Gastric Sleeve Surgery

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The gastric sleeve surgery is a restrictive procedure. What we do is under laparoscopy and general anesthesia, we put some instruments to do surgery through a lens, a very thin lens and a camera. And we insufflate gas inside of the abdomen of the patient so we can look at the stomach, which is the main organ we’re going to change in a gastric sleeve. So we staple vertically, and we practically leave 20% of the stomach. This creates three things in a patient that has excess weight. Number one, we have portion control. Number two, we have also a sensation of feeling full. The number three effect of this surgery, and what I like the most about this surgery, is that on the portion we take out, we have some glands that produce a hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin hormone is an appetite hormone, and when we take out that part, there’s no connection between the production of the hormone in some parts of the brain that control and generate appetite. Here at our center, the actual surgical time is around 20 to 30 minutes to perform the surgery. Obviously, the patient will be in the OR for about an hour. All of the risks are less than 0.01%, so patients that are obese have more risk of having other problems because of their health. After surgery, you will walk the same day, go back to work also in a week. Just the only restriction, I would say, is to carry heavy things.