Thirty-six-year-old Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, the world's heaviest woman from Egypt has successfully undergone a bariatric surgery in India. Also known as weight loss surgery, bariatric surgery is doctors' last resort to help individuals who are morbidly obese with attendant health risks. Eman Ahmed was reputed to be the heaviest person in the world at 500kg or 1,102 pounds of body weight.
Due to her excessive body weight, Eman Ahmed had been unable to walk and had been confined to a bed for 25 years, family sources said. Her sister and mother attended to her at all times. According to her mother, Eman Ahmed weighed 5kg or 11lb when she was born, but she later developed elephantiasis and became very obese by the time she reached 11 years of age.
She had been confined to a bed since age 11 and at age 36 airlifted to India via a chartered plane in January. Based in Alexandria, a crane machine was used to lift Eman Ahmed from her bed into the special plane chartered to bring her to India. And a special truck was used to ferry her from the airport to the Saifee Hospital in Mumbai where the weight loss surgery was performed.
Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala led other bariatric surgeons to perform the successful weight loss operation. He said he did not think Eman Ahmed actually had elephantiasis from childhood but suffered from obesity-related lymphoedema which made her legs to swell uncontrollably, the BBC reports. The patient has now lost 100kg and will lose more body fat in the coming months.
Doctors said on Thursday that Eman Ahmed is now recovering fast and may soon be fit to fly back to Egypt in a normal airplane. She is now placed on oral fluids at the hospital and her body is accepting them well. According to her team of doctors, they will now focus attention on dealing with emerging medical issues associated with her weight loss surgery before she is due to return to Egypt.
In carrying out bariatric surgery, surgeons explore two weight loss options. The first is to use a gastric band to reduce the size of the stomach so that the individual will feel full on very small amounts of food. The second option is to try gastric bypass where most of the digestive system is rechanneled so that the patient experience fullness with tiny amounts of food.
