Since 1994, there has been a significant increase in morbid obesity among adults and children in the U.S, and rates continue to remain high. In fact more than 35 percent of adults and about 17 percent of youngsters age 12 to 19 are medically diagnosed as obese. The incident of being extremely overweight led the American Medical Association to declare obesity a disease in 2013.
For many people, an organized regimen of diet and exercise does not bring about desired results. Oftentimes these same people have medical issues that further complicate this quest for a healthier lifestyle. Fortunately there is another option for those who are deemed a good candidate: sleeve gastrectomy or gastric sleeve surgery, a type of bariatric procedure that is continually evolving and maturing as a tool and intervention method.
Sleeve gastrectomy surgery promotes weight loss because it changes the anatomy of a person’s digestive system. This is turn limits the amount of food that one can eat and digest properly. This is just one type of procedure available at Surgical Healing Arts Center in Fort Myers.
Laparoscopic Minimally Invasive Surgery
One type of sleeve gastrectomy surgery that we perform at Surgical Healing Arts Center is laparoscopy, which involves the use of a tiny camera, called a laparoscope, that is placed in your belly. Laparoscopy also gives the patient advantages over “open” surgery because hospital stays are not as long, recovery is typically quicker, it is less painful, and the risk of infection or getting a hernia is decreased.
In this surgery, which take about two hours:
- First, we’ll make a few very small cuts in your belly.
- We will then pass the camera, which is connected to a video monitor in the room, through one of the incisions. This way, we can take alive look inside your belly.
- We then proceed with the sleeve gastrectomy.
Potential Candidates for Sleeve Gastrectomy
At Surgical Healing Arts Center, we work closely with each potential patient to help ensure bariatric surgery is the best solution for each individual. If you can lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off over a period of time by changing lifestyle choices such as improved dieting and exercise, then this may not be right for you.
Two of the major criteria we use to help determine if surgery is appropriate is using body mass index (BMI) and exploring a person’s health conditions, such as whether he or she has high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes. Please note going into gastric bypass surgery that you must be committed to ongoing exercise and diet in your daily life after the procedure — sleeve gastrectomy surgery is not a quick-fix solution.
Diabetics and Bariatric Weight Loss
Bariatric surgery may be particularly helpful for people with diabetes, another disease that the American Diabetes Association predicts will affect one in three adults by 2050. Even people with type 2 diabetes, or pre-diabetes, can benefit. Some of our patients in Southwest Florida who vigorously attempt to manage their diets, incorporate more movement in their lives, and faithfully take their prescription medicines have found it difficult to impossible to fight the disease. The life-changing solution for some of these people has been bariatric surgeries such as the sleeve gastrectomy.
Significant Results
There are some stellar examples of success among people who undergo sleeve gastrostomy surgery in Fort Myers. Some diabetic patients who had been taking 50 to 100 units of insulin every day for example have been taken off their medications because the surgery worked so well for them. As we tell our patients at Surgical Arts Healing Center, it is important for potential candidates to understand that bariatric surgery is like a tool to help lead them to better living. It is not a magical procedure that will let them of the hook of not caring for themselves. Instead, it provides a way to control their appetites, and along with healthy eating and regular exercise can make a world of difference.
There is much more to know about sleeve gastrectomy and other bariatric procedures.