Each of us needs to understand that despite the success of weight loss surgery there are not only advantages but also disadvantages to take into consideration. We need to make an  informed decisions before jumping into extraordinary weight loss measures.

The most common procedure today are gastric bypass surgery and lap-band surgery where the individual’s stomach capacity is made smaller. Following surgery food intake is drastically lessened and as a result we lose weight due to smaller food intake and the effects are quick.

The benefits can be enormous. Troubles with medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and sleep apnea are  reduced and often eliminated. Exhaustion due to high body mass is also lessened. The main benefit would be a more secure sense of well being which could result to greater opportunities for social interaction.

Despite the benefits an individual still has to take into account that because of lower food intake one has to make sure that daily nutritional intake remains balanced. While we find that we are generally taking less medications after surgery we will find ourselves taking more vitamins and nutritional products.

Like any other surgery, sufficient time is also needed for the body to recuperate and to adjust itself to it’s new condition. We eat the wrong foods such as too much sugar or pasta and will many of us will experience  what is known as dumping. With dumping we will experience symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. Dumping can be very painful and as such are awareness of it will often help keep us on track and eat the right foods.

Medical tests are required to ascertain if surgery is possible for an individual. Surgery could have serious consequences if sufficient analysis has not been performed.  Following my own gastric bypass surgery I had a complete blood work up 6 months and 12 months following the surgery. From these tests your physician is able to determine if you are getting the proper nutrients and if not prescribe what you need. Generally these tests will continue on an annual basis.

Individual lifestyle is also taken into account. If a person has not reacted favorably to weight loss programs the underlying reasons has to be analyzed. The mental health of the individual also needs to be tested. Does the patient have the mental agility and strength to meet worst outcomes?

Even after surgery I find that I often still have the tendency to cheat and eat the wrong foods.  This can result in weight regain if it becomes excessive. Having the support of other weight loss surgery patients will help you achieve and maintain your weight loss success.

Even prior to surgery it pays to attend seminars and to talk to other people who have undergone a similar surgery. Many weight loss centers actually ask patients to be involved in a weight loss program prior to becoming eligible for surgery. These are meant to allow you to be more at ease with what is to come.

While surgery provides a quick fix it is best to find out if such is your best option. A thorough and open discussion with your doctor is extremely important when considering weight loss surgery.

According to the CDC – Center for Disease Control a person is considered obese when his or her weight is 20% or more above normal weight. The body mass index or BMI is the most common measure of obesity.  A person is considered overweight if his or her BMI is between 25 and 29.9; a person is considered obese if his or her BMI is over 30. “Morbid obesity” means that a person is either 50%-100% over normal weight, more than 100 pounds over normal weight, has a BMI of 40 or higher, or is sufficiently overweight to severely interfere with health or normal function.

Weight loss surgery from lap-band to gastric bypass continue to grow in popularity. In the United States alone over 200,000 individuals a year are now having bariatric weight loss surgery. While these numbers are big weight loss surgery may or may not be right for you.

There are many factors that each person needs to consider when they are trying to determine if weight loss surgery is right for them. There are also a number of factors that your physician is going to consider to determine if you are a good candidate for this type of surgery.

A major factor is your current weight.  It is extremely common for a bariatric weight loss surgeon to require that their patients be at least eighty pounds overweight and have a BMI equal to or greater than 40. Naturally the same requirements are not going to be in place for the person that is 4’ 9” and the person that is 6’ 9”. If you are not morbidly obese you may not even be able to undergo a weight loss surgery.  That said, not being able to undergo surgery does not mean that you cannot lose weight as surgery is just one of the approaches to weight loss.

To be a good candidate for weight loss surgery you must also be able to demonstrate to your physician and yourself that you can lose some weight by healthy eating, exercise and traditional dieting. While weight loss surgery, like gastric bypass surgery or lap-band surgery, is a valuable tool it is just that and if you are not motivated enough to lose some weight without surgery you are likely not a good candidate for bariatric surgery.

Another factor that you should take into consideration, when determining if weight loss surgery is right for you, is your health.  If you are overweight, have health problems such as diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, heart problems, high cholesterol or sleep apnea surgery may be a good choice as is often corrects these health problems. For some individuals with these and other weight associated health problems weight loss surgery may be lifesaving.

The surgery that you would like to undergo is an important consideration in determining whether or not weight loss surgery is your best option. The two most popular surgeries are gastric bypass and lap-band. Both of these surgeries are used to create a smaller stomach. In simple terms gastric bypass surgery requires the stapling of the stomach to create a small pouch, lap-band surgery involves an adjustable or removable band that is placed around the stomach to create a smaller pouch. When deciding which weight loss surgery you should undergo, your decision will need to be made in conjunction with a healthcare professional.

