Bariatric Surgery: After a trial of diet and exercise has failed to help lose weight, Gastric Bypass Surgery can be conducted. It will help you lose weight by regulating the way your small intestine and stomach take the intake of your food. With this effort, it will help reduce the risk posed by weight-related health problems such as:
- Heart disease,
- Gastro-esophageal reflux
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol levels
- Sleep apnea
- Type 2 diabetes
- Asthma
This weight-loss surgery is not advisable for everyone with weight problems. To qualify for it, Surgeons use health conditions such as diabetes type 2, high blood pressure and body mass index. In addition, a candidate for this must be willing to change diet permanently after the procedure has been done for a long-term healthier lifestyle. Even after this surgery, you need to follow the recommended diet change and daily exercise, to maintain body weight.
Before operating, general anesthesia will be used. It will help make you unconscious and therefore, fall asleep. It is done in two ways:
- The doctor can make a surgical cut into your stomach or make use of a laparoscope to see your inner stomach. With an open surgery, the Doctor will divide your belly into two sections – upper (where food will go) and bottom section. Secondly, a bypass will be done by connecting your tiny intestine to a small hole in the upper section. With this method, food intake will be limited and pass through the new opening, causing fewer calorie absorption into the body and as a result weight loss.
- On the other hand, the laparoscope is considered more convenient for this procedure. Small cuts will be done into your stomach and a tiny camera of the laparoscope be used to operate inside the abdomen. Therefore, surgical instruments will be inserted through the cuts made in order to perform bypass. The advantage of this method is less pain, quick recovery and few scars.
It is essential to consider gastric bypass surgery as a weight loss method despite its after-use risks. Risk posed may not be as severe as those posed by obesity. You must be prepared before you undergo this procedure and must be willing to abide by its requirements, such as permanent diet change.