Description: Also called Bariatric Surgery, is a surgical procedure that will shrinks your stomach. It costs well over $20,000. It is a major medical procedure that makes over- consumption of food impossible, by drastically lowering the amount of food you can eat. The long-term side-effects of having such a radical procedure done to your body are not clear at this time due to the fact this procedure is relatively new as an elective weight loss remedy. A procedure like this should be reserved for the seriously obese with life threatening health problems. Reviews (17):

My aunt had it done Reviewer: Anonymous       08-28-2004 I will let you know if she ever comes out of her coma. She is also on a ventilator and one by one all of her internal organs are failing. Her family is miserable. She is full of infection. Please try something else.

GBS Killed MyMother Reviewer: Enchantra       07-23-2004 GBS was safe enough to kill my mother, plus it damned near killed a friend of mine as well. Ill stick to water aerobics, chromium, Kava, and naturlite.

In a nutshell Reviewer: Del       07-23-2004 The reason gastric bypass surgery works is because it restricts the amount of food an individual can comfortably eat. The resulting weight loss is caused by an overall reduction in calorie consumption, over time. Ask yourself this - if its just the reduced intake that causes the loss, why won't reducing my intake *without surgery* have the same effect? This is a great place for support and information if you're ready to make a committment to reining in your eating habits once and for all. If you have a significant weight problem, I would respectfully suggest that you are consuming many more calories than you think. Keeping a food diary for a week will help you find out just what's going on. If that's not the case, and you're living on lettuce leaves and breathmints and still overweight, maybe you should go to your doctor to rule out any weird health issues.

Will this work? Reviewer: Will       07-23-2004 Eating correctly for the rest of you life (assuming you dont have any particular endocrin problems) combined with exercise, is what will work. I have had people lose over 120lbs after claiming they followed every diet.

SmartAss Reviewer: Lisa       07-21-2004 I don't want to be a smart ass (okay, I do)...If you don't over-eat, why would you need gastric bypass surgery? Smart assing aside, the proceedure will work becasue you will be forced to eat only a few ounces at a time, depending on what type of bypass is done.

I am scheduled for gastric bypass surgery Reviewer: Jane       07-20-2004 I am scheduled for gastric bypass surgery in less that 2 weeks. I would love to hear from anyone who has had the procedure that could offer support and helpful suggestions in the recovery period and in the future. Please post or feel free to e-mail me at Ziagianna@aol.com thank-you

This is the truth... Reviewer: Jeanne       07-18-2004 A gastric bypass can be a very VERY dangerous procedure. I have seen what can happen to a person when the procedure goes wrong. I know of a 25 yeard old woman who spent 2 solid months in the hospital post-op. Most of it in a drug induced coma because of lesions in her intestines due to the surgery and the subsequent infection that insued. While in the coma, she gained approximately 50 pounds of fluid. She was on a vent for most of her hospitalization and as a result now has chronic lung problems. This young woman will NEVER fully recover from this excercise in barbarism (my opinion.) Suddenly, being fat and 22 doesn't look so bad anymore. I also know another young woman who had it, no complications post-op, and lost 150 pounds. The only problem she has is constant diahhrea, cramping, gas and bloating. I mean...CONSTANT diahhrea....every hour of every day. She plans her shopping trips according to her knowledge of the locations of public restrooms. But, sadly, she says it's worth it....she's tall and thin, left her husband and little girl..joined a band!!!!.... and dates a different man every night. I'm not making this up!!!

Stories Reviewer: kaylie       07-18-2004 I know five people who have had stomach stapling, and all are fat. Four of them ate until they stretched out their stomach huge again, the other stretched her stomach out a lot, but still vomits after every meal, or during her meals, sometimes three times if she goes to a heavy buffet. I know two others who have had the type of surgery where a portion of their intestines have been removed so that less food is absorbed, and they both lost about two hundred pounds in six months. Their hair fell out at first and they looked awful saggy, but THIN. VERY thin. I would think this would be the better surgery, but one of them said that this surgery is as dangerous and intricate as open heart surgery (and expensive) and someone else told me people who have that done often have health problems and have to have it undone. My doctor has been talkling about surgery too, but I dont think my insurance would pay for it since I am not disabled or anything (yet) and I am going to OA where the message I get is to just do my best and eat as healthy as I can today and if someone has a problem with my weight then its their problem. I am walking as much as I can as often as I can and eating no junk food and trying to eat moderate meals and snacks of good wholesome food and trying not to think about my weight, about losing weight, etc. , but more about how I can get the most out of life instead, and turning my focus like that is helping. I know one woman who came to OA (overeaters anonymous) once that had had her stomach stapled twice, had her abdomen tucked once and had liposuction about five times to maintain a weight of about 180. No thanks. I don't want to start carving on myself at great physical and monetary expense and still be fat. I would rather be fat and reasonably healthy and learn to love me the way I am.

My close friend had this surgery Reviewer: Carol       07-14-2004 My close friend had it in May and is doing just great. She has to stay on a restricted diet mostly eating proteins in small quantities and has lost over 90 pounds. This woman had been a successful weight loser 25 years ago when I met her and she tried to help me get on track at that time. But she blew up again when she got into a bad living situation and also suffered a disability as the result of a fall.

