Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass
All You Need to Know about Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass including risks, costs, complications,and recovery.
Gastric bypass surgery has been the answered prayer to most of the morbid obese patients to attain and maintain weight loss. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is the next big thing in the history of weight loss surgery. Aside from the fact that it provides the same process as that of the traditional gastric bypass surgery (Roux-en-Y), only with fewer scars and shorter hospital stay. It also allows its patients to recover faster and wound-related problems would be the least of the patient’s expectations. It must be understood that this approach is still quite new to the medical industry that long-term results have not yet been fully evaluated. Hence, it would be best to consult your surgeon and visit your psychiatrist to know if you can be a candidate if not, an excellent candidate for this method.
Unlike the Roux-en-Y surgery, laparoscopic surgery is performed by creating small incisions and inserting tube-like instruments through it. In order for the surgeon to get a better view of your abdomen, it will be filled with gas during the surgery. One of the tubes to be inserted inside the incision will be equipped with a small camera at its tip to display the inside of the abdomen at the monitor. Through this procedure, your surgeon will be free to work inside your abdomen without making a large incision. The procedure would usually last for 30 minutes.
For the comfort of future patients, the surgery is done under general anesthesia. This would mean that the surgery will take place while the patient is asleep. There are two ways by which the analgesics can be given to the patient. One is through the form of a gas which the patient will inhale, or through the IV or intravenous line to keep you from waking up while the surgeons perform the surgery.
Weight loss is made possible in this surgery not by creating a small pouch, but by stapling the stomach into a tube on the less curved side of the stomach which is then attached to the lower end of the intestines.
A tube is passed through your nose to the upper part of your stomach pouch during the surgery. This tube usually stays overnight. After the surgery, this tube is attached to a suction machine which keeps your stomach empty or so to allow the staple line to heal while your body recovers.
Not that this method is not recommended but the patients must be at their top medical condition if they are to avail of this procedure. Also, they must have tried and failed significant diet and exercise approaches to weight loss. Patients who have high blood pressure or diabetes should be under medication if they are to undergo this surgery. Candidates for this surgery should have had a comprehensive conversation about the nutritional issues and commitments that would be crucial to follow after the surgery to assure the patient full recovery. The patient must also be psychologically stable, meaning his or her psychological status is optimized.
