Is Weight-Loss Surgery For You?

If your excess weight is starting to cause serious health risks and lifestyle changes have not helped, weight-loss surgery might be for you

Phyllis Whymark has shed 135 pounds since having weight loss surgery two years ago. The operation ended her years of yo-yo dieting, which tended to pack on more weight after she stopped than she lost.

Read her story here.

Is your excess weight starting to cause serious health risks, such as type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure? Has your doctor helped you make changes in diet and exercise, but you still can’t lose the weight? Then weight-loss surgery at the Weight Management Center might be for you.

Board-certified surgeons at our Weight Management Center perform gastric bypass surgery—the most common type of weight-loss surgery where the stomach is stapled. Gastric bypass helps you lose weight in two ways. It creates a smaller stomach so you feel full faster. It also enables food to bypass the remainder of your stomach and part of your small intestine, so your body won’t absorb all the calories you take in.

Does it work?

Gastric bypass surgery is very effective for patients who are morbidly obese—having so much body fat that their health is in danger. You can lose up to 80 percent of excess body weight within five years. But it’s not for everyone. Like any major surgery, weight-loss surgery has risks and potential complications. You have to balance those risks against your health risks from obesity.

Do I Qualify?

At Lehigh Valley Hospital, eligibility for weight-loss surgery is based on body-mass index (BMI), a measurement of your body fat based on your height and weight. You qualify if your BMI is 40 or above, or if it’s 35 and you have additional health risks like heart disease or diabetes. You also will need a letter from your doctor, approval from your health-insurance provider and a psychiatric evaluation to pinpoint any underlying causes of weight gain.

What else should I know?

Lehigh Valley Hospital surgeons have performed more than 1,100 successful gastric bypass surgeries. They perform the surgery using just five or six small incisions instead of an open technique. This means you will experience less pain and recover faster. The surgery takes between 90 and 180 minutes, and you will be in the hospital for 1-3 days.

Our program provides you with education and support before and after surgery and is led by the area’s only hospital-based medical weight-loss specialist (called a bariatrician). Nutrition classes prior to surgery are key, because after bypass surgery, your stomach can only hold about 2 ounces. After surgery, you gradually re-learn how to eat, progressing from clear liquids through soft foods to solids.

The decision to have weight-loss surgery is not a simple one—it’s a lifelong commitment to diet and exercise. If you can make that commitment, the surgery can help reduce or resolve serious health risks caused by obesity, including high blood pressure, back pain, sleep apnea or type 2 diabetes.

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