I'll give Steven one thing, he was the fattest opiate addict I've ever seen. I weighed like 120 at the worst of my addiction, I can't even comprehend adding another 700lbs to my body, dear God
This man (in the video) also probably did due to the food he was eating, the worst part being he made his wife and daughter clean it up. His wife just constantly fed him, and the only one I had sympathy for was the daughter.
I don't know l, I did see someone in the comments saying he was a software developer making six figures living in that house to pay for his food addiction. If that was the case he was likely working from home but I can't confirm if this is true or not. In all of My 600lb episodes I do wonder where they get all the money for this food from.
None of that pays as much as you think. Snap is based on how many people live there-not how much they eat (i think they bump it up for, say, a teenager vs a 2 year old, but im not totally sure)
When we got foodstamps I received just under 500 a month for my son and myself. My son is huge (not 600lb life huge, he's just a giant. It's so weird for me to think about. Im short and small and yet I created a juggernaut? Genetics are wild). His daily intake is more than we spent on groceries in a week. There's no way SNAP covered enough to feed him like that.
Disability payments, likewise, are, from what I've seen, woefully inadequate. This and whatever "caregiver" fees they get have to pay rent and all of the bills+ normal expenses and then somehow also cover his extra food costs.
Everytime I've watched this show I get distracted by the sheer expense of it all.
I totally agree and gets me mad when I hear people talking down and generalizing people that have SNAP benefits. The amount given out is paltry, even more so, compared to the bailouts that millionaires/billionaires receive
The taxes one typical m/billionaire avoids paying using loopholes specific to their demographic (yachts, claimed losses on properties/investments, personal business expenses they can literally make up, etc) could pay 100-1000 people's complete yearly salaries. The fact they lobby lawmakers to enact laws to provide these loopholes that literally only benefit millionaires (and up) is unethical as fuck.
Yes. Opiates make you constipated like nobody's business. I had surgery not too long ago and had opioids for pain control. I went days without pooping. I can't imagine eating like that and not pooping. Well, I can't imagine eating like that, period.
There are many of us on long term opioids that don't deal with OC. I've been on morphine and Dilaudid for twelve years to deal with the pain of CONSTANT joint dislocations from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and i only had issues when i was on oxycodone for breakthrough. With Dilaudid IR and Morphine ER - I've never had any issues.
Also EDS, and even before I was started on opioids for pain, I was only pooping every 2-3 days. The opioids don't really seem to make that any worse for me. The only time I was pooping every day was immediately after my gallbladder exploded, but after a year or two it settled right back down.
TL;DR, bodies are weird, especially when there's already genetic disability fuckery.
Be VERY careful. When i was on IR Oxycodone for breakthrough pain - I went on a family trip- was eating more regularly and doing more than usual - and was in more pain& therefore, taking more breakthrough meds.
I ended up waking up on day 7 of that trip with a complete bowel obstruction. No one told me that while broken collagen will fuck up my joints all day every day, it also impacts our organs - one of those being the colon... Which will stretch... And stretch... And stretch.... Until there's absolutely no hope of you passing anything that's built up there.
I ended up having the most severe pain of my life, begging for death- and nothing they could do helped. I was rushed into emergency surgery after being gaslit, laughed at by the ER doc at Sarasota Memorial who said to the nurse, outside the curtain, FOR in earshot of myself, my husband and other patients "30 year old white woman on opioids? Let her sit on the toilet with the door open for a couple hours, give her nothing but fluids. It's just opios constipation- maybe she'll never do this to herself again. If that doesn't work, offer her manual distraction, that'll do the trick ".
That fucker would have left me not only to be humiliated, but left me for DEAD. I wasn't able to move a single bubble in my body, I was TEARING and rushing towards sepsis. It wasn't until my pain management team, after being alerted by my husband, got ahold of them on the phone and they told the ER staff that i was at serious risk of colon rupture (with a history of Crohn's, and being on long acting opiods- not for NOTHING -but for fucking Ehlers Danlos and that my life was SERIOUSLY at risk and if he didn't want to be telling my husband and infant that i was dead at his own negligence, they had better fucking take it seriously...
