On the new TLC reality series Obesity Med, a single father named James decides he wants to “get rid” of his fat so he visits bariatric surgeon Dr. Bo Neichoy of Panhandle Surgical Group in Amarillo, Texas. When the two men meet at the doctor’s office, James gives Bo a big bear hug, lifts the doctor off his feet and says, “Hey, man, watcha’ been up to?” Dr. Bo says James’s bear hug “readjusted my entire spine.”
Turns out James and Bo grew up in the same small town (High Island, Texas, population 500) together. They haven’t seen each other for 20 years. Bo says, “I remember James was a bigger than life guy” as a DJ, but also isolated as a child and made fun of. James get emotional in the video above when he says Bo defended him when they were kids.
James says his goal weight is 220 lbs. Dr. Bo suggests a biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch surgery. He says it makes the stomach smaller – from the size of a football to a banana – and bypass about 60 percent of the small intestine so the patient is absorbing only about a third of the capacity of the original intestine.
Obesity Med airs Wednesdays at 10 pm on TLC, right after My 600-lb Life at 8 pm.
