- Gastric Bypass Surgery
- Surgery Costs
- Additional Surgical Options For Weight Loss
You’ve battled with weight loss for ages, and every slim down speedily, only available on TV, lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks fad has left you feeling hopeless. If you are more than 100 pounds overweight, or have a BMI (body mass index) higher than 40, then perhaps Gastric Bypass Surgery is an option for you. Finding the knowledgeable answers to ease your concerns regarding Gastric Bypass Surgery shouldn’t leave you feeling like you just clicked your way around the internet in circles. Read below to find the answers to the most commonly asked questions regarding Gastric Bypass Surgery.
What is Gastric Bypass Surgery? This procedure is done by a Bariatric Surgeon, someone who specifically specializes in Gastric Bypass Surgery. By surgically sealing off a large portion of your stomach, then creating a bypass in your dinky intestines, Gastric Bypass Surgery literally “shrinks” the size of your stomach and its withholding capacity, while it simultaneously reduces your body’s absorption of calories. Also known as “stomach stapling”, this surgery has been refined until it can be effectively conquered with the use of small precision instruments that will make 5 to 6 itsy-bitsy incisions in your belly. After Gastric Bypass Surgery has been completed, the patient will no longer be able to ingest as considerable food as they were before the surgery, and won’t feel the hunger pains that you might think would accompany eating less food. While eating less food, your intestines will be absorbing less calories, thanks to the bypass. Although this surgery seems like an ideal way to shed that unwanted poundage, it is not the last stop to becoming thinner and staying that way. Eating healthier and exercising as a fraction of your daily routine will make the overall plan go more soundly.
What are the risks involved with Gastric Bypass Surgery? With more than a possible 6 million people in the United States that could qualify for Gastric Bypass Surgery, the success rates are particularly high. Over 70% of participants for this procedure have had success. Success for Gastric Bypass Surgery is defined by the patient’s ability to lose at least 50% of excess body weight and fill that for at least a year. Along with any surgical arrangement, there are always risks and side effects. The number one risk for Gastric Bypass Surgery is death. One in nearly 300 participants of this procedure have been known to die from it. Other common risks found with this surgery include incision hernias, leaking at staple sites, blood clots in the legs, narrowing of the opening from the stomach to the small intestine, and “dumping syndrome”. Other side effects from this surgery that have been reported include dehydration, vitamin and mineral deficiency, gall stones, intolerance to determined foods, bleeding stomach ulcers, kidney stones, and low blood sugar. Consulting your physician about Gastric Bypass surgery will give you an overview of whether this surgery is right for you or not.
What are the benefits to Gastric Bypass Surgery? The main goal to this surgery is to help you lose 50 to 60 percent of excessive weight. Other benefits to this surgery range from improving or resolving high blood pressure and cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, Sleep Apnea, and Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). Gastric Bypass Surgery has been known to increase a person’s mobility, enhancing the quality of their life.
What can be expected during surgery? Performed under general anesthesia, which is given through a gas mask or IV, you will be asleep for this procedure. During the 4 hour surgery, a tube is inserted through your nose and into the upper dwelling of the stomach. Sometimes this tube is left in overnight. This line is inserted so that it can be hooked up to a suction machine after surgery to keep the small stomach pouch empty, increasing better odds for your staple line to heal. You may also have a line running from the bypassed position of the stomach to the outside of your body, near the side of your abdomen. It is generally removed 4 to 6 weeks after surgery, while it is in residence some skin irritation may be present at the tube site. Hospital stays usually range from 3 to 5 days.
What can you expect after Gastric Bypass Surgery? To allow your stomach sufficient time to heal, you may not be allowed to eat for 1 to 3 days during your hospital end. Over the course of 12 weeks, you will be given a diet of foods that will start with liquids and steadily re-introduce solid foods back into your body. For the first six months after the blueprint, your stomach pouch will remain the size of a walnut. You will no longer be able to handle the intake of food that you aged to. Eating too fast or too great during this period could cause a pain high in your chest, just under the chest bone. Or, you could experience vomiting. The amount of food that you ingest will gradually improve over time. During the first 3 to 6 months following your surgery, you may experience feeling tired or cold, dry skin, body aches, hair thinning and loss, or mood changes. Your physician can serve you to monitor these changes to guide you on how to relieve them.
Is Gastric Bypass Surgery covered by insurance? Getting an insurance company to accept your claim for Gastric Bypass Surgery could be difficult. Some companies have started requesting that their patient’s not only got a referral to a specialist for this procedure, but they also request for a complete documented work up beget your physician. These complete documents most often have to include documented attempts at weight loss that have been unsuccessful while under your physician’s care. Other companies refuse to accept any claim that is related to obesity, since they don’t view it as a life threatening disease. The companies that do accept claims for Gastric Bypass Surgery do demand that the surgery is being performed for health reasons and not cosmetics. Speaking with your insurance company will give you a broader view of whether they cover the procedure, and what exactly they need from you.