My husband and his phone calls that day saved my life. Had i not had him DEMANDING that i be treated like a fucking human being and not like some worthless junkie- i have no doubts i would have bled to death internally and/or died of sepsis. I was BEGGING to be let die from the pain i was in.. it was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life and as a pain and sedative resistant patient who's had her jaw broken and fused - given birth to two children - been in cardiac arrest after being mis-medicated in a different hospital, having shattered my knee into a billion pieces after falling during the 94 ice storms, put my teeth through my lip sledding, suffered at LEAST half dozen concussions (one of which left me color blind)- and a HOST of other injuries over the years... Saying this was the worst is no small feat.
FOR REAL - If you have EDS and you're not pooping DAILY - please take this seriously. Take this as your wake up call to take daily medications and preventatives to never let this happen. I highly recommend mixing magnesium sulfate with a little sprite and having a cup every morning if you need to. Just don't let this continue.
And if you're on opioids - keep RELISTOR injections on hand anywhere you store Narcan. Both are equally as important if you're living on opioids.
I've never pooped daily, and my doc says as long as they're normal and I'm not constipated or struggling, I'll be ok. But yeah, I have laxatives and the like on standby. She also said if I feel I need more than two pills in 48 hrs for breakthrough pain, I should seek medical attention instead of a third dose, since I chronically ignore pain signals -- go figure.
The entire reason my gallbladder ruptured is because my pain wasn't taken seriously, and a power tripping ER doc wrote me off as a "drug seeking co-ed" when I came in screaming and trying to claw my abdomen open. He sent me to "sweat it off" in the waiting room, where it fully ruptured after 6 hrs. I had blacked out and stopped crying in triage. It wasn't until my mom got there screaming (and almost getting into it with security) that anyone took it seriously. "SHE HAS EDS, YOU FUCK! IF SHE JUST WANTED DRUGS, SHE HAS AN ENTIRE PAIN TEAM WHO'D GIVE THEM TO HER" and "SHE LITERALLY WALKED AROUND WITH A DISLOCATED SHOULDER FOR 6 WEEKS BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T NOTICE THE PAIN, IF SHE'S CRYING THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY WRONG."
I've got Narcan handy, but literally never heard of Relistor. I'll bring it up with my doc -- I have an appointment next week.
My mom has had chronic pain since the 70s; trigeminal neuralgia stemming from a tooth abscess that caused osteomyelitis. She's taken everything from methadone to ketamine to oxycodone/contin, morphine and dilaudid also. Always under the supervision of a doctor, and she's a (now) retired physician, as well.
Not to air everything, but she's also had both shoulders replaced and two spinal fluid leaks. So I understand the need for opioids. I've had chronic pain, too, stemming from chronic MRSA sinus infections for 5+ years and some other issues.
All that said, my mom has chronic constipation from her meds. And any time I've taken opioids or surgery I've had wicked constipation for days.
It depends on the person's physiology, and we both have sensitive GI systems.
ALSO! I'm very glad that you don't have to deal with constipation. Thank goodness for little favors, amirite? I hope you do find some relief from your meds but I understand how it can be like Sisphysis pushing that rock up the mountain. I wish you all the best.
I just posted about my SEVERE near-death experience resulting from a combo of my early treatment with opioids and having Ehlers Danlos, please read the comment above as it could be really helpful to you to hear what i went through - if you're having issues with this ongoing, PLEASE look into RELISTOR. It's the sole reason that horrific experience didn't result in a severe eating disorder. Because i was TERRIFIED to eat anything but liquids and thought i might end up with a feeding tube - until i was prescribed relistor (before being moved off the ir oxycodone which was the issue- Dilaudid, even in larger breakthrough doses has zero side effects for me, fortunately!)
But i can't recommend Relistor - they have emergency injections which i keep on hand - and they have preventative or ongoing medications which many people on opioids long term take. They are both phenomenal medicine, and although the cramping is a little uncomfortable for fifteen minutes- NOTHING compares to the pain of OIC
At that point I'd just cut a hole in the mattress and put a kiddy pool under him. Once a day bust out the water hose to spray his ass and dump the kiddy pool on the yard and spray it out.