Since weight loss surgeries reduce the stomach pouch size you will be eating a lot less. Failure to eat properly can result in this smaller pouch continuing to get larger and the patient actually regaining much if not all of the lost weight. For that reason, you must be willing and able to follow all instructions.

You will be required to undergo a psychological profile to determine if you will be a good candidate for surgery. Do you become depressed easily and if so how will this affect your success. Following surgery the attitude of most people changes for the best as their image of themselves and the way other people see them improves. For some individuals though psychological problems may result in depression and patients have even been known to become suicidal.

Age is also a consideration for weight loss surgery. Most bariatric surgeons have age requirements covering both those that are too young and those that are too old. I was just a week short of my 67^th birthday when I had gastric bypass surgery. For me it worked out great yet I was at or near an age where many physicians would not have performed the surgery.

Following weight loss surgery, like lap-band surgery or gastric bypass surgery, your healthcare professional will have you on an exercise and healthy eating plan that will usually include a lot of protein.  It is important that you follow all advice given to you. With weight loss surgeries that involve the reduction of the stomach pouch, an over consumption of food can be harmful to your weight loss, as well as dangerous to your health.

The information presented cover many of the facts that you will want to consider in determining if weight loss surgery is right for you. In many communities medical professionals will hold free seminars where these surgeries are discussed. I would strongly encourage each of you considering this surgery to call a bariatric surgeon or surgery center in your local and obtain more information. Once you and your physician have all of the facts it will be much easier to determine if weight loss surgery is right for you.

So what is GERD and why is it a problem? To an ordinary person, heartburn may seem normal after eating. One has to beware however, if it becomes persistent as it is the most common sign of the condition known as gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD. In GERD the food liquid taken in travels from the stomach and back up the esophagus, the tube that connects the mouth to the stomach.

Heartburn occurs because the partially digested food irritates the esophagus and thus, causes heartburn along with other symptoms. Normally, the lower esopageal sphincter closes off the esophagus from the stomach. In gastroesophageal reflux, the sphincter fails to close properly.

Intake of extremely acidic foods is one reason why GERD occurs. Eating too much or too fast could also contribute to the condition since in both cases, the food is not cleared from the esophagus fast enough. Often, the acid of the stomach contents simply overwhelms the esophagus and triggers the reflux.

Here’s why gastroesophageal reflux disease should be taken seriously. Once the stomach contents comes back up and touches the lining of the esophagus, a person may feel a burning sensation in the chest or throat known as heartburn. Sometimes, acid indigestion occurs – the acidic fluid reaches the back of the mouth. Take note that for heartburn to be considered as a symptom of GERD, it must occur more than twice a week.

Other symptoms of gastroesophageal disease are difficulty in swallowing, hoarseness of voice in the morning, sensation of choking, bad breath, sensation of food being stuck in the throat and persistent dry cough. Of course, a person will feel pain once the stomach acid reaches the esophagus. The acid triggers the nerves in the esophagus and damages them, leading to pain. If not treated properly, gastroesophageal reflux disease can complicate into conditions such as erosive esophagitis, esophageal strictures, Barrett’s esophagus, and worse esophageal cancer.

The good news is, gastroesophageal disease can be prevented and treated in very simple ways. One way is by avoiding foods that trigger GERD symptoms. Coupled with dietary changes, alteration of lifestyle should also be considered. Eating is, after all, a kind of lifestyle. Moreover, any activity that causes stress also increases stomach acidity. Even lack of sleep can trigger the condition. Keep in mind you do not need weight loss surgery to treat this disease. Correction of GERD is just another benefit of the weight loss surgery tool.

One may not know it, but shaping undergarments and other tight fitting clothing around the waist and abdomen can trigger an increase in abdominal pressure, which in turn causes GERD symptoms. Certain medications too exacerbate the condition. Thus, most medications are to be taken only after a person has eaten.

Besides a good diet and lifestyle, good posture and gravity may also help in preventing and alleviating gastroesophageal reflux. Elevating the head of the bed usually eases the symptoms at night, while sitting up straight aids digestion.

The problem of course is that we live in a society in which lawyers lurk around every corner just waiting to pounce and manufacturers of everything from a pair of socks to life-saving medicines have to cover themselves against being dragged into court.

This also applies of course to the manufacturers of gastric banding systems and to bariatric surgeons. So, faced with upcoming lap band surgery they will naturally have to present you with a long list of possible complications so that, in the event that you are unlucky enough to come across one of them, they will be able to say, “Well, we did warn you”.

Any form of surgery carries risks and when you are considerably overweight then these risks do increase. But just how serious are the risks and what in reality is the likelihood that you will succumb to them?

