General4 Advantages of Gastric Band Surgery

Almost everyone has struggled with their weight at one time or another. A healthy, well-balanced diet and exercise often do the trick.

When obesity comes to a point where all other efforts to lose weight have failed, it might be time to consider bariatric surgery. Excess weight can cause some severe health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease,

There are three main types of weight loss surgeries:

• Gastric Band surgery involves placing a band around your stomach to limit the amount of food that gets in. The surgery only requires 4 or 5 small incisions to insert the band around the stomach entrance. The band connects to an access port below the skin. Through the port, the surgeon makes adjustments by inflating or deflating the band with saline. As the band inflates, the route to the stomach becomes smaller. This helps reduce the amount of food that goes into your stomach and makes you feel fuller sooner.
• Gastric sleeve surgery involves amputating about 80% of the stomach. Although it helps you lose weight because of the stomach’s limited size, patients who get this surgery can suffer from malnutrition and require vitamin supplements for the rest of their life.
• Gastric bypass surgery is the most restrictive of weight-loss surgeries. It involves cutting the top of the stomach off and attaching it to the lower section of the small intestine, bypassing most of the stomach and upper intestines. What’s left of the stomach is just the size of a golf ball.

Of the three operations, the gastric band has several advantages for patients who are hesitant about going under the knife.

1. It’s Less Invasive

All three surgeries are effective in increasing weight loss by limiting the stomach’s capacity, but the Gastric Band is the safest and least invasive of the three. It doesn’t require any stapling or rerouting of the anatomy.

Both gastric sleeve and gastric bypass surgeries use hundreds of staples to heal the body.

2. Shorter Hospital Stays

After a gastric sleeve or bypass surgery, patients will need to stay in the hospital for two to four days of recovery time. It could take a couple of weeks before they are moving around again.

Meanwhile, lap band patients are only in the hospital for one or two days and back to normal activities within one week.

3. Reduced Chance of Death

Although the risks of dying from bariatric surgery are low, that risk is higher in the more invasive, irreversible gastric sleeve and bypass surgeries. Gastric banding surgery has the lowest mortality rate of all bariatric surgery types.

4. It’s Reversible

Both gastric sleeve and bypass surgeries are permanent and can’t be reversed. Once it’s done, it’s done.

The gastric band is adjustable and reversible. It can change it as your needs change. If complications or problems arise, the band can be removed through the same incisions it was implanted.

Patients with the gastric band can lose up to 50% of their weight and typically lose about 1-2 pounds per week.