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| - Six weeks, nearly a thousand dollars, and three appointments later, my answer was that he "does not do" surgery on people with higher BMI, because insurance companies track success rates, and he doesn't want his messed up by taking on the complications he might have with an overweight patient.
But he's happy to do one of several things: send me to PT ("if you can be patient with doing therapy for a few weeks") to see what happens, and then if it's no better, send me to someone ELSE to do Tenex of the Achilles, or... if I'd like, perhaps there are less ethical ankle guys who'd be willing to do a tendon/ligament reconstruction surgery on "someone like you."
The first and the last appointment were filled with so many stunningly insensitive remarks about my weight, I can't possibly list them all. The jist is: I have a failing tendon (just the one ankle, not all of my joints, not all of my tendons) that *may* be attributed to many things, and he cannot say what caused it, and he hasn't seen very many of these cases, could be genetic we don't know.... but he seemed VERY much at ease chalking it up to weight, and several times commented on and asked if I've ever thought about losing weight (Gee, no, I'm a 40-ish female in America, that's never crossed my mind...) and at this latest appt, made many breath-takingly callous weight-related remarks. After all, his dad lost 80 pounds because "he went to a doctor and followed the rules". That's great! Everyone knows men and women are EXACTLY alike when it comes to weight loss.
So, my questions for him were:
1. did weight cause this issue? 'We don't know.'
2. Would losing weight solve this issue? 'No, but it wouldn't hurt.'
3. Is my weight going to cause further injury or a rupture? 'No.'
4. Okay, but... absolutely no? 'No- The risk of a rupture is as close to zero as it can be.'
So... Look. I don't have high blood pressure. I don't smoke or drink (at all). I don't have diabetes. I had an injury that hurt my tendon because I'm active. Even he had to admit I'm quite limber and there's no issue of lack of stretching (thanks, yoga) but the prejudice all the way through states clearly:
You deserve this because you're fat, and I am not going to fix it ...because you're fat.
I'm going to choose to go to PT. I am going to do my best to get back to where I can walk and exercise on this ankle every day again, even if it hurts. I may even try some alternative therapies like laser or acupuncture, before I'd ever come back here again.
This is just food for thought for any ladies who might not be of desirable age, weight, and/or size. Many a young, male doctor suffers from this mindset... this is just another one.
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