Weight loss surgery is undoubtedly getting safer everyday but, nevertheless, traditional forms of gastric bypass surgery do carry some significant risks and does from time to time result in death. Thankfully this is becoming rare, but it does still happen. However, when we turn to lap band surgery we see that this risk is considerably reduced and many people would say that your risk is no worse than that of being run over by a bus.

Lap band surgery has only been approved for use in the United States since 2001 and so it is still a little early to talk in terms of long-term risks but, as far as short-term risks are concerned, the evidence is very encouraging.

In initial US studies there have been no cases of death directly associated with lap band surgery and the risks of major complications, such as stomach perforation, have also been very low, at under one percent.

Lap band surgery is however far from a minor procedure and most patients will run into some sort of complication either during, or more often following surgery. Indeed, it is currently estimated that nearly ninety percent of patients will run into a problem of some description. However, in the vast majority of cases these problems are wholly treatable and often quite short-lived.

Common problems include such things as nausea and vomiting, regurgitation, slippage or deflation of the lap band and obstruction of the stoma (a blockage of the newly created stomach outlet). In some cases these problems can be cleared with careful control of the patient’s diet or with medication, while in others the solution is to simply remove the band; something which is fortunately possible in this form of weight loss surgery which is totally reversible.

Just like the patient’s information sheet in your pack of over-the-counter pills we could produce a huge list of complications here, together with all their accompanying statistics, but this would really miss the point.

You buy and take your over-the-counter medication because you want to feel better and because you know that, in many cases, if you don’t treat your ailment it won’t get better by itself and will probably end up making you feel a whole lot worse than you do now. Yes, of course there are risks, but they are really not that high and you are more than willing to take the chance to get better.

Lap band surgery is no different. Your obesity makes you feel lousy and you know only too well that if you do not treat it things are only going to get worse and obesity will end up being just one of a whole host of health problems you are facing. And yes, it is probably going to be something of an uphill struggle and it will probably make you sick at your stomach and give you gas, but is that really such a high price to pay to get your old self back again and to hopefully give yourself many more years of a happy, fulfilled and healthy life?

Talk to your doctor and weigh up the risks, but put them into perspective and weigh them against the benefits which can be very considerable indeed.

It’s not about body mass index or BMI, height and weight charts, or even how much you weigh. At issue here is your outlook concerning weight loss and the problem weight loss surgery can address.

If your hunger and focus on food is constant even when eating then surgery may be for you. Bariatric surgical procedures have been known to quiet the food monster inside many people. We’re talking about folks who, for whatever reason, think about food and have hunger pangs sometimes even when eating. Emotional eaters will need to recognize that food will no longer be available as a source of comfort and this can lead to other problems unrelated to surgical weight loss.

Understand that surgery has its benefits if the grand scheme of things is to lose weight. Many bariatric weight-loss surgery options like lap banding work to shrink your stomach. Some use laparoscopic techniques to place a band around your stomach that constricts the amount of food that you can eat at any one time. This band results in something similar to a figure 8. The top portion of your stomach is much smaller than the lower section, giving you a feeling of fullness with just a few bites of food.

Despite our many of our thinner brethrens claims that obesity is simply a lack of self-control, research has proven time and again that weight gain is much more complex. A person’s weight has as much to do with their emotional state and previous upbringing as it does with what is actually eaten.

Evidence of this can be seen in food selections made by people in highly emotional or stressful situations. It’s almost a cliché that a woman dealing with a recent romantic breakup will reach for chocolate or the proverbial chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

No weight-loss surgery can help with this type of emotional eating situation. It will not deal with your weight problem once and for all. Surgery is a tool to help you eat less, though it’s possible to out eat the benefits. Remember that the only true way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. This surgery works to help you eat less but it is possible to out eat its benefits. Staying on a strict diet after weight-loss surgery however is much easier to do.

In the end, if you are emotionally prepared to live with food only as a source of fuel then weight loss surgery may be for you. You should be encouraged to continue to do research as any type of weight-loss surgery is a life-changing decision not be to undertaken lightly.

If you are like me you toss and turn with such a major decision. It is agony as we bite our nails and pace the floor, hoping that our judgment is correct. When it comes to our health, it is even more nerve-wracking. One irrational move and we could be saying goodbye forever. So how exactly does one feel comfortable deciding on such a plan? With these tips, hopefully you’ll be able to sleep well tonight.

1. Research, research, research. The internet is an informational phenomenon. A library filled with tips, reviews and even support groups. You don’t have to get out of your seat to learn about the different options. For example, go to Google.com and type in “weight loss surgeries.” Gastric bypass surgery, lap band, and plastic surgery are just a few results that may appear. However, don’t take the information as the ultimate truth. Not everything on the web is 100 % true. Use it as a foundation and then consult a professional. The more knowledgeable you are, the more beneficial it will be.