What is the cost for Gastric Bypass Surgery? If you need to pay for the surgery out of your own pocket, it can be quite costly. The procedure alone costs between $17,000 and $20,000 dollars. As with almost anything, the price isn’t etched in stone and varies depending on location.
Other surgeries with similar results are available in today’s market. Lap-Band adjustable gastric banding, Vertical banded gastroplasty, and Biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch are the most common alternatives offered on today’s market. The best path to take when considering any of these surgeries or methods is to talk with your physician and research the materials that contain information about them. Changing your lifestyle can begin here.
Related Posts
Filed under Gastric Banding by on Sep 2nd, 2010. Comment. 
If you are considering having gastric bypass surgery, I’m definite you want to know how mighty weight you can inquire of to lose and impartial how quickly you will lose it. It’s necessary to understand that each individual is different and will experience different results from the surgery. Some people will lose more than others, and some will lose more quickly than others.
There are a number of factors that influence how much weight we will lose, including our starting weight, our metabolism, how carefully we follow our doctor’s dietary guidelines after surgery, our activity level, whether or not we have any health conditions that can affect weight or metabolism (like diabetes or thyroid problems), certain medications we may be taking, the size of the stomach pouch our surgeon creates, and the amount of small intestine our surgeon bypasses. As you can see, some of these things are things we have some control over, like whether or not we follow our doctor’s dietary guidelines and how active we are. Other things, like whether or not we have thyroids problems and our metabolism, we can’t really control.
Studies have found that the average person loses about 60% of their excess body weight after a gastric bypass. That means if you are 100 pounds overweight, you could seek information from to lose about 60 pounds.
To calculate your excess body weight, first choose your ideal weight. You can obtain charts online that will give you the ideal weight for your height, or you can ask your doctor. Subtract that number from your current weight. That is the amount of weight you have to lose.
To calculate how considerable you might lose with gastric bypass surgery, get a calculator and multiply your excess weight by .6.
However, there are several things you should keep in mind while making your calculations. This is just an average, so that means some people lose significantly more than 60% while other lose significantly less. And there are plenty of things you can do to maximize your weight loss. Remember the factors I listed earlier? You have control over some of those things. You can settle to follow your doctor’s dietary guidelines. You can choose to exercise. If you take medications that affect your weight, ask your doctor if there are any alternative drugs you could try instead (there may or may not be).
Also talk to your surgeon about how big he or she will make your pouch and how that will affect your weight loss. One study found that a smaller pouch size was associated with greater weight loss. Ask your surgeon if he or she will be using a sizing balloon to size your pouch. Some surgeons use them and some don’t, but one study found that using a balloon helps get the pouch the right size and maximizes weight loss.
The same things that affect how much weight you will lose also affect how quickly you will lose. Most people lose most of their weight during the first 12 – 18 months after surgery. Those with the most to lose tend to lose the most quickly. Dr. Dirk Rodriguez of Cincinnati, Ohio, says that patients should expect to lose three to five pounds per week at first, and that weight loss will start to slow down after the first few months. However, some patients lose even more quickly than that at the beginning. You should also be aware that it is common to have a week or two (or longer) here and there when you don’t lose anything. It doesn’t mean you are done losing. Weight loss will start up again. Your body is just adjusting to the loss.
Sources:
Matthew Hoffman, MD. http://www.webmd.com/diet/weight-loss-surgery/what-is-gastric-bypass-surgery. What Is Gastric Bypass Surgery? Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080915165816.htm. Factors Associated With Poor Weight Loss After Gastric Bypass Surgery Identified.
Related Posts
Filed under Gastric Banding by on Aug 9th, 2010. Comment.
A gastric sleeve operation removes approximately 60 percent of your stomach so that it becomes a tube or sleeve instead of a sack. This draw has numerous advantages over other gastric procedures that help you lose weight. Some of these advantages include the lack of foreign objects, supplements, and hunger. This article will discuss some of the advantages of a gastric sleeve operation.
Hunger
One of the first advantages of a gastric sleeve is its ability to control hunger. During the operation, 60 percent of your stomach is removed, instead of being left in place like other procedures. This also removes most of the hormones in the stomach that are responsible for producing the sensation of hunger that you feel.
Foreign Objects
Another advantage of a gastric sleeve is that no foreign objects are left in your body. The gastric banding design leaves a number of objects that can lead to complications. The band may slip, erode, or become infected and can cause serious problems. The gastric sleeve operation has none of these complications associated with foreign objects.
Supplements
A gastric bypass requires an intestinal bypass. This can lead to protein and vitamin deficiency and force you to assume special vitamins and supplements to get the nutrition you need. A gastric sleeve doesn’t require an intestinal bypass. Therefore, it is much less likely for you to have to take these special vitamins and supplements.
