Gastric Bypass Surgery Information

No matter what surgical technique you are having done, it is going to cost you. A surgeon’s time does not come cheap, and between discussing the surgery, coming in …

Lap-Band surgery and gastric bypass are the two main types of surgical procedures utilized to help obese individuals lose weight. Both procedures work by effectively …

A type of bariatric surgery first developed in the 1960s, the gastric bypass procedure relies upon partial stomach removal to help obese individuals lose weight permanently. By decreasing the size of the patient’s stomach, the amount of food a person can eat is limited and she is therefore more apt to lose weight. In addition to weight loss, the procedure helps reduce medical problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.

According to the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, there were 103,200 gastric bypass operations in 2003, and the rate continues to increase.

Create a shunt between the upper part of the small intestine to the colon to bypass more of the gastrointestinal tract. Drs. Payne and DeWind tried this approach in 1963.

Laparoscopic surgery is not possible in some cases.

Gastric bypass surgery is a drastic procedure used to treat obesity. The top of the stomach is cut into a pouch and the small intestines are rerouted to the new …

Fill up on small amounts of food throughout the day. If you eat small portions often, you will not be hungry and the stomach might never fully expand. In addition, eating more often will keep the metabolism working constantly to digest the food, thereby increasing your metabolic level and burning fat.

Drink your meals for a few weeks after gastric bypass surgery. You will need to fill up on nutritious drinks such as vegetable cocktails or fruit smoothies. You can mix vegetable and fruit drinks using a blender or juicer. Stay away from high-calorie drinks that might contribute to weight gain such as soda or milkshakes. In addition, avoid gassy foods like beans and cabbage that may expand the stomach.

Understand that your eating habits will change drastically and forever.

Supplement your intake of iron and vitamin B12, both of which will be less easily absorbed after your surgery.

Eat much smaller, more nutritious meals at much more frequent intervals. The most severe forms of gastric bypass surgery reduce the size of the stomach by as much as 90 percent. Failure to eat often enough or properly can lead to malnutrition.

Before having gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, you should know that there are potential risks and complications from the surgery. The risks typically arise from …

Gastric-bypass surgery results in weight loss by restricting food intake and decreasing the rate of food absorption in the body, according to the National Institutes …

Gastric bypass surgery demands a lot of commitment. You have to change the way you eat, exercise regularly and continue with follow-up procedures after the surgery …

Gastric bypass surgery, also known as weight-loss surgery, is an operation that changes your digestive system to limit your food intake. The procedure helps patients to lose weight and can lower the risk of obesity-related medical problems. Although it has fewer complications than other weight-loss surgeries, patients need to be cautious about medications taken after surgery. Specifically, anti-inflammatory medications containing aspirin should be avoided for the first two months after surgery unless taking aspirin to prevent strokes.

Diabetes is a deadly disease with two different types. People with type 1 diabetes cannot produce any insulin, so they are dependent on daily insulin injections …

Typically, after gastric bypass the size of the stomach is only adequate to hold one ounce of food or liquid. The small size of the stomach assists patients in eating …

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Hello everyone before I ask this question I ask you to please not tell me your opinion on the surgery if you do not agree with either one..that is not what I am asking, I am simply asking this question to people who have struggled with health problems from weight and are in support of my decision to follow through with bariatric surgery.
I am 228lbs and 5 ‘1 , I am diabetic, anemic, have high blood pressure, cholosteral, have severe sleep apnea, and severe GERD with a hernia. I am trying to decide which surgery to do and my surgeon is leaning towards gastric bypass…any experiences, or stories and advice I would greatly appreciate.

I’ve met a lot of people who have had the LAP-BAND and quite a few people who have had gastric bypass.

Bypass is a much more drastic surgery, and I’ve heard a lot of complaints about complications from dumping syndrome to hair loss and bone weakness. Your body just doesn’t absorb important nutrients because the food moves through you faster. To avoid these problems you have to take a pretty hefty dose of vitamins. The good news, though is that you lose the weight very fast. The bad news is that your stomach can stretch back out over time, and you can regain the weight after several years.

