Karen's Success Story

"My entire attitude to food has changed."*

Weight loss story

* All patient reviews on our website are based on that individual's experience and may vary from person to person.

I have had great success with the Allurion balloon. My entire attitude to food has changed.  I pushed to get the most out of the aftercare and I took on board all their advice, this was the only way, because if I knew the answers myself, I wouldn’t have needed the balloon.

Before I went ahead, I thought maybe I could do a juice diet, maybe the bad stories were true, including one story that said people’s teeth fall out (which my dentist said was utter rubbish).  I guess we cling onto these stories for comfort rather than face the fact that we have a problem that needs to be fixed and there is a solution out there. 

It has been tough to get here and to change my habits, but now that I’ve lost weight I’m treated normally and I feel like I’m a normal size. You know that look people give you, that you must have no self-control, or they wonder what you eat, or they just look you up and down? When you feel that if you were doing sports, they wouldn’t pick you because they’d assume you were lazy? All those feelings have gone now, because I’m a normal size and this wouldn’t have been possible without the procedure.    

I’ve been heavy all my life. Mostly I excused it because my family are heavy built and because I do so many sports, I thought that BMI was a load of rubbish and didn’t apply to me. Now I realise that isn’t true, it wasn’t my muscle that made me look fat, my fat made me look fat. I also had a liver scan and was told my liver had 5 times the normal amount of fat.  Add to this the obesity risk with Covid and I knew I had to take some action.

Debbie G has helped me tremendously on nutrition as we have a similar vegetarian diet and we discussed lots of ideas together.  I’m forever grateful to Chris who took my initial enquiry and was not at all trying to sell, but she questioned whether I really did know all the answers, or surely, I wouldn’t be looking for help. That’s all I needed to press the button and go ahead and I didn’t shop around various clinics, I felt an immediate loyalty and connection to Chris for unknowingly helping me so much. 

The procedure itself was very quick, albeit a little uncomfortable. I didn’t attempt to swallow the capsule, I’m quite small so I had some assistance. I later found out my surgeon is one of the world’s finest, but at the time I was just grateful for him being kind and patient. I was able to drive 100 miles home before I started to feel bad, which lasted for 2-3 days, exactly as they said it would. I think I was inside the clinic for about 20-30 mins in total, including waiting time and nervous bathroom visits. Debbie G phoned me every day until I was well out of the woods to check on me and tell me it was all very normal. 

Along the way, I also lost a partner because he was unsupportive during the journey – so maybe I lost more weight than I thought. There are unexpected side effects of the happiness and confidence you might experience! I also bought a pair of denim shorts, which I’ve been wearing in January – I’ve never owned shorts to wear outside in my entire life but I don’t just look ok in them, I look good!  My balloon is scheduled to deflate 1 week after my 40th birthday and I can’t wait to celebrate feeling the best I’ve felt in years.  Thanks to the NOSC.