The Gastric Band

What exactly is a gastric band, and can it help you? The weight loss battle has been fought for centuries, with most people coming out on the side of defeat. Changing your eating habits and exercising seem to be a too hard a task for many people who have become obese. This is due to many reasons, from constant and regular overeating, bad food choices, inability to exercise because of physical restrictions (bad knees, bad back, etc), and a variety of emotional connections with food that cause an addiction, in many ways
The gastric band is a silicone ring used to go around the top portion of the stomach. This ring restricts the amount of food a person is able to take in at one time by creating a small pouch at the top of the stomach. That way you can't eat a lot of food because there's literally no room for it, so weight loss should be easier. The ring is tightened using a saline solution, and will need to be refilled periodically to make sure you have an appropriate restriction level.

Bariatric Surgeons

Bariatric surgeons in Europe and Australia have been performing gastric band surgery to assist people in the fight against morbid obesity for many years. But the FDA just approved the system in the United States in June of 2001. Some of the common risks include nausea and vomiting, heartburn, possible slippage of the ring, or possible erosion of the stomach lining.

Many bariatric surgeons do not favor the gastric band as highly as the bariatric bypass. The band requires no re-routing of the intestines, no stapling/cutting of the stomach, less overall complications post surgery, a lower risk of death as compared to the bypass, and it can be reversed fairly easy. For these reasons many people suffering from morbid obesity find the banding option safer and more favorable.

Weight Loss

Banding patients do not lose as much weight as bypass patients, initially. That is one of the reasons why many bariatric surgeons prefer the bypass surgery. It is more restrictive, and the side effects of eating too much, or too fast, are worsened. And though they don't include this fact in their reasoning, the bariatric bypass surgeries cost much more money than the banding procedures. That is why it is so important for you to ultimately decide on the weight loss option you can live with.

All weight loss operations should be used as tools to assist you in losing weight; they do not work by themselves. You still have to change your eating habits, make better food choices, and get some form of exercise on a regular basis.

Sources: www.fda.gov/cdrh/mda/docs/p000008.html

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