Gastric bands (the LAP-BAND System or REALIZE Band Solution) do not involve cutting or stapling of your digestive tract, so there is lower risk of complications. It requires regular follow-up, especially in the first year to get the band to the right fit, so be sure you get a surgeon who really focuses on after-care or one who has a team that specializes in adjustments (commonly called fills). With a band you have to be ready to use it as a tool, so it requires work and some level of dedication not required with bypass.

The best thing about the band, and its biggest advantave over bypass, in my opion is its adjustability and reversability.

If you have a serious problem, the band can be removed much easier than your guts can be restored to pre-bypass routes. And if you are struggling with weight years after the surgery, with the band you can go to your surgeon or fill center and get back on track with adjustments and guidance. If you start putting weight back on with bypass, the next step may be a revision surgery.

Weight loss surgery, also known as bariatric surgery in medical terminology, refers to a group of gastrointestinal surgical procedures carried out on patients suffering from chronic morbid obesity (i.e., at least 100 lbs overweight, or a body mass index, BMI, of 40 or greater, for more than 5 years). It is used to facilitate weight loss and avoid the risk to life-threatening diseases associated with morbid obesity, such as type II diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, degenerative arthritis, etc.

Weight loss surgery is normally resorted to as a last measure when an all other conventional weight loss methods, such as diet control, exercise and weight loss medications, have failed in treating the person for morbid obesity. It may be pointed out that weight loss surgery is distinct from liposuction in that the latter is more of a cosmetic procedure rather than a medical procedure.

What does weight loss surgery involve?
According to The American Society for Bariatric Surgery, there are basically two approaches to weight loss surgery:

1. Restrictive procedures, which help reduce the capacity for food intake in a single meal but do not interfere with the normal absorption (digestion) of food.

2. Malabsorptive procedures, which help reduce absorption of calories from food by altering the process of digestion.

Restrictive procedures are mainly of two types:
1. Lap band surgery, which involves placing laproscopically a silicone gastric band around the top of the stomach in order to create a very small stomach pouch. As a result, the person starts feeling full with just a small portion of food. Food will then slowly empty from the smaller pouch into the lower part of the stomach and into the rest of the digestive tract.

2. Gastric bypass surgery, which involves stapling of the smaller, upper part of the stomach to separate it from the rest of the stomach and rerouting the small intestine to connect it to the smaller stomach pouch.

Lap band surgery is a relatively simple and less risky procedure compared to gastric bypass surgery. It requires just 1 to 3 days of hospital stay as opposed to 5 to 8 days in the latter case. Moreover, there is no malabsorption of vitamins and minerals after lap band surgery, which is not always the case with gastric bypass surgery. However, the expected weight loss over a period of 18 months is lesser (50 to 60% of the excess weight) compared to gastric bypass surgery (70 to75%). Both the procedures are reversible, but lap band surgery is much more easily reversible.

There is a third type of restrictive procedure too, called sleeve gastrectomy, that is less commonly used. In this the surgeon removes approximately 60% of the stomach laparoscopically so that the stomach takes the shape of a tube or “sleeve”.

Malabsorptive procedures are rarely used these days due to the problems of malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies caused by them.

Any risks?
In addition to general risks associated with any kind of major surgery, weight loss surgery can pose its own complications. Discomforting symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, weakness, hernia, gallstones and nutritional deficiencies can crop up after weight loss surgery.

Is it for you?
Though the ultimate answer to the question whether you qualify as a candidate for weight loss surgery or not rests entirely with your bariatric surgeon, here are some pointers that can help you in your decision-making process. If you have been more than 100 lbs overweight for more than 5 years, if your body has failed to respond to the conventional weight loss methods, and if you are not suffering from any major disorder that makes surgery difficult, you can seriously consider weight loss surgery as a feasible option. Consult your doctor for detailed information in order to weigh the risks against benefits of weight loss surgery.

Finally, remember that even if you keep realistic goals in mind, the real success of weight loss surgery is strongly dependent on your making long-term changes in your diet and lifestyle.

