Why Gastric Sleeve Surgery?

Why Gastric Sleeve Surgery?

When you couple the fact that traditional “diet & exercise” regimens fail to create and maintain durable weight loss 95% of the time with the fact that surgeries are becoming less and less invasive, the emergence of surgical weight loss as a serious, viable, healthy alternative to obesity becomes pretty apparent.

Obesity is a frightening pandemic in the U.S., with 68.5 percent of Americans either overweight or obese. An obese person will pay, on average, nearly $1500 more per year on healthcare costs. For those who have struggled with the discomfort, disease, humiliation and expense of obesity for most of their lives, surgery is sometimes the only real, lasting solution.

Flooded with information from the internet and the media, people often wonder if a sleeve gastrectomy is the right procedure for them.

Sleeve gastrectomies are considered to belong to the “restrictive operations” family, a term that encompasses surgical procedures that reduce the amount of room in the stomach, leaving people feeling fuller much faster. While these types of surgeries require that you make permanent, lifelong changes to your food choices, chances are that you will keep the weight off permanently if you stick with it.

The surgery is performed by making a few small incisions in the abdomen where laparoscopic instruments will be inserted to remove more than half of the cavity of the stomach, including the portion of the stomach that creates ghrelin, also known as “the hunger hormone.” The portion of the stomach that remains will be about the size of a banana, and because the stomach is removed completely, this procedure is not reversible.

After surgery, a sleeve can hold, at maximum, 10 to 15 ounces of food, as opposed to a normal stomach, which can hold in some cases up to 3 pounds of food. This drastic change in capacity helps to make you “feel” full, because you are in fact, full.

While you can never return to an all-you-can-eat-buffet the same way again, somewhat normal eating patterns can return a few weeks after surgery, providing that your physician has given you the green light to introduce smaller portions of all foods back into your diet. The combination of eating the right foods, in the right amounts, at the right time is key to maximizing your investment in weight loss surgery.

All in all, gastric sleeve surgery instances are growing every year across the entire U.S and Mexico. With many people reporting little or no pain one week after the surgery, it is the right procedure for many of those who need to swiftly return to their busy lives.

The mean average gastric sleeve patient across all gender and ages will lose 100 pounds, making this procedure one of the most popular elective surgical procedures in the U.S. today. Many patients report other subsequent health benefits, such as being able to get off of blood pressure, diabetes and depression medications altogether. Others report a nearly instant increase in energy and better sleep. If you are obese, this surgery is a popular, tested and proven method of losing weight for once and for all.