Weight Loss Surgery Services
The Center for Bariatric & Minimally Invasive Surgery is committed to providing safe, high-quality weight loss care and offers several surgical weight loss options including sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass and biliopancreatic diversion. The Center for Bariatric & Minimally Invasive Surgery is accredited by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
PMC’s surgical weight loss department is led by PMC Bariatric and General Surgeon Amy Johnson, MD, FACS, FASMBS. Dr. Johnson is board certified and has vast experience, expertise and compassion for her patients which has raised the bar for weight loss surgery in the region. Her primary goal in surgically treating morbid obesity is to eliminate or significantly improve most medical problems affecting her patients.
The PMC bariatrics staff takes time to sit down with each patient to create individual plans and provide counseling. There are specific requirements patients must meet in order to undergo weight loss surgery which creates a need for bariatrics staff to talk with patients to identify whether or not they will be a candidate for weight loss surgery.
The Center for Bariatric & Minimally Invasive Surgery offers support groups for bariatric patients which encourages higher success rates. Additionally, patients have access to online and/or in-person seminars to aid them in understanding the processes, lifestyle changes and requirements for surgery.
Sleeve Gastrectomy
Sleeve Gastrectomy is a restrictive surgery that permanently reduces the size of the stomach by about 85 percent. This procedure is helpful for patients who wish to lose weight but have health conditions that make other procedures less safe.
During a Sleeve Gastrectomy, a surgeon removes the larger, rounded part of the stomach. The remaining portion of the stomach looks like a sleeve that holds 15 percent as much food as the original stomach, much like the size of a banana. This is the only bariatric surgery that part of the stomach is actually taken out of the body. Unlike Gastric Bypass, which changes stomach openings, Sleeve Gastrectomy leaves the openings intact.
Advantages
- Safer than gastric bypass for patients who have a number of health risks.
- The surgery cuts away the part of the stomach that produces ghrelin, a stomach hormone that stimulates hunger.
- Although the stomach is smaller, the openings are left intact and that allows digestion to go on as normal.
Gastric Bypass
Gastric Bypass is the “gold standard” of operations for the treatment of morbid obesity. The procedure is split into three parts: portioning of the stomach into two sections – an upper (small) pouch and the stomach remnant along with the creation of a Y-connection into the small bowel. The small intestines are essentially shortened, resulting in malabsorption, so there is less area for calories to be absorbed. It is the combination of the restriction of the new small stomach (holding approx. 15-30mls), and the malabsorption of calories that create such exceptional weight loss results.
Advantages
Long-term weight loss: About 80 percent of excess body weight is lost in the first year (which is typically quicker than banding results). Studies show that the weight loss stayed at 80 percent four years following the procedure.
- Recovery time is shorter: typically two days in the hospital, and 10 -14 days to return to full activity
- Gastric Bypass Surgery is more difficult to cheat, usually resulting in successful weight loss
- Ghrelin Affect (the hunger hormone) is greatly suppressed which makes patients less hungry