Kelvin Ho
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/is-weight-loss-surgery-suitable-for-you-132852.html

I’d like to remove my lap band system and get the gastric bypass done. Can it be done during the same surgery? I’m going to see the bariatric doctor in couple of days but I rather know now.

Hi there,

Yes, your band removal and the gastric bypass procedure can be performed during the same operation. One study (http://www.surgjournal.com/article/S0039-6060(02)00005-3/abstract) showed that about 78% of band removals/conversions to gastric bypass were done simultaneously (14 out of 18 conversions).

Take care,

Jeff

I realize that people who undergo gastric bypass surgery need more vitamins like B-12, possibly Iron, B-1 or even Calcium, but when choosing a vitamin, does the form need to be taken into consideration, since absorption is different in a bariatric patient?

The vitamins for the bariatric come on the two form, the difference is that in capsules they usually are realease onto the system more fast. The importance is the dose the bariatric usually need to take at least the double of the dose of the not operate person. Check on internet for bariatric vitamins and you going to find alternatives as Bariatric Choice I used and they good also they are cheawebles.

Cosmetic weight loss plastic surgery or bariatric surgery is fast gaining popularity because increasing affluence and knowledge of using surgery as a form of targetted or fast weight loss.

Patients may opt for a weight loss plastic surgery out of reshaping their body shape or simply to improve their health and escape from severe obesity.

There are basically three basic types of weight loss plastic surgery :-

There are the restrictive surgical procedures like the lap band surgery to make the stomach smaller and thus limiting food consumption.

Then there are the malabsorptive surgeries to shorten the intestine that comes in contact with food so that the body absorbs less calories from the food consumed.

Finally, there are surgeries that combine both restrictive and malasorptive plastic surgeries.

Restrictive surgeries encourage easy weight loss in two ways. First, the surgeries reduce the amount of food consumed. The stomach is shrunk by creating a small pouch at the top of where food enters and therefore less food is consumed by the patients. Restrictive surgery also make patients feel full longer because the lower outlet of the pouch is made smaller so that food empties slowly. Lap band cosmetic weight loss surgery and Vertical banded gastroplasty are examples of restrictive surgeries.

Gastric bypass surgery is a combination both the restrictive and the malabsorptive surgery. This surgery is done by creating a small stomach pouch to restrict the amount of food intake.Then a bypass of the duodenum and other parts of the intestine is constructed to cause malabsorption. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and Distal Gastric Bypass are examples of the gastric bypass weight loss plastic surgery.

What are the risks of weight loss surgeries?

Health risks are almost the same for both restrictive and gastric bypass surgeries although the risk of nutritional deficiencies for calcium, Vitamin B12 and iron are higherin gastric bypass surgery patients. Intestinal leaking may also occur.

Gastric bypass surgery patients may experienced the “Dumping Syndrome.” This is when food moves too fast through the small intestine and the patient may experience nausea, cold sweat, dizzy and fainting spells, weakness and occasionally, even diarrhea.

Patients can opt for the either the traditional open surgery or laparoscopic sugery the latter being that there will be smaller scars as well as less down time since the bariatric weight loss surgery patient can recover faster.

As with any form of surgeries, patients must ask their surgeons which for of cosmetic surgery is best suited for them. Before a patient is committed to undergo a surgery, he must have tried other healthy means to lose weight. A weight loss surgery should always be the last option when all other efforts failed to help the patient to reduce weight.

Chris Chew
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/how-to-choose-a-weight-loss-plastic-surgery-84645.html

My mom had Bariatric Surgery on April 20, 2004. She Looks great and until about a year ago was feeling great. ALL of her OLD health problems are gone, but now she has several new ones but they dont know what they are… She has something wrong with the Pancreas, so they think. They keep taking her in for surgeries and dont know what they are going in for and just try to repair her. She is in SEVERE PAIN ALL THE TIME!!! She is litterly having contractions because it feels like something is closing. They are sending her to Mayo Clinic because it is so bad. What do we expect? Anyone had these problems… She has already had her Gall Bladder removed.

PLEASE HELP MY MOM IS 46 AND DONT WANNA LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE!!!!!!! SHE CANT BECAUSE SHE IS IN TOO MUCH PAIN!!!!!!!!!!

