In the interests of full disclosure I wish to note here that I (the writer of this section) have had the gastric sleeve procedure myself, and I know many people that have also had it. That being said, I will try to be as objective as I can be about the positives and negatives. In addition, before I begin, I would like to stress that the one thing that stands out for me on this subject, above all others, is the fact that everyone that I know that has also had the procedure have all had very different experiences. Positives 1) You lose weight so easily because you can only eat a small amount each time (approximately the size of a restaurant’s starter meal, or a child’s Happy Meal, without a drink, will fill you up). AND you also feel full for quite a while after you have eaten, preventing you from revisiting the kitchen. Therefore you do not even feel as if you are on a diet – you do not feel deprived of food because you do not want to eat more. 2) You cannot overeat (There is also a little of a negative in this one.) For those who struggle to restrain themselves from overeating this procedure is a dream – no matter how much you are enjoying your food you cannot overeat – you will either feel very uncomfortable (some people actually say that they feel pain), or you may even throw up. 3) You lose weight permanently (There is also a little of a negative in this one.) A few years after having the procedure you may put on some weight again if you eat unhealthily and fill up with carbs and sugar. BUT, your stomach will still only accept smaller portions AND you will not return to your previous over weight level again! 4) Your smaller stomach still functions normally, so you can still tolerate most foods, just in smaller amounts With other bariatric weight loss procedures, such as the gastric by-pass there are often a wide range of food that the recipients can no longer cope with – that is not the case with the gastric sleeve. 5) As normal stomach function is preserved nutrients will continue to be absorbed as usual in your small intestine. As your stomach functions as normal, and the direction of food – through the stomach and the rest of the intestinal tract – is not altered, digestion and nutrient (vitamins, minerals, protein, etc.) absorption will proceed as usual. 6) Your appetite is lessened The gastric sleeve procedure eliminates the portion of the stomach that produces hormones that stimulate hunger (ghrelin) and this means that the feeling of hunger is greatly reduced. Not only will this help you lose as well and help you maintain a healthier weight, it may also help you if you have an unhealthy/emotional relationship with food. 7) The symptoms of any chronic illnesses/life threatening conditions you may have – such as those noted below, will decrease in their severity because not only will you lose a lot of weight through having the gastric sleeve procedure, but the fact that it limits your food intake makes it so much easier to maintain a healthy weight: – Type 2 diabetes – and the numerous related health conditions associated with this disease(1) – Arthritis – Sleep apnoea – Hypertension – Difficulty breathing and lung issues – High blood pressure – Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(2) Not only will these symptoms decrease but many, such as type 2 diabetes(1) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(2), are often eliminated. Many that suffer from arthritis and joint pain see an improvement in their pain, mobility and quality of life, and have be able to reduce their medication dosage Many people with other health conditions (in addition to those mentioned above) that require mediation often find that they are able to reduce, and even eliminate, their dosages AND all of the above conditions bring with them many associated illnesses that are also reduced/eliminated at the same time. NB: If you do not suffer from any such health conditions at present, if you are obese you are highly susceptible to developing them in the future. 8) Decreases your risk of developing cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, and more It is a well accepted, and well documented, fact amongst the medical community that obese people have a much higher risk of developing such diseases. Getting rid of your excess weight, and maintaining a healthy size (which the gastric sleeve helps you do), dramatically reduces your risk of developing such diseases and many more. 9) You will live longer – the gastric sleeve procedure helps you reduce your risk of mortality by half of what it was before you had the procedure Those suffering from obesity generally live 10 – 15 years LESS than a person with ‘normal’ weight. In other words, if you are unable, for whatever reason, to lose weight and maintain a healthy level, you will live longer because of the procedure, and substantially so (thousands of people have been studied, and hundreds of studies have been published that show this). Even the major private health insurance companies, such as Medicare, cover bariatric surgery, especially that of the gastric sleeve, because of the health effects and long term risk reductions it provides. 10) Improved (physical) quality of life – more energy. Imagine that you had to carrying around a 10 kg/22 lbs bag of shopping in each hand, and another 10 kg/22 lbs bag on your back (total 30 kg/66 lbs) – up and down stairs cleaning your home, EVERYWHERE – because if you are obese, that is what you are doing right NOW – you are carrying that excess weight AND remember these bags are not on wheels! AND imagine the damage that carrying these bags of shopping is doing to your back, your joints and bones, the strain that it is putting on your heart, etc. etc. Now imagine you could put these bags down and never pick them up again – imagine your relief, imagine how much more energy you would have and how much easier it would be just doing simply, little things. Imagine the effects that this would that have on your quality of life. AND in addition to having more energy, you will also be more agile, and suffer from less aches and pains. 11) Improved (emotional/psychological) quality of life – having more energy, being more agile, suffering less with aches and pains obviously has a domino effect upon your emotional and psychological health. In addition, the smaller portions of food have a positive effect on your feelings of self control – even though it is actually the sleeve procedure that prevents you from over eating, you will feel more in control of your food addiction, because let’s face food addition is a problem that most of you (not all) are suffering from. This alone will give your emotional health a major boost, and this in turn will effect other areas of you psychology in a positive way. NB: We are not saying that the gastric sleeve procedure will solve all your emotional problems, but at the moment you may be feeling that ‘you cannot see the woods for the trees’, so by ‘thinning-out’ your problems, and eliminating some of them, you may leave you more able to work on others. 