What is Lap Band Surgery?

Why lap band surgery is needed?

When there is a craze for food after exceeding the permissible weight limit, then usually dieting is prescribed. But eating less amount of food does not satisfy the food craving, in most of the cases, so an alternative is to besearched for that.

The alternative that one can think of is to reduce the stomach size so that one feels full after eating a certain amount. That is exactly what is done with lap band surgery, wherein a small pouch in the upper part of the stomach is created.

The idea is to fill up the smaller upper pouch of the stomach to give a filled up feeling because it fills quickly with less food. Because of the narrow opening it takes longer to empty into the lower part of the stomach, which means that the next pang of hunger is delayed.

Placing the Lap Band

The procedure involves placing a silicone band around the upper portion of the stomach, so that the stomach gets divided into two with the upper part being a small pouch with a narrow opening to the bigger lower part.

A gastric band device is introduced in the abdomen through a tiny incision of 1 cm. The operation is performed under general anesthesia and takes about 30 minutes to one hour to complete.
The band is a hollow cylinder itself. It can be inflated if further constriction is required, and can be deflated if vomiting, obstruction, oesophagal enlargement, etc. happens.

The band can be inflated by a reservoir of saline solution positioned under the skin at the upper abdomen connected by a tube. Normally six to ten band adjustments during the first year is required for a patient.

Apprehensions and facts about Lap Band

Lap Band involves no major surgery of the stomach and no inside stapling. Adjustments can be done without further operation. When the objective is achieved, the laparoscopic removal of the band is possible.

The Lap Band reduces the size of a normal stomach of 1000 cc’s by 15 to 30 cc's which is about the size of an egg.

Weight loss is slower in case of Lap Band, than in gastric bypass. One can lose only 38 percent of excess body weight during the first two years after which the weight becomes static.

Weight loss is a journey. A journey is meant to help one through. This procedure involves less pain, less risk leading to effective treatment of the weight.

Who qualify for the operation

Though the intake of less food helps the patient continually lose weight, not everybody qualifies for the procedure. People who are obese and require controlling their weights from gaining dangerously exponential proportions are the ones who are normally given this treatment. Although the band can be placed permanently, still it is possible to remove at any time.

Apart from achieving a good weight loss curve, the operation is taken up in case of patients who continuously vomit making intake of solid foods impossible.

To gain an insight about weight-loss needs, the BMI Calculator can be used to determine the current Body Mass Index.

Post operation care

Advantage of the operation is that the stoma size can be adjusted post-operatively without any further surgery.

All surgical weight-loss operations require the patients to consume less than 800 calories of food per day during the first 18 months and up to 1200 calories per day after 36 months.