Please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roux-en-Y_gastric_bypass_surgery. This page describes what gastric bypass entails and lists various complications that can result.

Have you talked with her doctors yourself, or are you going by what your mother is telling you? If you have not talked with your mother’s doctors yet, please do so for your own peace of mind.

Also, look up Chronic Pain Syndrome (CPS). I have included some info on this for you, too. (This gives you a more vivid description of CPS, and it sounds similar to what you are describing: http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/629/main.html#DefinitionofChronicPainSyndrome.) Mention this to your mother’s doctors and get a referral to a neurologist.

If necessary, get a second (or even a 3rd!) opinion about your mother’s health problems.

I know you are scared. Be there for your mom and be strong! Take care of yourself and your mother.

May God be with you every step of the way.

My son has debilitating diseases, disorders, and other risk factors due to his morbid obesity. This includes extremely high-blood pressure that could give him a stroke and extremely high cholesterol. He needs to have Gastric-Bypass surgery. However, his insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield) will not cover the surgery which I think is stupid because it would greatly reduce his health risks. Other insurance agencies I have checked with also will not cover the surgery. However, when I do research on Bariatric surgery, I always see a section that mentions Insurance Agencies that helped pay for it. He has tried to lose weight and to no avail. His life is in danger and heart attacks run on both sides of his family. How could he pay for this? Please help.
Listen, I really appreciate everyone’s "knowledge" but I could really use an actual answer to my question. The family has already decided to proceed with the surgery as soon as we figure out the cost and how to pay for it. Please do not give me any other information besides "how to pay for" the surgery or how most people USUALLY pay for the surgery. If all you have is red tape, keep your response to yourself. What we need is HELP. Perhaps a company that gives loans for surgery? Perhaps some type of payment plan? You know, help?

Gastric Bypass Surgery /gastrectomy/stomach stapling / lap band (all types of bariatric surgery) is very safe nowadays. It is very cheap in India. There is one company that is very famous in India that arranges obesity surgery for foreigners in India. They are called the Forerunners Healthcare. I read a lot about them in the Newspapers and about their patient stories.

I have also read that they arrange financing for American and Canadian patients, as obesity surgery is not covered by insurance. They also have photos pasted of their International patients. You can checkout their website. The cost savings are incredible. As a doctor i personally believe that your obesity surgery can be easily handled in India, as the quality of healthcare available here is simply best in the world. The surgeons are USA/UK trained and facilities are 5 star.

My cousin got her surgery for gastric bypass in India through the forerunners healthcare .She is more than very happy with the results. She has lost 65lbs in 5 months. She just paid 25% of the amount she was quoted in USA and is all praise for this forerunners healthcare company. Hope this helps.

http://www.forerunnershealthcare.com

as the first person said it is quite a process, i have had a few friends go through it all, best option is to talk to your doctor and find out from thier insurance billing person, what the process is, so you can follow it perfectly, and that will make it go faster

surgery. How was you weight loss? Did you lose weight right away? Did your abdomen hurt afterwards? Did it take a while after surgery to begin to lose weight?

I had Gastric Bypass surgery in Oct 2007. I’ve lost 155 pounds and only need to lose 10 more to get to my goal weight.
I sarted losing weight immediately. Of course, there are plateau’s n the weight loss. you will go weeks or months without losing a pound but you still have to stick to the diet and excercise your butt off (literally).
Yes, your abdomen will be tender. it is surgery after all. It’s not too bad. The largest incision in on your left ide and that one hurts the most. They wil send you home with some nice painkillers although i never took anythings tronger than tylenol once I got home I was on a Morphine drip at the hospital. It will be uncomfortable to lie down flat on your back or side for about 2-3 weeks. I slept popped up and that wasn’t too bad.

Gastric Bypass is not a miracle cure. you have to have willpower after the surgery. it is incredibly easy to stretch the pouch out and you’ll be back to where you started. I know several epople that have had the surgery and gained back every pound they fought hard to lose because they started eating crap again and stopped excercising.

If you have any mroe questions you cane-mail me at evanrudysmommy@yahoo.com