12) (For those that are interested) The effects of long term weight loss can increase your fertility – not only for women, but men too! In addition, those that struggle to carry their pregnancy to full term benefit from long term weight loss. Also pregnant women that are obese have a much higher risk of pregnancy complications – carrying less weight during pregnancy also reduces possible pregnancy complications. 13) The gastric sleeve procedure is done with minimally invasive keyhole surgery. This has many benefits over traditional open surgery, including – faster recovery time (with us you will spend 3 nights after surgery in the hospital, whereas in Britain you only stay one night – that is how quickly you are up and about. In fact you are on your feet three hours after surgery) – less pain after the surgery (and take it from someone that has had the procedure, there is no pain – you just feel as if you did 50 sit ups the day before), and – reduced scarring – less post-operative complications in general 14) Additional benefits of the gastric sleeve procedure other weight loss bariatric surgeries include less risk of stomach ulcers than there is with bypass surgery. The fact that the gastric sleeve procedure does not require bypassing the intestinal tract at all means that there is a reduced risk of suffering bypass related concerns, such as vitamin and protein deficiencies, osteoporosis, anaemia and obstruction of the intestines, etc. Negatives of the gastric sleeve procedure: 1) The gastric sleeve procedure does not deal with your unhealthy relationship with food (if you have one) – it does not solve such emotional problems. Physical weight problems are often so closely intertwined with, and inseparable from, your emotional issues that it is hard to see where one begins and the other ends. The fact that you are able to keep the weight off once you have lost it, gives you the opportunity to be more able to ‘see’, and deal with, any remaining issues. 2) As it is claimed that a negative side effect of weight loss bariatric surgery leads to nutrient deficiencies we have included in this section – BUT this is not true with regards to the gastric sleeve procedure. As discussed in the section ‘What is the gastric sleeve procedure?’, while the physical size of your stomach is reduced, normal stomach function is preserved and the direction of food – through the stomach and the rest of the intestinal tract – is not altered, allowing digestion to proceed as usual. This means that nutrients (vitamins, minerals, protein, etc.) will continue to be absorbed, as normal, in your small intestine. As you are eating so much less than you did before people believe that you must not be getting enough nutrition. BUT, if you eat: – high protein meals (fish, eggs, cheese, milk, chicken, turkey, red eat, offal, legumes, etc.), with – plenty of vegetables, – a little fruit, and – DO NOT fill up with carbs (pasta, potatoes, bread, rice, flour based items, etc.), NB: You do not actually need such carb heavy foods in your healthy diet – carbs are actually in all food (high protein foods, vegetables, fruit, etc.) in varying amounts, and this is enough for a balanced diet. you will receive enough nutrients. As your daily intake is so much smaller than you were previously use to, you just have to make sure that what you eat is full of nutrient goodness, and you do not fill up on ‘empty calories’. Those that become nutrient deficient do so because the food that they eat is low in nutrients, and this has nothing to do with the amount of food that they eat. 3) There are always risks associated with any surgery but that being said you have to balance this with the damage/risks to your health that your obesity brings you. Please read the section entitled ‘…..’ to get a clearer perspective on this topic 4) The possibility of a ‘leak’. As stated in the section entitled ‘Is the gastric sleeve procedure safe?’ . . . “a leak is where gastric fluid may leak through the line where part of the stomach has been removed, if healing along the staple line is not perfect. If leakage occurs, additional procedures such as a further endoscopy or surgery may be needed. However, the risk of this complication is very rare – 0.3% worldwide – in other words 1 person out of 333. Please remember that these statistics include surgeons that are inexperienced, surgeons those with lesser surgical skills, mediocre surgical teams, etc. The expert skills of a highly skilled and experienced surgeon, with the backup of a strong surgical team, will greatly reduce the probability of this occurrence to even smaller statistics.” 5) Pain – the $60 million question ☺ There is no actually pain from the procedure itself, and everyone that I have spoken to agrees with this What you feel is like a muscle ache, as if you have done 50 sit ups the day before, or you were bruised as if someone had kicked you. Everyone that I have spoken to agrees that there is no pain, it’s just uncomfortable. AND you are also on pain medication throughout your stay in the hospital anyway. HOWEVER, some people suffer from wind/gas that is related to the procedure From my conversation with others I would say that the change that you will get this is 50/50 – there is no way of judging you will suffer or not from this – it is just the luck of the draw! And, those that do suffer from it do so at varying amounts, and for varying length of times. I did not suffer at all from wind so I cannot relate to you my personal experience. What I can tell you though is the more you walk about (you will get up 3 hours after your surgery to walk about), the quicker the wind will shift. I personally had a bad headache for a few days from caffeine withdrawal, but the pain medication did help with this – this headache was actually worse than any discomfort I had from the surgery. So, if like me you enjoy your tea and coffee, my advice to you is to cut down your consumption a few weeks before your procedure, or at least change over to de-caffeinated. 6) Saggy skin – the more over weight, the longer period of time that you have been overweight, and older that you are, the more unlikely that your skin will ping back to its original mass and regain its original elasticity. The opposite can be said, especially the younger that you are, the more likely you will not have saggy skin problems. Although saggy skin is not attractive, you are more able to hide it with clothing. Whereas, although certain styles of clothing can make you look a few kilos lighter, but nothing can disguise the fact that you are overweight. AND, saggy skin is healthier than fat! 7) You cannot do any serious exercising for one month, and no stomach/abs work for 3 months and even then, work into this slowly and LISTEN to your body. Walking however is great, and you are advised to work up to 40 minutes sessions by the end of the first month. 8) In ‘the gastric sleeve price’ section, we discuss the fact you can recoup the price of your procedure from the money that you will save on food and drink. BUT, you will have to spend more money in the long term as you will live longer. AND, as you will feel so much better about yourself, you will want those outfits that you thought that you could never wear ☺ So, another negative is that you will need to buy smaller sized clothes. TIP: sell your bigger clothes on a second hand site (because you’re never going to need them again), and put the money towards your new clothes
