Unlike diets, which often create yo-yo cycles of weight loss and weight gain, bariatric surgery makes a change to your digestive system to help your body manage its caloric intake. This surgery makes a permanent change that enables you to lose the weight and keep it off, for good.
Surgery is one of several treatment options available to address morbid obesity. The weight loss surgery program works not only by changing your digestive system, but also with complete training in how to manage your food intake, your lifestyle, and the choices you make afterward. Danbury Hospital provides free seminars before any commitment so you’ll understand the process in detail. If you do go ahead, you’ll work with insurance experts, dietitians, surgical specialists, and support groups to ensure you succeed.
The effectiveness of surgery is dependent on several factors.
How Surgery Reduces Weight
Surgeons first began to recognize the potential for surgical weight loss while performing operations that required the removal of large segments of a patient's stomach and intestine. After the surgery, doctors noticed that in many cases patients were unable to maintain their pre-surgical weight. With further study, surgeons were able to recommend similar modifications that could be safely used to produce weight loss in morbidly obese patients. Over the last decade these procedures have been continually refined in order to improve results and minimize risks. Today's bariatric surgeons have access to a substantial body of clinical data to help them determine which surgeries should be used and why.
Available Procedures
The Danbury Hospital Center for Weight Loss Surgery offers both laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery and the laparoscopic Lap Band® procedure. More than 99 percent of the current gastric bypass surgeries performed are laparoscopic (minimally invasive surgery), with smaller incisions, less pain and a quicker recovery time. You and your physician will decide if this is appropriate for you.
What is Gastric Bypass Surgery?
The Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass procedure will create a very small, new stomach out of the top of your existing stomach, which will be reconnected to the small intestine down stream in the intestinal tract. The rest of the remaining stomach and a portion of the small intestine gets "bypassed" of the food stream.
How does weight loss occur after Gastric Bypass surgery?
Gastric Restriction
Your stomach is now only 1 to 2 ounces in size, which will significantly limit your portion size.
Malabsorption
A portion of your intestines is bypassed so less absorption of food occurs. This limits the amount of calories absorbed from the food that you consume. We will closely monitor your nutritional needs so that your weight loss occurs safely.
Feeling of Satiety
Feeling of fullness occurs with a much smaller amount of food. It is important to listen to your body so that over time you do not stretch out your pouch.
How much weight can I expect to lose?
The amount of weight lost after gastric bypass surgery is individualized. It depends on your body and on how well you follow the post surgery diet and exercise program. However, research has shown that patients usually lose 60-80 percent of their excess body weight within 18 months after surgery. At five years, this weight loss has shown to be well maintained at 50-70 percent of excess body weight. For example, if you weigh 300 lbs. and your ideal body weight is 150 lbs., you can expect to lose approximately 75 to 120 lbs.
What is Lap Band® surgery?
Lap Band® is a procedure during which your surgeon will implant a permanent, prosthetic "band" around the neck of your stomach This procedure is purely "restrictive", meaning that it allows you to eat less while feeling full by creating a much smaller virtual stomach pouch above the band. The band has an inner lining that is inflatable and is connected to a port buried within your abdominal wall. For the first 1-2 years after the operation, the band will be periodically "filled" or "adjusted" in the office to give you optimal restriction.
Lap Band® does not require cutting into the stomach or intestines and is therefore, deemed to be a "safer" operation. It is still a major abdominal operation, and the preparatory phase is the same as for the Bypass procedure. Weight loss with the Band is less than after the Bypass, and highly variable. Weight loss can range from 0 to over 90 percent of EBW, with an average of 30 percent of EBW at one year and 40percent at two years. Briefly stated, the benefit of the Lap Band is its safety profile; the downsides are the need for postoperative adjustments and variable weight loss.