2. Speak to a doctor. If you’re morbidly obese and it’s critical to your health, chances are likely that a physician will evaluate your options. Express your concerns – don’t be afraid to ask questions. Not interested in stomach stapling? Looking for a safe yet effective procedure? These types of questions will help direct you towards the best procedure for your lifestyle.

3. Join a support group for people battling the same issues. Speaking with others who share the same pains and everyday hurdles can be therapeutic as well as informative. They may have experienced weight loss alternatives or have valuable tips and tricks. Hearing honest opinions is always better than marketing spiel. Plus, finding a support buddy could make the process less painful.

4. Is surgery your last resort? Is it a one way street? Be sure to weigh your options. For some, weight loss surgery is not the only answer. Surgery must never be your first choice for it is a life altering decision. Consult a dietician for perhaps you only need guidance. Customized meal plans and exercise may be a better fit. Regardless of the method, if you put in the effort, you’ll get to the same destination. Losing weight and being healthy without potential complications is what you should be aiming for.  Surgery should never come before you have first tried other options.

Only after you have first tried other methods of losing and maintaining your weight should surgery become an option. Discuss your options with your Doctor.  For me the decision to have gastric bypass surgery has turned the clock backwards for I am filled with energy and truly believe that I just might live to 100.

As there are serious hazards of undergoing this form of surgical procedure, gastric bypass is decided upon sonly when the hazards of surgical procedure are diminished by the hazards of health that the over weight individual is presently facing. Should you be considering this sort of surgical procedure for weight loss, you will generally be required to suffer from health troubles that are triggered or made worse by having too much pounds. For illustration, it could be troubles in which diabetes has grown worse or blood pressure is greatly increased. By dropping the excess weight that you are lugging around, because of gastric bypass or another weight loss method, you will be better able of turning around or reduce the development of health troubles similar to these.

One thing you must also realize is that gastric bypass has to do more with preserving your life then improving your look. Various obese people realize that dedicated weight loss with any method is incredibly difficult and presents almost no instant satisfaction. It is very difficult losing even a couple of pounds, not to even think about the amount that most individuals thinking about gastric bypass are in need of losing. Through this system of weight loss, the body really does loses weight quickly, basically for the reason that you are not able to consume as much as you were capable of.

To provide you such positive health effects, gastric bypass for all practical purposes, splits the stomach in two. By separating the stomach into two parts, the lesser of the two is at the top, the individual will feel fuller faster, and will consume just tiny quantities of food. This is the end result of the stomach, after the surgical procedure being drastically smaller. Most of the people that have used gastric bypass will ingest more tiny meals rather then a one or two larger ones.

By means of gastric bypass you will truly lose a substantial amount of excess weight. So in the end, if you have tried to lose weight with other ways and failed to succeed, gastric bypass might just be the solution to your problems.

In the past the only surgical procedures available to drastically change the amount of excess weight a patient was carrying around were liposuction surgery and gastric bypass surgery. Both of these procedures carry huge risks and hefty costs. Many people who undergo liposuction and gastric bypass surgery die every year of complications. These are very serious procedures and have to be thought out completely. These procedures also cost tens of thousands of dollars and are not covered by insurance. Many of the people who need these surgeries the most will never be able to afford them.

One of relatively new options to control weight is the lap band surgery. Within the last decade the lap band surgery has become very popular. It is also becoming more affordable. Although most health insurance will not cover any portion of the costs of lap band surgery, it is much more affordable and less risky than liposuction or gastric bypass surgery. Like any surgical procedure, there are risks associated with lap band surgery but they are much less likely in this procedure.

In lap band surgery, an adjustable ring is placed around the upper portion of the patient’s stomach. This allows the doctor to control the size of the stomach and how much food the patient can eat at one time. The lap band is adjustable and can be changed at any time. This is one of the most attractive aspects of lap band surgery. Unlike the other procedures mentioned above, lap band surgery is completely reversible.

Drastic medical procedures such as lap band surgery are not designed for people who are only moderately overweight. Medical procedures such as these are meant for people who are seriously overweight or obese. You should not have lap band surgery if you are pregnant or have had serious stomach problems in the past. Most people will find that they can lose enough weight to make a marked change in their health by simply changing what they eat and exercising moderately.

Many people do not want to take the long hard road to permanent weight loss and instead opt to undergo a medical procedure like lap band surgery. My advice will always be to eat healthier and exercise if you want a healthier body. Although medical procedures can help control the amount of food you take in, they cannot control how healthy the food you take in is. It is always important to remember how much responsibility you have for your own weight and health.

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