Anyone who has tried to lose weight through diet and most diets, who have tried acupuncture, medication or behavior modification, who has placed the gastric balloon and he has not succeeded, in the gastric band is an ally to keep fighting for achieve your ideal weight and protect their health and welfare.
The Adjustable Gastric Banding (Lapband) is a procedure to facilitate weight loss in obese patients. Involves placing an inflatable silicone band around the upper stomach, dividing it into two parts and reducing the capacity to a size of 25-30 cc. The new small pouch is formed in the upper stomach and controls limiting the amount of food that can be ingested once and the narrow outlet of the stomach increases the time required for the stomach to empty. As a result, patients experience a sensation of fullness and satisfaction with small amounts of food.
The subsequent reduction in food intake causes weight loss is set at an average of 0.5 kg a week. Keep in mind that losing too fast creates a health hazard and can cause numerous problems in addition, the main goal is a progressive weight loss improves or resolves health problems connected with severe obesity. Most patients may experience a loss of excess weight between 50-60% at 5 years follow-up, with regular medical monitoring crucial for optimal results.
It is important to consider that gastric banding can be performed only in patients who are over 18 years and weigh twice what they should or at least weigh 45 kilos over your ideal weight. That is, the treatment is done in cases of morbid obesity with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 40. It’s also important that the patient take more than 5 years with obesity and that during that time has made a significant effort with other methods to reduce weight.
One of the main advantages of this technique is that it is the only adjustable and reversible surgery for obesity, no cutting or stapling the stomach or gastrointestinal tract form leads to divert the normal digestion.
Being a minimally invasive technique (laparoscopy is performed), patients spend as much one days hospitalized and need a week to return to work and one month to six weeks to resume exercising.
After the intervention, the objective of dietary management is to protect the new stomach, dividing the food at intervals of not less than 30 minutes.
It will hold a progressive diet, starting with liquids and soft foods will then move to soft foods and overall diet to finish. In most cases, patients already eat solids at 12 weeks and assessed time to progression in individual diets, noting the patient’s outcome.
There are two stages that the patient will pass once the intervention:
- Adaptation: the goal is to decrease the volume and consistence of the food, from soft to normal diet diet. Thus, we can prevent the enlargement of the new stomach.
- Post-intervention: they re-educate the patient to acquire a correct eating habits, reducing the volume of meals. This phase will be less easy because the volume in the stomach is satiated before.
It is important to follow all medical advice to provide specialists to accompany the patient throughout the treatment. It is essential to eat small amounts and know when one is satisfied because if you eat more than they should, the stomach will act wisely and larger, are useless intervencón of the gastric band. It should be borne in mind that personal discipline in food is crucial to the success of any treatment of obesity.
Tags: Bariatric surgery, dietary management, facilitate weight loss, Gastric Banding, treatment of obesity
