Lap Band
Lap Band Gastric Banding
Are you considering Lap Band Surgery? The Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding procedure is a purely restrictive surgical procedure in which a band is placed around the uppermost part of the stomach. When the patient eats, it only takes a small amount of food to fill the top portion of the stomach. As a result, the patient will feel full early and will eat less.
As the name indicates, the band is adjustable. So if the rate of weight loss is not acceptable, the band can be tightened or loosened. Since there is no bypass with this operation there is also no decreased calorie absorption after meals. So even though patients will eat smaller meals, they will absorb all of the calories from those meals, unlike the gastric bypass.
Our experienced surgeons routinely perform this operation in less than 40 minutes as an outpatient procedure. Recovery time is 1 – 2 weeks. Risks of surgery include bleeding, band erosion or slippage, and port complications.
On average, patients see a 13 - 27 kg weight loss in the first year after surgery. Depending on weight loss, some patients with diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, reflux, and high cholesterol may experience resolution of these diseases after surgery. The band can be removed at a later date, making the operation reversible and a thus a good choice among the bariatric surgery choices.