Function
A gastric sleeve operation reduces the volume of your stomach. Although your stomach will be smaller, it will still be able to function normally. You will mild be able to eat most of the foods you have always eaten, although you will have to eat them in smaller amounts.
Weight Loss
One of the last advantages of a gastric sleeve is weight loss. The weight loss you experience happens much faster than some of the other procedures such as gastric banding. Most patients lose between 40-60% of excess weight within two years of the operation.
These are some of the advantages of a gastric sleeve operation. Since a large portion of the stomach is removed, the hormones that stimulate the sensation of hunger are also removed. Also, a gastric sleeve will not leave foreign objects in your body that can cause numerous complications. You likely won’t need to take special vitamins and supplements either since an intestinal bypass is not required for the procedure.
Related Posts
Filed under Gastric Banding by on Aug 1st, 2010. Comment.
Chronic patients who suffer with different health problems which affect their GI tract and who cannot eat or procure pain when they eat or do not tolerate lots of foods can be malnourished. For those patients the doctors by placing different kinds of feeding tubes save their lives. If it’s not taken care of the malnutrition can make lot of other health problems. Sometimes the patient can die when the body does not get any kind of nutrition it weakens the immune system and they are prone to get all kinds of infections and becomes hard to fight them.
The Science and Medical Technology made so much progress to keep people alive for years without eating too. The doctors either suggest that the nutritional supplements that are available in the super markets like, Breakfast Carnation in different flavor, Pediasure, Boost, etc. If the patient can tolerate that they continue that so that they won’t get any problems with the malnutrition. They check them every week to see whether they are gaining weight or not. But there are some chronic patients, Cancer patients who cannot tolerate any kind of food and they accept pain whenever they eat that’s when the doctor’s decide the placement of J-Tube and the way called Jejunostomy. The J-tube is placed in the upper portion of the small intestines called the Jejunum which is just below the stomach. The tube will be located lower and closer to the center of abdomen.
The main reason of J-tube is to bypass the stomach and directly feed into the small intestines so that it won’t bother the stomach. The patients regain a special Enteral pump through which they are supposed to be fed. Enteral treatment means a formula is given to the patient through the tube feedings. Different brands of formulas like some are not that high in fat, some are high in protein and has little bit fat too and the doctor taking all the facts of the patient into consideration writes the prescription for the right mark. The tube feedings can be short term or long term. When the patient has to go through a major surgery and lost too remarkable weight then the doctors plot the feeding tube and give the patient Enteral tube feedings until the patient gains enough weight and has all the nutritional levels are normally required. The tube feedings take a while to adjust to the bowels and the doctors choose that the patient should derive the nutrition at a certain rate which helps them to tolerate and also helps them to gain weight. The tube site should be taken care of everyday cleaning the area and changing the dressing so that the infections can be avoided. When they do the Jejunostomy they check whether it’s in the right place or not. Whenever I go to Radiology Department of Penn Hospital to get the new J-tube after the procedure they check it to seek whether it is in the right place or not.
As I am a chronic Pancreatitis patient and none of the surgeries could pick away my pain I ended up with J-tube forever. I can eat snacks but I will never be able to eat full meals like everyone. When I got the J-tube it was such a hard thing to gain used to. The body does not like the foreign bodies and it always tried to push it out and whenever the tube moved it hurt so much. No matter how much I took care of the site I ended up with so many infections and had to be treated with anti-biotic. At one time I think I was on antibiotic almost every month or alternate month for a year. They had to give good bacteria to replace it which was lost because of taking too much antibiotic. After having so many infections the pain around the tube became very severe. It wound when I toddle, when I try to sleep on to the side, sit for continuously an hour in a chair working on something the injure became unbelievable. So the radiologists told me that it has become chronic. I was very mad for a while. My life was full of pain and they keep adding new kinds to the already exists. When tube was placed it has a small balloon to block the tube from coming out from the small hole but after few months or rarely a year after the balloon gets ruptured and the tube comes out. We make appointment to replace the tube and the Radiologists at the Interventional Radiology replace it. Sometimes this balloon ruptures and the tube starts to come out that means it’s time to get a new tube. I go to Penn Hospital Radiology Department to get it changed.
I ended up in the hospitals with the infections to secure I.V antibiotic treatments by a injure specialist. Then they figured it out and said because I have Meta Port I can retract the I.V treatment at home when the nurses from Infusion Company will come and show me how to do it. I have suffered like that almost two years. My friend from Nevada said one of her neighbor’s daughter have some chronic problems so she has this J-tube too but she uses an ointment which blocks the infections. So she sent me the name of the ointment and we showed that to the wound specialist which he has not seen before so he called the pharmacist in the hospital and gave the name of the ointment. I have started using the ointment and the infections stopped all of a sudden and now the tube site is very clean and I take marvelous care of it. Of course the afflict around the tube also came down. It is still there but it gets worse when I work for hours sitting or bend too much if I get in the mood of cleaning and carried away without paying attention to the time.