Here is my experience Reviewer: Peggy       07-13-2004 OK, here is my experience. About 20 years ago I had what is known as an intestinal bypass, which I don't think is the same thing as a Gastric Bypass. At the time I had the surgery I weighed around 285. I lost down to around 185, then gained back up to 200, which is where I've stayed. If my understanding is correct, which it very well may not be, a gastric bypass actually reduces the size of your stomach so you can't eat as much. An intestinal bypass shortens the length of your intestines, where food is absorbed, so you can eat as much but your body doesn't absorb it. I didn't get exactly the results I was expecting - I had a picture of myself as a size 6, cavorting about the beach in a bikini. (Which would have been a disaster, I sunburn VERY easily.) That didn't happen. However, I expect that I would now be about a hundred pounds heavier than I am if I hadn't had the surgery. I eat exactly what I please, exactly as much as I please, and my weight never varies more than a couple of pounds. Any bad effects? Well, because of the reduced absorbtion of liquid, diahrea is more or less constant. Some people who have had this surgery have to take medication to control this for the rest of their lives; in my case, it wasn't as severe and I have it well controlled. I didn't have to take medication even immediately after the surgery. And about eight years ago I had to have my gall bladder out. Increased incidence of gallstones is associated with intestinal bypass surgery. My doctor said that there was no way to tell if I would have had the gallstones anyway. A good side effect is a cholesterol reading of under 140. I have heard of this surgery's being done in cases of extremely high cholesterol just to control the cholesterol, even in cases where the patient wasn't overweight. My experience was quite positive, and I'd do it again if I had it to do over. But I know a young man (well, he's a middle-age man by now) who had the same operation and who had so many problems that he had to go and have everything hooked up again. The surgeon doesn't actually remove the intestine; he just cuts it in two places and then hooks the two cut ends back up, leaving a large section unconnected but still there. It IS possible to reconnect it. I understand that very few surgeons do intestinal bypass surgery any more. I think probably my experience wasn't typical - I didn't lose as much weight as some do, but I haven't had any serious problems either. The doctor told me to take a multi-vitamin every day, since the shortened intestine will lead to reduced vitamin absorbtion. I've been doing that faithfully and I have felt quite healthy.

Opinion Reviewer: Alexander       07-12-2004 With an experienced surgeon and surgical facility, the post-operative mortality and morbidity of gastric bypass is not worse than that of any major abdominal surgery on an obese individual. All surgery entails some risk, but you have to weigh that against the risk of remaining a diabetic. As you have probably been told, type II diabetes tends to be a progressive disease unless insulin sensitivity is restored. Even if you are not insulin dependent now, you are highly likely to become insulin dependent in the future unless you significantly decrease your insulin resistance (and the only way to do that is to lose weight). Once you become insulin dependent, it is more less inevitable that you will eventually develop diabetic complications, such as visual degradation (up to and including blindness), loss of sensation and motor control in the extremities, kidney failure and cardiovascular disease, if you live long enough. Depending upon how old you are now and how long you have been diabetic, this prognosis needs to be given serious consideration in making decisions about your health. Gastric bypass surgery has been shown to have an 80-90% success rate in completely eliminating symptoms type II diabetes.

Obese all my life Reviewer: Camorr       07-10-2004 I have been obese all my life and in a constant power-struggle over it with doctors, so it's no surprise that now that the Gastric Surgery band wagon is rolling through town I am finding myself being pressured by all-and-sundry to jump aboard. One more power-struggle to be engaged in, and in the process of girding my loins for battle I'm trying to research the subject. Only I'm having an hell of a time finding "con" stories - all that seems to be avail- ble are reams of information put out there by the very medical industry that has a warehouse full of goods and wants to move them. So... if anyone out there has had any kind of bariatric surgery (particularly stomach stapling), or knows of someone who has had such procedures done, I would very much appreciate it if you would e-mail me and give me the details, including: post- surgical complications; state of health before and after; what life was like then(health-wise)and what it is like now. As it's too easy to ignore the negatives when in a state of initial hopeful euphoria, I'm PARTICULARLY interested to hear from people who've lived with these procedures for a while - say, more than two years. Any help is GREATLY appreciated -

My advice to those considering... Reviewer: Richard       07-08-2004 I would urge you not to resort to surgical procedures. Nature designed your gastric system to work in a certan way, and if you alter it, there could be drastic negative effects on your overall nutritional balance.

My doctor Reviewer: Cheryl       06-30-2004 My doctor has subtly hinted in the past few years that my diabetes would get better if I could just manage to lose weight. I've talked to her about how many many MANY times I've tried to take the weight off but she just doesn't hear me. I even suggested she prescribe Redux or Fen-Phen (before it was taken off the market). She wouldn't because of the problems supposedly associated with them. She did, however, suggest GBS. Can you believe it?! I was so amazed that my mouth just dropped open. I asked her how she could suggest such a thing when she wouldn't even try the Redux! She said that GBS was very safe. Well, you'll all be glad to hear that I fired her. Gonna find myself a new doctor.

I feel wonderful after my surgery Reviewer: Chris       06-23-2004 I had a vertically banded gastroplasty about 5 months ago. To date I have lost 70 pounds and I feel wonderful. I can move without and my quality of life has been greatly enhanced. I have occassional vomitting...about once a month or so now. If you want more information I suggest that you subscribe to the Weight Loss Surgery Support Group

A family member had this surgey TWICE! Reviewer: Mack       05-29-2004 My Mother -in-law has had this surgery TWICE! The first lasted a few years, then she returned for further reduction. Horrible. She now can eat very little. It is annoying and embarrassing to go to out to dinner with her. She insists everything is 'too big' to eat. She will eat one bit of chicken a little veg. That's it. She always makes a big production that everything is too much for her. Then she gives the leftovers to my Father-in-law - not good for his health! She is now as thin as a rake. She is only 67, she looks 87. She has no energy, and she gets ill easily.

I had gastric bypass surgery done in Jan. Reviewer: Marianne       04-11-2004 Hi all, I had gastric bypass surgery done in January as a last ditch effort at weight loss. At one point in my life I weighed 520 lbs. What with some medical problems as well as the high weight, I just had to do something like this. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I have lost 64 lbs in 9 weeks.

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