You’ve had a long standing issue with your weight, and the problem didn’t change when you had weight loss surgery. You’ve tried to keep the weight off, but the pounds have slowly crept back up when you get on the bathroom scale. You may be wondering if another type of bariatric surgery would work better.
At Turnquest Surgical Solutions, our board-certified bariatric surgeons, Dexter Turnquest, MD, and Victoria C. Chang, MD, perform revisional bariatric surgery for patients whose weight has ballooned since an initial surgery.
We can help you achieve your weight loss goals by correcting complications created by that surgery.
There are a number of reasons why you can gain weight after bariatric surgery. If you have a gastric band, it may have slipped out of place. Your gastric pouch is now much larger. Perhaps the outlet to your pouch has expanded.
Likewise, if you had gastric sleeve surgery, your stomach size may have gradually increased. Because you no longer feel full when you eat, you’re overeating.
Maybe your body’s hormones that regulate appetite and cravings aren’t functioning well. That may lead to grazing. You haven’t been able to stick to your plan of eating 3-5 small meals each day. Instead, you may be eating unhealthy foods throughout the day.
At Turnquest Surgical Solutions, we work with you to determine if revisional bariatric surgery is a good solution. We review your current habits including the amount of exercise you’re getting, what and when you eat during the day, and whether you have support in committing to eat healthily.
Perhaps you have a problem with mobility and can’t exercise as much as you should. Maybe peripheral neuropathy from diabetes limits what you’re able to do physically.
If you have a health condition such as high blood pressure or diabetes along with being obese, it’s important for you to lose weight, as you’re at greater risk for an adverse health event such as a heart attack or stroke.
Perhaps you have complications like those mentioned above from a previous surgery. If you’ve regained a significant amount of weight, can’t get your body mass index under 35, and have another health condition, we likely recommend revisional surgery.
We discuss the types of revision surgery that would be good options for you. There are several options, depending on the surgery you previously had and the condition of your health.
For example, if you had a sleeve gastrectomy previously, we may perform Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, where we create a small pouch in your stomach connected to your small bowel. On the other hand, we may perform duodenal switch surgery, when we remove much of the stomach and bypass much of the small intestine.
Stomafix is a minimally invasive procedure that reduces stomach volume significantly. A lap band redo may be appropriate. In a band over bypass revision, we put a flexible lap band over the stomach created from a previous gastric bypass.
These are just a few examples of the types of options that may be appropriate.
Weight loss from bariatric surgery requires a partnership between your surgeon and you. Your surgeon performs the surgery, but you also play a deciding role in whether you maintain weight loss. You must be fully committed to changing lifestyle habits.
Call us at one of our Houston, Texas, offices or book an appointment through our online portal today to learn about options for revisional bariatric surgery.
