Weight Loss Journey: The Comparison Between Surgical vs. Non-Surgical

Surgical weight loss is an option for people with severe obesity and serious health conditions such as diabetes, sleep apnea and heart disease. In this operation, a surgeon creates a shortcut for food by bypassing part of the stomach and the small intestine. It allows you to eat less and feel full sooner.

Non-Surgical Weight Loss Options

In addition to the three primary surgical weight loss options (roux-en-Y gastric bypass, adjustable gastric banding and sleeve gastrectomy), several non-surgical procedures exist to help patients with severe obesity achieve clinically significant and sustained weight loss. So, what are non-surgical weight loss procedures? These treatments range from balloon systems to endoscopic surgery.

One of the most promising recent developments in bariatric surgery is a minimally invasive procedure called sleeve gastroplasty or gastric plication. In this procedure, surgeons fold and stitch your stomach to decrease size. In conjunction with a healthy eating plan, it can lead to rapid and long-lasting weight loss.

Another option is AspireAssist, a device approved by the FDA in 2016 to assist with non-surgical weight loss for those with a BMI of 35 and above. Using an endoscope, your doctor will place this small, disk-shaped port on the surface of your stomach to help drain about 30% of the food you consume after each meal, which helps reduce your caloric intake. These machines are only for some. It shouldn’t be used in place of a balanced diet and regular exercise. It would help if you were committed to a lifetime of healthy habits for this to be successful. They offer a viable alternative to yo-yo dieting and extreme exercise plans that have failed many people.

Surgical Weight Loss Options

Surgery for weight loss is extremely safe and lowers the chance of significant health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. The most popular surgical weight loss operation is the laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. During this procedure, the surgeon creates a small stomach pouch and then staples shut most of the rest of the stomach. Then, the surgeon connects the pouch directly to the lower part of the small intestine. It allows food to pass quickly through the digestive system, so your body absorbs fewer calories. Generally, people experience rapid and dramatic weight loss after this surgery and find their medical conditions related to obesity, such as high blood pressure, sleep apnea and arthritis, improve.

Other surgical options include the vertical sleeve gastrectomy, adjustable gastric banding and malabsorptive surgeries that make you feel full more quickly or remove or bypass parts of the digestive tract to reduce absorption of calories.  Before surgery, your doctor will likely recommend following a liquid diet for a few weeks to help you lose weight and prepare for the operation. Afterward, it would help if you ate small meals and thoroughly chew your food. You will also need to take vitamin supplements your health care professional prescribes.

Surgical Weight Loss Recovery

Surgical procedures reduce the stomach size and limit how much food can be consumed. For example, gastric bypass surgery creates a slender stomach “sleeve” that holds only three to five ounces of food. This small volume of food makes you feel full quickly and satiated longer. After weight loss surgery, patients typically start with a liquid diet that gradually advances to a pureed or very soft foods diet and finally regular food by six weeks post-op. They must also take various vitamins and mineral supplements to ensure they get the micronutrients they need. It’s important to understand that weight loss surgery will not work if you don’t change how you eat and drink for life. If you don’t commit to this lifestyle adjustment, you’ll probably gain the weight you’ve lost back and maybe even have issues from the operation.

For this reason, it’s often a good idea to talk to your employer about whether short-term disability benefits are available to cover the recovery time from weight loss surgery. It will help to prevent you from taking sick leave or using vacation days while allowing you to recover quickly. It may be especially helpful for individuals who need to travel to a doctor or a hospital for surgery.

Non-Surgical Weight Loss Recovery

For people who are morbidly obese or have serious weight-related health issues that threaten their lives, surgical options can provide dramatic results in a relatively short time. However, in most cases, surgery should be seen as a last resort. If you’re committed to making lifelong changes in diet and lifestyle, non-invasive options can offer an equally effective alternative with less risk and shorter recovery times. Surgical procedures typically involve altering your digestive system by reducing the size of your stomach or, in some cases, rerouting the flow of food from the stomach to the small intestine.  For instance, non-invasive surgical procedures such as the gastric balloon are minimally invasive and require no cutting or stitches. It takes about half an hour to place a balloon filled with colored saline into your stomach, and you can go home immediately afterward. If you choose a non-invasive surgical method, you must adopt a healthier eating pattern and exercise regularly to sustain weight loss. You’ll also need to take vitamin and mineral supplements daily because you won’t absorb as many micronutrients from your food as before the surgery.