Sometimes, exercise and diet alone fail to treat people suffering from extreme or excessive obesity, placing them at risk of developing medical conditions. This may include diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and high cholesterol. Bariatric Surgery, or Weight Loss Surgery, involves making changes to your digestive system to help you lose weight. This type of procedure is done when diet and exercise fail to work or when an individual is suffering from serious health problems caused by being overweight. Evidence also suggests that Bariatric Surgery can lower death rates of patients suffering from severe obesity.
Bariatric Surgery, or Weight Loss Surgery, restricts a patient’s food intake in an individual’s stomach and intestines by altering the body’s digestion process of food absorption. Weight Loss Surgery is recommended for people who meet certain medical qualifications. This procedure will help patients to lose excess weight and it will decrease their risk of life-threatening health conditions such as:
TransgenderThailand’s partners, offer two types of Weight Loss Surgery:
Also called Sleeve Gastrectomy, is a surgical weight loss procedure used to reduce the size of the stomach up to 25 percent of the original size. Surgeons remove a large portion of the patient’s stomach along the great curvature, effectively reducing its size and leaving a “sleeve” or a tube-like structure in its place.This smaller stomach is not able to hold as much food, which leads to a less appetite feeling. Patients who underwent Sleeve Gastrectomy have reported less desire to eat.Gastric Sleeve surgery is the first step of a two-stage gastric bypass operation typically performed on patients suffering from extreme obesity. This procedure is also the fastest-growing Weight Loss Surgery option across North American and Asia. Advantages to this procedure include significant weight loss and no rerouting of the intestines. This type of surgery is a great option for people with diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol. Individuals who undergo Gastric Sleeve Surgery may suffer from calcium, iron, and vitamin deficiency, as well as bone erosion and anemia.
There are few specialists that patients would need to consult with before undergoing the Sleeve Gastrectomy, including:
Postoperative complications are less likely to occur if the surgery is performed by a team of expert doctors with experience in handling obese patients.
Gastric Balloon Surgery is recommended for patients suffering from severe obesity. This procedure is done to reduce surgical risks by helping patients lose weight before undergoing Weight Loss surgery. During this procedure, the doctors will place a deflated balloon inside the patient’s stomach by passing it through the mouth and esophagus. The balloon will be filled with liquid and inflated to partially fill the patient’s stomach. The Gastric Balloon will give the patient a feeling of fullness and it will reduce the volume of food the stomach can hold. The Gastric Balloon is designed to stay in the stomach up to six months, after that the doctors will remove it in a similar way it was inserted.
The patient must fast for 12 hours before the Gastric Balloon procedure. Two days before the removal of the balloon, the patient will be put on a fluid-only diet. On the day of the procedure, doctors will spray a numbing agent at the patient’s throat. This spray tastes unpleasant but offers a safe and effective way for the patient to tolerate the gastroscopy tube. Individuals wearing false removable teeth prosthesis will be asked to remove them before the procedure. Once the patient is comfortably lying on the trolley, the doctor will place a plastic mouth guard between the teeth and gums to keep the mouth slightly open throughout the procedure. Once the mouth guard is set in place, the doctor will pass an endoscope through the opening and down into the patient’s stomach. This step of the procedure is unlikely to cause the patient any pain or interfere with breathing. The surgeon will then pass the deflated balloon through the patient’s mouth and down into the stomach. Once the balloon is in the right place, it will be inflated with liquid.
For the first week following the insertion of the Gastric Balloon, the patient will be required to follow a fluid-only diet. This gives the stomach time to get used to the balloon. Patients would be recommended not to drink more than 100 ml at once and to consume at least eight cups of fluids a day. The best fluids for people who have Gastric Balloons in their stomachs are low-fat or low-sugar varieties, such as semi-skimmed milk, skimmed milk, and low-fat yogurt drinks. It is not advisable to consume coffee and fizzy drinks following the procedure. After a week of the fluid-only diet, the patient can eat pureed products, followed by a soft diet, and eventually to a normal diet. The patient also needs to see the dietitian or a nutritionist a week after the balloon insertion to discuss a long-term food plan.
A large majority of patients who get a Gastric Balloon face few problems during and after the procedure. But unlike many treatments, this weight loss procedure may still result in complications and difficulties, including:
In rare cases, patients who underwent bariatric surgery may develop hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) years after the procedure.
Patients with these characteristics are typically the best candidates for obesity surgery.
Bariatric surgery and gastric bypass surgery is not recommended for patients with certain medical conditions, such as gastrointestinal disorders, autoimmune disease, or people with a history of a heart attack.
Highly skilled surgeons and physicians will take care to answer every question that a patient may pose before and after performing any procedures. It is often advised for a patient to list the questions on a paper in advance of the consultation.
Some key questions to ask surgeons before weight-loss surgeries include:
