More and more people are turning to weight loss surgery as a means of perfecting the shape of their bodies.
Weight loss surgery represents a modern trend that seems to be snowballing into a bigger and bigger phenomenon each year.
When it comes to weight loss surgery, even a pandemic that caused the hospitals to be overfilled didn’t do much to stop it’s growth among people.
However, we are talking about surgery here, and a lot of people may have their concerns about such procedures.
There are many different types of weight loss surgery and we wanted to talk about the most common ones, before choosing one that is best for you.
At the very end, we will also try to briefly touch on the pros and cons of these surgeries and try to conclude whether they are worth it or not.
Types of Weight Loss Surgery As Explained By the NHS
Here are the four main types of weight loss surgery that are most commonly used:
- Gastric Bypass
This type of weight loss surgery is one of the craziest. Gastric bypass includes the creation of ‘pouch’ right where the stomach begins.
This pouch is then connected with your intestine. The way the stomach usually works, is that the entire food you consume first falls in your stomach and then goes to your intestine.
Gastric bypass makes it possible for some parts of the food to bypass the stomach and go directly to the intestine.
This means that less food will get into the stomach, making food absorption less efficient and less quantitative than before.
Gastric Bypass as a weight loss surgery works also as a means of making you feel full with less food. That’s one added bonus that this weight loss surgery has.
- Sleeve Gastrectomy
The second type of weight loss surgery that we will touch today, is also the most invasive one of the entire list.
Gastrectomy means “partial or entire removal of the stomach”. Only by knowing that you immediately get the idea what this one is going to be like.
Sleeve Gastrectomy is a surgical operation which removes a big chunk of the stomach and leaves the organ much smaller than it was before.
It is called ‘Sleeve’ Gastrectomy because of the ‘sleeve-like’ form that the stomach has after the surgery is done.
Sleeve Gastrectomies are some of the most common types of weight loss surgery that doctors prescribe or perform.
- Gastric Band
We move on to a weight loss surgery that turns you into a cyborg. Well, not really but the idea of a weight loss surgery that turns you into a cyborg was pretty cool to neglect.
Gastric Band refers to a surgery in which a band is placed around the stomach, at the top, where it creates a pouch. Very similar to what happens on a gastric bypass.
This band is connected to a small device. This device is capable of tightening or loosening the grip that the band has around the stomach. The device is usually placed under the skin, on the chest area.
Again similar to what we saw as an added bonus at the gastric bypass procedure, here takes front seat. The whole point of the gastric band is to make you feel full with less food, and remove hunger.
- Intra-gastric Balloon
The intra-gastric balloon surgery is the life of the party when it comes to the types of weight loss surgery. On top of having a fun name, Intra-gastric Balloon Surgery is also one of the least invasive types of weight loss surgeries.
Intra-gastric balloon refers to a surgical process which sees surgeons place a balloon inside the stomach of the patient.
The balloon is usually filled with air or salted water. The idea here is for the balloon to occupy as much place in the stomach as possible.
This will make you feel less hungry and also feel full more easily. Intra-gastric balloon surgery is less invasive but also has effects that don’t last forever.
In most cases the absolute maximum amount of time that one can keep a gastric balloon inside their stomach without changing it is 6 months.
There are other types of weight loss surgery but these 4 make up the most common and widely used ones.
What is the best weight loss surgery for me?
The best weight loss surgery for you is probably the one that you and your doctor decide it is so. It is very hard to say which one of these types of weight loss surgery is the best.
They all serve the same things, but the means with which weight loss is achieved is significantly different from one surgery to the other.
To decide which one is the best for you, a great starting point would be to weigh out the advantages of the surgeries, your needs and side effects.
Sleeve Gastrectomy is the most reliable and most fast method of losing weight. However, it is also one of the most invasive methods and it is an operation that cannot be reversed.
Meanwhile an intra-gastric balloon takes longer to show its effects but is much safer, and if mud hits the wall, you can just remove it and go back to normal.
When doctors decide what weight loss surgery their patient may need, they take into consideration a myriad of factors. Conditions, needs, and similar stuff.
So even though an intra-gastric balloon might seem like the best choice, it might just not be the right one for you.
If you are planning to undergo weight loss surgery, your doctor should probably tell you all about the potential risks and side effects that surgery has.
On top of that, most types of weight loss surgery come with added caveats, where once the surgery is done, you will need to change your life radically.
Also we should add that weight loss surgery is viewed as a last resort most of the time. Just like most surgeries, it is an attempt to save a life so to speak, when all other options are gone.
Most doctors will start with giving weight loss tips, general health tips. Go down this path long enough and you’ll reach the evil weight loss pills, and only after that comes weight loss surgery.
Unlike weight loss pills, weight loss surgery isn’t necessarily bad. It is backed by science and is usually carried out by actual doctors.
However, we would strongly suggest that you consider such a radical move only and if your weight is presenting an actual risk to your well being and even life.
Other than that, weight loss surgery should be something that you don’t need to be better. Going the conventional way of weight loss is our advice.