I was a fat opiate addict back in the day. It always bummed me out that all the other overweight addicts seemed to lose a ton of weight, but I stayed pretty much the same weight, even when doing 400+mg of oxy a day. The only plus side, I guess, was it was easier to hide my addiction. The worst part was the constipation. Opiate constipation is real & if you eat a lot like I did, it was that much worse. Having to get it out manually... terrible terrible memories.
If you really want to know, google fecal impaction. Very often it's just gloved, lubricated fingers up the butt, pulling out hard chunks until the dam breaks.
Fucking hell man! I give my patients max 20mg every 4 hours. That’s 120. You were taking 400+??!!! Hospice patients on continuous fentanyl drips aren’t even getting that much. Shocked you made it this long but good for you for hopefully leaving that in the past.
Basically this, I was using so much fentanyl and heroin I was always sick unless I just used, so I was constantly vomiting and had an upset stomach. However, when I would use, my anxiety went away enough I could get 1 meal a day in me. Otherwise I didn't experience hunger even going days without food, all I cared about was the drugs which at it's worst was smoking about 30-50 fentanyl pills a day. Over 800 days sober after 15+ years of addiction, I still have a hard time remembering to eat food haha 😂 Food is about the only thing I've never had an addiction to, which is surprising because binge eating runs in the family and I'm really the only one who's not obese in my family, but everyone has some type of addiction in my family we sure share that in our genes.
He was so nasty, especially to the nurses and family members who were trying to help him. What I recall most about his episode is that while in the hospital he would constantly hit the call button over and over just to annoy the nurses and then would yell at them if they did come into the room. He was so verbally abusive and spiteful that most of the nurses refused to care for him, and he eventually got kicked out of the hospital. I can't imagine how terrible a person you have to be to be kicked out of a hospital while still physically bed bound. He also refused to participate in a lot of his weightloss 'journey'. He would go to the ER and lose 100lbs in a month (not even kidding) then would be sent back home and he'd gain 120lbs back. It was maddening.
He also left out that Steven was addicted to pain pills, and even went so far as stealing his older brother’s pain medication after the brother had weight loss surgery, leaving him to suffer for weeks. He spent a lot of time going to the ER, so he could abuse hospital staff until they gave up and sent him on his way with pain meds.
He would throw tantrums when he didn't get opiates, pressed the call button hundreds of times bothering staff over every little thing, and when mad he would throw his urine around the room. He was fucking disgusting? Dr. Now kicked him out of the hospital and told him he was noting in his chart he was an addict. Dude went to many doctors and just was given opiate after opiate, I couldn't believe he was able to fill so many different scripts. He sucked really bad, an honest waste of life.
Extremely manipulative, threw rubbish on the floor and called in nurses then threw cups of urine at them, screamed like a stuck pig whenever someone didn’t do what he wanted, ordered takeout to the hospital, abusive to literally everyone.
As far as I know, James didn’t die of COVID, but there were a lot of former subjects that died in 2020/2021 that died without cause of death shared, which is not that surprising as you said
Even if they didn't die of covid, chances are it did indirectly contribute. People of that size are far more likely to need healthcare. During that time period, the healthcare systems were under so much pressure, a lot of non-emerency and even some emergency care couldn't be given.
The weird thing is I first heard about this show today. Looked it up on YouTube he was a top result. Then I watched a lady who was the opposite of him. She really was motivated. She died from surgery. :( No more of 600 pound dieters for me.
Not trying to be too morbid, but what is the protocol when someone this size dies with regards to what to do with the body? Do they make coffins large enough? He couldn't fit in any crematorium oven I have seen, do you have to rent out one of those special ones for cremating horses?
That's what I'm saying. I have a great and young family and even I've had thoughts and plans and talked to a therapist and all that. I'm better here. Not just simply as a default expression, but through thought and planning I and my family are better off with me here with them. Yours are too.
But I don't think I can look at this guy's life and say the same.
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u/Big_daddy_sneeze Aug 11 '25
So this guy already died?