Food and Thought - Adventures in Gastric Bypass Surgery: June 2009

Dear Ms. Mancini,

Thank you for your interest in the Deep Brain Stimulation for Refractory Obesity Clinical Trial currently underway. This is a very limited trial in that the FDA approved only three subjects to be enrolled. We have closed the study to enrollment at this time.

We have been encouraged by the response of people who understand what our goals are in the study. It will be several years before we have any firm data to report publicly.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Sincerely,

Donald Whiting, M.D.

I am happy/surprised that my letter was acknowledged. Honestly, I thought that I would not have heard a response at all. I recognize that Dr. Whiting can't really give any advise, but I had hoped for more insight into preventing binge eating while waiting for the results from his study. So I weight (pun intended)

Dr. Donald Whiting MD

420 East North Ave., Suite 302

Pittsburgh, PA

15212-4746

USA

May 10, 2009

Dear Dr. Whiting;

You don’t know how ecstatic I was to read of the recent success you and Carol Poe have had with your research in deep brain stimulation as a means of treating obesity.

I, myself, have been on a life long struggle with my weight, and recently underwent gastric by-pass surgery. In an attempt to increase my chances of success, prior to the surgery I sought and completed 2 years of out-patient therapy to help me deal with my “eating disorder” of bingeing. My gastric by-pass surgery was a success and in the last two years I have managed to loose and keep off 147 pounds. So why, you much be wondering, is this woman writing me?

Quite simply, I am losing control. Over the last 6 months, I have been documenting on my blog (Food & Thought ~ Adventures in Gastric By-Pass Surgery www.letitia666.blogspot.com) my losing battle with my brain. How I seem to be hard-wired to eat; that the impulse to eat outstrips my cognitive abilities to not eat.

I am at a loss as to how to successfully move forward and even more, terrified, at the prospect of ending up back where I started or worse.

Thus, I come to the second reason why I am writing you. I recognize that your research is still in its early stages and will not likely be available to the public for some time. With this in mind I appeal to you, hoping for some measure of insight into the condition which deep brain stimulation is designed to combat and from which I obviously suffer. Have you, in the course of your research, uncovered any process or tactic which would provide me with the level of control necessary to allow me to successfully wait for your promising new treatment to become available? I would be every so thankful for some guidance.

And finally, Dr. Whiting, I am writing to say thank you. Thank you for taking that leap of faith and recognizing that weight loss cannot be as simple as calories in vs. calories out. (If it was, we would all be thin!) Thank you for providing the evidence that I am not crazy and the problem just may be “all in my head”.

Again, congratulations! Keep up the fantastic work and I look forwarding to reading more about your research.

Sincerely,

Letitia Mancini