Gastric Band Surgery: What You Need to Know Before Choosing This Weight Loss Option
Gastric band surgery, also known as LAP-band surgery, is a popular bariatric procedure designed to help individuals lose weight when traditional methods like diet and exercise haven’t worked. In this minimally invasive surgery, a silicone band is placed around the upper part of the stomach to create a small pouch. This reduces the capacity of your stomach and slows the movement of food, making you feel full with less food — ultimately leading to reduced calorie intake and gradual weight loss.
This procedure is adjustable and reversible, which makes it an appealing choice for many. However, like any surgery, it comes with both benefits and potential risks. It’s essential to understand how it works, what to expect during recovery, and whether it aligns with your weight loss goals and health conditions.
In this article, you’ll get an in-depth look at how gastric band surgery is performed, its success rate, lifestyle changes required after the procedure, and who makes a good candidate.
If you’ve been struggling with obesity and want to explore long-term weight loss solutions, this information will help you determine if gastric band surgery is the right path for you.
👉 Log on to Bariatric – Doral Health & Wellness NY to learn more about weight loss options and book a consultation with our experts.
Who can have it?
While this surgery can help you lose weight and prevent obesity complications, it’s not for everyone who is obese. There are certain criteria for obese people who can have LAP-band surgery, including:
- Having severe obesity: If your body mass index (BMI) is 40 or higher then you are on the verge of developing obesity-related diseases. Even if your BMI is 35 with one obesity related disease such as diabetes, high blood pressure, blurred vision, etc. you are prescribed gastric band surgery.
- Complete a medical screening: Doctors also examine you to make sure you are healthy enough for the surgery. They can take physical exams, blood tests, or imaging tests of your abdomen. If you smoke, drink alcohol excessively, or take opioids, you must quit to qualify for surgery.
People who are ready to follow all the requirements before and after the surgery while keeping in mind its side effects are eligible to take the surgery. Because even after surgery you can still gain weight if you don’t maintain good lifestyle habits.
Benefits
Like all other weight loss surgeries, you will lose quite a lot of weight and prevent the risk of developing obesity complications. Besides that, this surgery has the lowest risk of complications after the surgery because there is no division of your stomach or intestines involved in it. It’s a reversible procedure, the LAP-band can be removed if necessary.
Risks
Several disadvantages to taking gastric band surgery such as:
- Relatively less weight loss than other bariatric surgeries.
- Some people develop an adverse reaction to anesthesia, such as blood clots, blood loss, infection, allergic reactions, or even heart attack or stroke during or after the surgery.
- A gastric band can slip or cause mechanical problems such as eroding into the stomach which requires removal.
- Studies show that the risk of complications after gastric band surgery is as high as 50%.
- Procedures to fix or remove the gastric band are as high as 35%. Additional surgery is required if the port shifts. 15 to 60% of people need to have follow-up surgery.
- The rate of failure due to poor weight loss or regaining weight is higher with gastric band compared to other bariatric surgeries.
Besides this, possible complications you can develop include nausea, vomiting, constipation, difficulty in swallowing, gastroesophageal reflux, etc.
Precautions after surgery
After your surgery, you need to follow a special diet to prevent weight gain and complications such as:
- For the first few days, you can only take water and fluids such as thin soups.
- You can start consuming liquids and blended foods such as yogurt and pureed vegetables a month after the surgery.
- After that, you can introduce soft foods to your diet 4 weeks after the gastric band surgery.
- And lastly, you can return to your normal diet while avoiding some foods within 6 weeks (about 1 and a half months) of the procedure.
This is important because your stomach takes time to heal. When returning to solid foods, you must limit your portions so that eaten food can easily fit in your new stomach size. Overeating can cause nausea and vomiting, so choose foods that give you enough nutrients and are easy to chew.
You should visit your healthcare provider often during your first year after surgery to make the needed adjustments to your gastric band. As you lose weight, your lap band starts loosening and needs to be tightened to sustain your weight loss. You also need blood tests regularly to see whether you’re getting enough nutrients on your new diet or not. You can take nutritional counseling to learn new ways of eating to maintain your nutritional requirements. If necessary, ask your healthcare provider to prescribe supplements.
Want to know about other bariatric surgeries, walk in for an appointment at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11212. Doral Health & Wellness has an advanced bariatric clinic that offers laparoscopic surgeries in bariatrics including Gastric sleeve surgery, Gastric bypass surgery, and Sleeve gastrectomy. In case you are looking for weight loss surgery, call us at 1-347-384-5690 to get answers to your queries.
