Sadness, Depression After Bariatric Surgery – The Serotonin Connection

It is indeed my nature to become a frustrating Pollyanna personality. I’m a “consider the vibrant side, discover the silver lining, zippity-do-da” kinda woman. However, you know, 2010 is getting me lower with round-the-clock news from the global financial crisis, wars, poverty, natural and industrial disasters. Feelings of sadness or depression overwhelm me at occasions and that i find myself looking for my old comfort food buddies: pasta, crackers, sweets.

Things I have discovered is the fact that there’s a really real biological reason I crave individuals packaged carbohydrates: My body system wants for their services to produce the feeling-good hormone, serotonin, to ensure that I won’t feel overwhelmed with feelings of depression or sadness. To understand i can forgive my “weakness” and seek other strategies by which my body system can perform a biological balanced exercise to create harmony to mood and mind. Today I share that understanding along with you hoping that you simply too will understand this sort of feeling and also have a way to strengthen your body assist you to.

It’s quite common for brand new publish-surgery bariatric patients to feel confusion over their emotional condition. “I was expecting I’d be more happy,” they let me know, “however i feel consumed by a general sadness. Just sadness. Wrong beside me?” they ask. I recall feeling exactly the same means by the first days and several weeks from surgery. And no-one had the solution in those days, it had been only a bump within the journey that people all required to work past. Patients of bariatric surgeries including gastric bypass, gastric lap-band, and gastric sleeve report similar encounters.

10 years and a lot of study and observation later I’ve got a theory (my theory alone, and I am not your personal doctor) that there’s a physiological reason behind this publish-surgery sadness. Just before weight problems surgery a lot of us consumed copious levels of processed carbohydrates including sugar, refined flour, starches and grains. In your body carbohydrates encounter the amino acidity tryptophan making serotonin, the “feel-good” hormone that energizes the brain like a comforting mood enhancer. Macaroni & cheese is definitely an American favorite comfort food, and even for good reason. It combines enough tryptophan with sufficient high-carb pasta to create sufficient serotonin, which relieves signs and symptoms of depression and boosts feelings of contentment.

Enter bariatric surgery and also the protein first, limited fat,and occasional carb diet. All of a sudden the biological procedure for serotonin conversion has run out of order. We no more possess the way to self-medicate our mood with foods that boost serotonin levels, yet we keep having the cravings because your body is crying for help. It doesn’t know every other method to manage mood. It is just smart this extreme nutritional change leads to an altered mood and perhaps, a condition of biological panic or emotional depression