Many sad stories have been featured in “My 600-lb Life”, yet few are as heartbreaking as that of Laura Perezs. When Laura debuted in season three, she was close to hitting the 600lbs mark, and her quality of life was at its lowest, making it difficult for her to even breathe without an oxygen machine, and was in a wheelchair.

Laura’s path to recovery started when she found herself at Dr. Now’s office, but as expected, her weight loss journey wasn’t without setbacks, making her eventual physical transformation all the more impressive.

Sadly, Laura passed away several years after her last appearance in “My 600-lb Life” but there’s no way we could forget her. Here’s a recount of many memorable parts of her story, and the incredible results she enjoyed after turning her life around for the better!

Laura’s Journey

There are many reasons which could lead someone to develop an addiction to food, and for Laura Perez it was her traumatic childhood. As she recalled in her first “My 600-lb Life” episode, she was molested by a family member throughout her childhood, and was unable to ask for help as the abuse went on.

That terrible experience led Laura to find refuge in food, consuming large amounts of it for several years. It didn’t help that she was surrounded by a family who ‘love food’, as she described them in her episode.

By the time she was in high school, Laura was over 300lbs, and only kept gaining weight, eventually getting to 594lbs at 41 years old, as we see in the show. Up to that point, Laura had been in contact with other medical professionals who weren’t too keen on helping her, meaning Dr. Now was her last hope to finally get her life in some sort of order.

Laura’s situation was worrisome, to say the least. Though she was able to stand on her own, she was confined to a wheelchair most of the time, was diabetic and connected to oxygen.

Recovery & Aftermath

Even though Laura Perez’s family were her enablers, they were supportive of her decision to lose weight. Nevertheless, it was Laura’s inner strength and her fear of losing her life confined to a bed, which led her to strictly follow Dr. Now’s instructions.

That’s why Laura stuck to a low-carb, low-fat diet and did exercises as much as her condition allowed. Three months after her first visit, Laura was back at Dr. Now’s for an update on her condition, happily finding out that she had lost 56lbs up to that point, remembering that too rapid a weight loss can also have a negative effect. Though she still had a long way to go, her physical improvements were visible already as she was no longer confined to her wheelchair, and her oxygen was nowhere to be seen.

In the fourth month of her treatment, Laura underwent a gastrectomy which resulted in most of her stomach being removed. The initial plans were for her to undergo bariatric surgery, but Dr. Now identified that her spleen and liver size were far too big for that to be possible.

The inability to have the surgery she wanted, and the serious pneumonia she suffered not long after, were important setbacks in Laura’s journey, yet she found the strength to go on with her treatment.

Results

By the end of her season three episode, Laura had lost 237lbs and was on her way to losing even more. The next time we saw her in a “Where Are They Now?” episode aired in 2016, Laura weighed 182lbs and left audiences impressed by her incredible weight transformation.

Even though Laura’s relationship with her husband Joey had gone downhill due to her increasing independence, that wasn’t enough to stop her from pursuing her dreams. As we see in the spin-off, Laura wanted a career in the beauty field, and was in the process of enrolling to study in a beauty school, admitting in front of cameras how she liked ‘making people feel beautiful’.

Despite the huge improvements in her condition, at that point Laura hadn’t been able to have skin removal surgery, due to an infection she had been suffering from. Nevertheless, the future seemed bright for Laura at that point, regardless of the difficulties she was facing.

What Happened To Her Husband?

One of the people whose presence was a constant throughout Laura’s journey was Joey, her husband of over a decade. The pair had met when she was 27 years old, and had remained together even during the lowest point of Laura’s life health-wise.

While Joey used to be one of Laura’s enablers, he supported her during the earliest phases of her treatment by preparing her appropriate foods and being her full-time caregiver. Nonetheless, as Laura gained independence her relationship with Joey became difficult, with him openly stating his unconformity at not being able to provide for her as he used to.

As seen in Laura’s “Where Are They Now?” episode, she and Joey were still together, but didn’t seem to getting along too well – he was particularly very against her finding a job.

It didn’t help to calm down the tension between them that they were living with family, as they had recently been evicted for not paying rent.

Another shocking update about Laura came in late 2018, when Starcasm reported that Laura had been separated for a while from Joey, and had married a man named Eric Juarez, with whom she was expecting a child. According to her new husband, Joey cheated on Laura and was violent towards her before their split, but there were no further updates about that situation, because she soon deleted all her social media accounts.

Death

Sadly, Laura Perez passed away on 17 November 2021 at 48 years old. The news of her passing became known to fans the following year, when a fan community of “My 600-lb Life” on Reddit found her obituary.

Given Laura’s lack of social media accounts and the inability to connect with her surviving family, it’s unclear what the cause of her passing was. Fans in online communities of the show point out the high possibility that she could have experienced serious health issues related to her past obesity, but those are far from speculations.

Laura’s obituary only lists her parents, sisters, a nephew, and several nieces, but there’s no mention of a husband or children in it. This negates the past statements made by her husband Eric, but sadly, there’s no further information about it for the time being.

Laura’s story leaves us with a bittersweet taste given her sad passing, but there’s no denying that her weight loss story is an inspiration to people with similar problems.