I left off with my last blog telling you my primary doctor was on board with me getting bariatric surgery and sent me for blood work and a sleep study.  I did both of those test . My blood test revealed my A1c was very high (11.2) due to my uncontrolled blood sugar, my cholesterol was still very high and I had extremely  high liver enzymes. The sleep study revealed I did not have sleep apnea but was only getting stage 1 &2 of sleep and had a lot of uncontrolled muscle movement (specifically 512 per hour!!!). These results prompted primary to refer me to an endocrinologist , back to my carsiologist and a neurologist. As soon as I met my endocrinologist I liked her. I told her of my plans for bariatric surgeey and she was on board and was very knowledagble of the surgery and had treated patients pre and poat op gastric bypass. She put me on insulin shots right away (I had only ever been on pills) and asked me to email her my sugar logs weekly and we would make adjustments accordingly. She explained how important it was to get better control of my sugar level befpre surgey so that my body would be able to heal well after such a major surgery. She also orsered some blood work to check my thyroid levels, c-peptides and cortisol levels. Test results came back that I had normal thyroid, but c-peptides and cortisol were very high. I had to then do urine and oral testing for cortisol which both ruled out Cushing syndrome. I then saw my cardiologist who I had known for years and told her about my plans for bariatric surgery and she was 100% supportive. She did recommend  I lose 10% of my body weight before surgery to improve my outcome. Next I found a neurologist, I was not a fan of his but kept in mind I just needed to deal with him to get my surgery. He was fine with treating my unexplained muscle movements and addressed my long term battle with headaches/migranes. He originally thought I had pseudo tumor cerebri as it is some what common in women who are obese and carry a lot of weight in their abdomen and have persistent headaches. He ordered a ct and mri of my brain and a spinal tap.  I reluctantly did the testing all of which came back normal so he just put me on preventative medicine for my headaches and diagnosed my uncontrolled muscle movement during sleep as restless leg syndrome and gave me another medicine for that. I was finally done with all my needed testing to send over a letter of medical necessity to my insurance to get a referral for a bariatric surgeon!!!! Once I received my referral I found out I had to have surgery at a center of excellence, the only one near me was over an hour away and required you attend a seminar befpre you could go any further. By this time in was the end of November and the next seminar they had was the last week of December. I signed up!

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