Having J-tube helps me to get the enough nutrition for my body. Last year I had very tough year and lost too much weight even though it bypasses the stomach whenever I get the wound I can’t use the tube feedings at the normal rate. Sometimes I have to stop it until the Pancreatitis attack goes away and then start with the low rate and increase it slowly to my normal rate. As I lost too much weight my G.I doctor suggested that I should get TPN for 12 hours at night time. TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) can be given through a central line or Meta Port because it is very thick solution which cannot be tolerated by the usual veins used for the I.V. So the TPN treatment is given through intravenously bypassing eating and digestion. This is temporary treatment for me. The TPN formula has all the nutrition required for the daily supplement of the body. It has lipids, amino acids, salts, glucose and all the important nutrition. We have to add vitamins when preparing the formula to hook up. For the first few days I had to check my sugar levels and if they are normal then I don’t have to do it regularly. If the sugar levels go up they give insulin to the patient. Every week the nurse from the Infusion Company visits and she draws blood from the Meta Port to send it for the labs. They check everything to see the TPN is working or not and if they have to make any changes. If something is low or high the doctor who gets the blood work recount asks the nutrition nurse at the Infusion Company to make some changes. The nurse then takes out the needle; well-organized the area, accesses it with the original one, then puts the dressing and flushes the port. The Port which was accessed needs to be flushed with Seline flush before hooking up TPN formula then when the formula is done it needs to be flushed with both Seline and a Heparin. This keeps the port clean and avoids the infection. There is always a great risk of infection with the ports. The first Meta Port I had for almost more than 5 years without any problems. But when they started TPN in fall four weeks later I had very dreadful infection and luckily caught on time. Sometimes the patient can go into Sepsis shock as the infection spreads very posthaste and can be dangerous. That’s why the patients need to be very careful in taking care of the port.
Every week the nutritionist calls and finds about the weight, and whether am I having any problems with the TPN or is it working without any problems? Usually every week I gather one or two pounds. Some times when I have lot of pain I don’t gain any weight but I don’t lose whatever I gained too. So, that’s a good note and means I am on right track. When TPN starts working I feel more energetic, when I do things I do not fetch tired quickly, the paleness goes away and the skin, face look healthy and I start looking healthy and people start noticing too. I have gained fair few pounds and I have a long way to go.
TPN is mostly musty temporarily unlike the J-tube can be used for long term. TPN is venerable for the Cancer patients, GI tract malfunctioning, diseases that need total Bowel rest, Crohn’s disease, Ulcerative colitis, Bowel destruction, Pediatric GI disorders, short bowel syndrome due to surgery.
There is another kind of tube feeding which is almost like J-tube except that it is G-tube and is placed in the stomach and they are archaic for the long term Enteral nutrition. It’s placed in the abdominal wall surgically. Just like the J-tube the station around the tube should be kept clean and use gauze for the dressing. G-tube is also called a Peg tube.
NGtube is called Naso gastric tube another kind of tube feedings which is inserted through nose and passed down the pharynx through the esophagus and into the stomach. NG tube is worn for the short term. They check it whether it’s in the right place or not before each feeding. Before my second major surgery Whipple when I was in the hospital and the doctors were horrified that I was losing the weight so badly and before they send me to the surgeon again they wanted to try NG tube so that I can get some nutrition daily, slowly gain weight and get some strength before they decide what can be done. I was reluctant about it and after the doctor pursued and explained for a long time then I agreed. My Gastroenterologist tried to insert it through my nostrils but he couldn’t get it where he wanted. I was gay it didn’t work out because if they send me home with that my kids could have been so frightened. Then they decided about the J-tube and sent me to another hospital where the surgeon agreed to do Jejunostomy.
These are the different kinds of tube feedings that are used for the people who cannot eat like the normal people because of some GI problems or some other chronic conditions. When they first talked to me about the J-tube I totally gave up at that time but they did not want to give up on me. As the doctor was explaining I said, ‘why don’t you just kill me? ‘ The doctor could not talk to me and got up and left the room. I know they were trying to save me from dying due to malnutrition. Then next day my Gastroenterologist came and slowly explained everything step by step then I agreed to get it done.
I am very glad now that the doctors did not give up on me and also I’m thankful for all these wonderful medical advances which help people like me to live and see the kids graduate, going to college and enjoy watching them becoming successful and happy in whatever they are doing. I have to thank all the doctors and surgeons who gave this life to me.
Related Posts
Filed under Gastric Banding by on Jul 30th, 2010. Comment.