Obesity is a chronic medical condition with no "cure." Surgery is an option for severely obese patients who have significant medical complications ( co-morbid conditions ) from obesity. Bariatric surgeons consider morbid obesity a disease in and of itself. Surgical treatment would therefore be considered for patients who meet the definition for morbid obesity. Generally, the criteria for surgery is to be at least 100 lbs. (45 kg.) over ideal body weight. It is also appropriate to consider surgical weight loss procedures for patients who are between 80 and 100 pounds overweight (BMI=35 to 40) if they have associated medical conditions that are related to their obesity. Your genetics, internal hormonal imbalance, learned eating behavior and sublimal stimulation, especially through the media, are just some of the factors that must take the blame for why you are the way you are today. Psychological issues may have played a role in your life. Some of you eat because you are depressed but gaining the weight will only make you feel more helpless and depressed. Your overall health and well-being depends on putting a stop to this cycle of events. Surgical procedures for weight loss are based on one or both principles, restriction and malabsorption. Restriction controls the amount of calories or food ingested by limiting space. Malabsorption controls or reduces the absorption of food. Two operations recognized by the National Institute of Health for the treatment of clinically severe obesity are the Roux-en-y Gastric Bypass and the Vertical Banded Gastroplasty. There are also other variations of weight-loss surgery. Surgery to produce weight loss is a serious undertaking. Each individual should clearly understand what the proposed operation involves.

Our procedure of choice: Roux-en-y Gastric Bypass - RNY
With this procedure a portion of the stomach is sectioned off creating a small pouch for reduced food intake. The pouch will usually hold about one ounce of food or less, which causes the feeling of fullness after just a few bites. The size of the pouch varies with different doctors. The small intestine is then attached to the new "pouch". This allows food to pass through the digestive system while restricting the overall intake of food. The larger section remains connected to the duodenum and the digestive juices flow from it as usual. These sections are merged downstream in a "Y" configuration where the food and the juices come together for digestion. Common side effects are vomiting when the pouch is over filled, and "dumping", a syndrome that occurs in some patients where the unregulated flow of highly sweet foods passes into the intestine rapidly, triggering a sudden "dump" of insulin into the blood stream. Patients experience symptoms to varying degrees, such as cold sweats, abdominal pain, and vomiting. This is a valuable behavior modification aid that helps patients learn how to limit the consumption of sweets. This procedure has both food restrictive and malabsorption properties, and in it's "distal" form is much like the BPD/DS surgery. Because of this, nutritional needs must be met with a high protein diet and appropriate dietary supplements to maintain over-all health.