pain because it has to be fairly serious pain before I start. But I was having X-rays and things like that and being told severe arthritic deterioration and de, de, de, and, of course, the unspoken end of that is the same as it always is, ‘and if you lose a significant amount of weight, it will have a significantly palliative effect on it.’
 

It does always costs more to eat healthy.

Okay.

And to be honest I haven’t got much to go, to go around, so you’re going to probably with my condition as well, I have to watch for oven things sometimes, you know, oven foods, meals and microwave thing….

Okay because you can’t…

….and things like that because my dexterity’s not very good.

Okay.

So it, it all depends on how you feel, which day, so you tend to have things like more salt in it because it’s salty, salty aren’t they the ready…

Ready made

…ready meals.

Okay.

They’re quite salty and you have ridiculous amounts of all sorts in them.

Okay. So, you tend to buy more ready meals because you can’t cut or do much?

Well I’ve done this morning. I’ve cooked myself a chicken lasagne and that’s ready for tonight when we come back.

Okay.

So that was quite easy to do because I was just managed to, the, everything was all prepared for me. I just managed to put the ingredients in the pan, fry them and then put the pasta things on and put béchamel sauce and then done.

So that actually that’s very important because your condition has a direct impact on you healthy eating…

Yes.

…because you can’t chop vegetables and…

You have to get the more expensive, pre, pre-cooked, pre-diced ones and they’re more expensive and you just get penalised for wanting to lose weight, don’t you?

Yeah. Would you like to say some more about, something more about it

Yeah, it’s, you just get penalised for wanting to lose weight. Everything is more costly; the fresh veg, the fresh, the organic stuff as well that’s more costly. So, you know, it’s, it’s going to put a hole in your pocket. It really is if you’re, if you tend to sort of want to keep to a healthy, healthy diet.

So, it has a financial impact for you?

Yeah, definitely financial, yeah.

I think it’s I think it I think it’s all linked and I think the weight is linked with the depression and the depression is linked with the weight. I know I’ve had a couple of periods of, a couple of really bad things in my life like when our mum was very ill, I got, when I first started putting weight on when I was young, that was really difficult. That was when I first got depressed. And then my twin sister died suddenly and I had like a massive breakdown and, since then, my depression goes up and down and I I’ll cope for a while and suddenly it’ll go down again.  I do get depressed because I’m so big. It upsets me. It’s I can’t do things that I want to do. I get depressed because of the MS. I’m scared it’s going to progress like my mum’s did. It upsets me, because of that, it stops me doing the things. I can’t do the, I can’t go to the gym, I can’t, you know, my legs just don’t work properly and the fatigue is too bad. But also, when I am depressed, I eat more, so it’s all, they’re all linked up to each other I think.
 
Okay.
 
And again, the health, the doctors and things [sighs] they see my worst problem as the MS. I see my worst problem as the depression because it affects so many other things like the, like my weight and like my, I feel, I hate myself because I’m [sighs] I just hate myself because of because of my weight and the fact that I can’t manage to do anything about it at the moment. The fact that I can’t, that I’m embarrassed with it.

I had an epiphany of sorts last summer. I hadn’t been doing very well and had been looking at various levels of despair again and because we can talk about prediabetes and diabetes in deed and lots of health conditions, heart disease, rotten circulation, all kinds of attendant health conditions. Danger of stroke, all sorts, but there are lower level practical daily considerations which impinge possibly until perhaps total health disaster hits and impinge on you possibly even more. It’s just the physical problems of living your life.

Like?

Like, you want me to be frank?

Yes.

Like, getting up off a chair, cutting your toenails, going to the loo and wiping your bottom and whatever you do, that can become almost impossible. In order to stretch your body far enough to be able to get past all the mountains of fat, you end up with interesting lumps and bumps of knotted muscle and all kinds of things. It’s very, very difficult not ever being able to get through any spaces. Being terrified if you go out, meet a friend for coffee or anything like that, when you get up you’re going to clear tables, just moving. Just the day and daily parts of living your life or attempting to live your life.

Okay, so everything is affected basically?

Oh utterly, utterly, yes of course it is.
 

Can you pinpoint the times in which you have gained weight?

When I’m stressed and anxious.

Okay.

It’s been in relation to depression.

And tell me about these sort of evening kind of trips to the freezer.

Yeah, well, all it is I get too tired. So, say anytime at night, sometimes I go to bed early, like I nine o’clock and I just watch TV in bed and I’d fall asleep quite happily. But sometimes if I stay up I’ll think, ‘Oh, I’ll just have some ice cream and I’ll just watch tele,’ and I’m comfortable and I’m happy and I’m relaxed but I’m just eating for the sake of it and I cannot physically stop myself doing it.

But the problem is with depression, it’s a vicious circle with your eating because if you’re depressed you lose weight, I lose weight because I’m not on any antidepressants. As soon as you go on them, you’re a lot happier mentally but then you pile the weight on, so you can’t win. You’re either depressed to the point of suicide or you’re on antidepressants and pile the weight on. You know, this is why we’re trying to cut the dose of it down to the minimal. It’s only a very small dose anyway. It’s the tiniest dose you can have, but if I can cut it down it might trigger something that, that makes you able to motivate and able to focus and, and lose weight.