Bariatric Surgery

Gastric balloon placement is a temporary, nonsurgical procedure that produces a sense of fullness and reduces hunger. It can reduce 10 percent of total body weight over six months.

Your doctor places a deflated, lightweight gastric device — called the Orbera Balloon — in the stomach and fills it with a saline solution. The solution contains a blue dye that can be easily detected in the urine if the balloon breaks. The intragastric balloon remains in your stomach for up to six months before it’s removed.

It’s an outpatient procedure, so you can go home the same day and recover faster. Plus, no incisions are made. However, most insurance plans don’t cover gastric balloon surgery.

Gastric banding is a less-invasive procedure that doesn’t involve stapling or cutting the stomach. This surgery creates a small upper stomach pouch using an adjustable band. It reduces your appetite, limits your food intake and slows your digestion.

Your doctor makes a few small incisions in the abdominal wall and places an inflatable silicone band around the upper part of the stomach, creating a small pouch. The band is connected to tubing, which attaches to an access port fixed beneath the skin of the abdomen. The port allows adjustments to be made as needed. We use either the Realize Band or the Lap-Band.

The 40-minute reversible procedure is performed on an outpatient basis with no hospital stay needed. Recovery times may vary, but you can generally return to work and normal activities within four to seven days.

Sometimes, if you don’t lose weight significantly or become pregnant, band adjustments may be needed to increase or decrease the size of the passageway between the two parts of the stomach. You may undergo your first band adjustment approximately four to six weeks after your surgery. The adjustments are done without surgery and take about 10 minutes. As you lose weight, additional adjustments may be needed.

Gastric bypass surgery, also known as the Roux-en-Y procedure, modifies your stomach and small intestine. Every year, more than 100,000 people in the U.S. undergo gastric bypass surgery.

Your surgeon reduces the size of your stomach by creating a small pouch at the top using surgical staples or a plastic band.  Then, most of the stomach and part of the intestines are bypassed or rerouted by attaching (usually stapling) part of the intestine to the small stomach pouch. As a result, food goes into this small pouch and then directly into the intestines, thereby bypassing most of your stomach. So you can’t eat as much, and your body absorbs fewer nutrients and calories.

Your hospital stay is usually 48 to 72 hours. Many patients return to normal activity within two and a half weeks. Full surgical recovery usually occurs within three weeks.

Years after the original gastric bypass, some patients may regain the weight they lost, often due to an enlargement of the stomach pouch. Gastric bypass revision corrects or improves prior weight loss surgery.

Your doctor uses a laparoscopic approach to surgically restore the stomach pouch to the size achieved after your bypass. There’s no scarring. The revision surgery can help you to lose weight by reducing your ability to absorb food and calories.

It’s an outpatient procedure, which means you can go home the same day and recover faster. Not all insurance plans cover this procedure, so check with your insurance company.

The vertical sleeve gastrectomy — also known as the sleeve gastrectomy or gastric sleeve — limits the amount of food you eat by reducing the stomach size.

Your doctor removes a portion of the stomach, making it roughly the size and shape of a banana. Afterward, you’ll feel full after eating much less. Because the surgery removes the portion of the stomach that produces a hormone that can make you feel hungry, you won't want to eat as much, which helps you lose weight.

The average hospital stay is about 48 hours. Most patients return to normal activity within two weeks. Full surgical recovery usually occurs within three weeks.