by Carol Wise

Created on: November 10, 2009   Last Updated: November 12, 2009

I have been fat or obese all of my adult life, yet for many years I was able to work and keep up with much thinner counter parts. I had always been fairly active and enjoyed sports as a kid, especially swimming so being able to move wasn't an issue. I often surprised folks with how well I could move. Yet as I got older and yes heavier, I got less active. I was never a fan of exercise, or sweating so I did little of it. Who needed it? Unfortunately I came to find I did, in fact we all do regardless of size.

In my forties, my thyroid died, I discovered I had sleep apnea, and while I didn't have hypertension or diabetes my health was going down the tubes. I had a sudden onset of shortness of breath on exertion which was diagnosed as allergies and treated with inhalers. Of course this occurred after I had been on the lovely new drug combo Phen-Fen and I believed it was related to that. I had suffered a torn meniscus in a work related injury and damaged my other knee over time with it compensating for the injured one.

I truly expected I was going to die. I was super morbidly obese, couldn't breath when I attempted to move and my knees hurt like hell with every move. Doctors were of little or no help because they saw my problems as self inflicted. I had eaten myself to over 500 pounds (524lbs to be exact) and I smoked, it was no mystery to them why I could not breath. I seemed to be the only one who realized I had not smoked for over two years when I had originally had the onset of my breathing difficulties and while my weight was off the hook I had always been able to move previously.

At first I adopted the hopeless attitude of my doctors and gave up, waiting to die. I figured I had five years, six tops with everything I'd read about those who had developed problems from Phen-Fen. Even my sons reluctantly saw the writing on the wall and prepared for my death. Only I didn't die - I continued to linger in a partially self induced hell, my quality of life sucked.

Of course, I had been told and heard constantly that I needed to eat less and exercise more. Easy right? Not when you can't breath and your knees hurt with every movement. Besides I had sworn never to diet again since the end result of a lifetime of dieting had left me at over 500 pounds. My biggest issue was not being able to breath. Since the doctors couldn't or wouldn't help me, I was going to have to find the answers to my problems.

I decided to look at herbal remedies since nothing in regular medicine

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