You must have heard a lot about world’s heaviest man and woman but do you know about the World’s heaviest teen? Mihir Jain (14), who hails from Delhi, is the heaviest teen and the first one to have undergone gastric bypass surgery.
Mihir Jain lives in the Uttam Nagar area of West Delhi and arrived at Max Hospital Saket a few months ago for weight reduction surgery. While Mihir weighed normal 2.5 Kgs when he was born, he started to gain weight from a very early age and weighed 50-60 Kgs when he was only 5. Since then, he just gained weight and turned into a teen weighing 237kgs. When he visited the hospital, he could barely walk. Dr Pradeep Chowbey, a veteran bariatric surgeon who operated on him, told TOI that Mihir is the world's heaviest teen to have undergone gastric bypass surgery.
"When I saw him first, I wasn't confident on operating him successfully. He was too heavy for that," Dr Chowbey told TOI.
World Heaviest Teen Mihir Jain
His mother Puja Jain revealed, "Most members in our family are overweight so we didn't take it seriously then. But then a time came when he couldn't even walk properly due to heavyweight. He stopped going to school after Class II and I had to teach him at home."
The family wanted to get him operated in 2010, but the doctors advised to against it as he was too young for surgery. Mihir told TOI, "I stayed mostly in the house lying down or sitting.”He happily declared his love for junk food in the past. "Pasta is my favourite food. Pizza is the second favourite," he said.
In order to successfully operate Mihir, Dr.Chowbey put the boy on a very low-calorie diet (VLCD) initially. He asked them to return after a month. The doctor didn’t think that the family would return but they did and Mihir lost 10 Kgs in that duration.
"To my surprise, Mihir came to us again after four weeks. He had lost a good 10kg. I was happy to see their dedication and suggested them to continue the same diet for another two months which helped reduce the weight further to 196kg. But then we realized that for further reduction, surgery will be required and posted his case for operation in April," Dr Chowbey, the chief of bariatric surgery at Max, said.
World Heaviest Teen Mihir Jain
Still, the operation was not easy. Dr Chowbey said they had to use special equipment - a flexible laryngoscope - to negotiate the difficult condition in Mihir's case. "Also, there no guideline on the anaesthesia dosage for a person weighing 200kg. Our doctors relied on their experience to decide on the right amount of anaesthesia," he said.
The surgery went for about two and a half hours and the doctors created a gastric bypass in which the digestive system is re-routed past most of the stomach which makes a person feel full on less food. "The surgery was uneventful and we were able to discharge Mihir within a week. He comes to the hospital for follow-ups though. Also, he has been asked to continue the restrictive diet," Dr Chowbey told TOI.
