gastric bypass surgery

My best friend wants to get gastric by pass surgery . I hear there are two kinds . Has anyone here ever heard of the two or had the surgery? I'd like information from those who have so she can know it first hand. They said if she had the surgery not only would she lose over 100 pounds but she would lose her high blood pressure , her asthma, and her type 2 diabetes. have you ever heard of this before too? I'm concerned for her . Can you give me information so I can tell her about it.

I used to work with a woman who had this done. I think hers was called a lap band (not sure of that though cos it was over a decade ago). She lost a lot of weight and was not overweight at all when I knew her. The thing she didn't like about it was that she could never enjoy meals again as she could eat hardly a thing. At lunch time she would eat a quarter of a small sandwich and that would make her full. Basically she had lost her love of food and she was not all that happy.

I have personally known people who have had both types and while some have a successful post-op experience, quite often, there are complications. One of which had hers taken back down and yes, she gained back all the weight afterward.

I also work for a health insurance company and have seen a different perspective on gastric bypass. In fact, there have been so many complications that employer groups are getting away from providing coverage for the procedure. In particular the lap banding type has caused some major complications.

But, at the end of the day, the individual should receive extensive information from his/her physician about the procedure and should only proceed after thoroughly investigating all the potential complications and deciding that it is worth the risk for themselves.

This site gives some very basic information about the various types of procedures. http://www.stronghealth.com/services/surgical/bariatric/types.cfm

She can search for more information on the internet by googling for information on "bariatric surgery".

Here's a link to a google search on COMPLICATIONS OF ROUX-EN-Y (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=complications+of+roux-en-y) which is the bypass procedure.

Here's a link to a google search on COMPLICATIONS OF GASTRIC BANDING (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=complications+of+gastric+banding).

She just needs to be aware that alot of these sites are trying to sell their services. So, she may get her best information on medical journal sites. such as this one: http://jama.ama-assn.org/

In fact, I searched for "bariatric surgery" on that site and this list of URLs came up:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/search?fulltext=bariatric+surgery&submit.x=8&submit.y=11


Good luck to her!

I used to know a young girl who was not dangerously overweight. Perhaps only 60 pounds overweight. She went through it, died, and left a beautiful little girl orphan.

Well, i have two close friends who have had the Roux En Y, and luckily did great from it. Nothing is perfect, but they were morbidly obese - one male, and one female - and now they are very healthy. They are over two years into their's, and can eat a full meal, but much smaller portions. He does not eat ANY sugar, she eats small amounts now and then.

I am thinking of getting the Lap Band surgery, and going to a seminar next month. I have been reading an online message board about it, and have tons of info and people's experiences...most are positive.

I will read the other sites given here too, tho. I think if you have many health problems due to your weight, its sometimes your only option. We all know HOW to lose weight, its just the keeping it OFF that most of us are unable to do.