Gastric Band Surgery Is One Solution For The Problem Of Morbid Obesity
Despite the fact that the term lap band is usually used today when discussing gastric band surgery, LAP-BAND® is in reality the registered trade-mark for just one type of gastric band which was developed by a US company and approved by the Food And Drug Administration in 2001 for use in the United States.
Gastric banding, which is a form of purely restrictive weight loss surgery (meaning that it produces a loss in weight solely by restricting the amount of food which the patient can consume), includes both vertical banded gastroplasty and adjustable gastric banding. However, in the case of lap band surgery we are looking only at adjustable gastric banding.
Lap band surgery uses a silicone ring with an inflatable inner lining which is designed to be placed around the upper section of the stomach. The band is then joined to an access ort with a length of tube which is inserted just under the skin during surgery.
The positioning of the silicone band high up on the stomach creates a small pocket at the top of the stomach for holding food, with most of the stomach now being beneath the band. The positioning of the band also creates a small opening between the two parts of the stomach and the diameter of this opening can be varied by adding liquid (normally saline) into, or removing liquid from, the inflatable inner ring of the silicone band through the access port.
During lap band weight loss surhery the inner band is normally only given a slight inflation to produce a relatively wide opening between the two portions of stomach. Despite the fact that the term relative is used here it should be said that the new small stomach pocket and the opening between the two sections of the stomach are in reality both very small.
In the period immediately after this form of surgery, the inner ring is slowly inflated until a point is reached at which weight loss is optimized and the patient is comfortable with the frequency and size of meals that she can eat.
Restrictive morbid obesity surgery is often easier to perform than other procedures and lap band surgery is often done laparoscopically resulting in a reasonably short hospital stay and a reasonably quick post-operative recovery. This particular form of surgery also avoids the majority of the nutritional problems experienced with malabsorption surgery (traditional gastric bypass surgery in which food is re-routed through part of the small intestine). Finally, lap band surgery is totally reversible and the removal of the silicone band will result in the stomach returning to its previous size.