Laura England Loses 100 Pounds in Five Months!

BEFORE

Laura England had a laparoscopic gastric bypass five months ago and was seen in my office for her five month follow up visit today. She has lost 109 since her operation and only has 68 more pounds to lose by the end of her first year.

She says she has 100% more energy and looks forward to exercising. She even went shopping on "Black Friday".

She no longer needs to sit down while singing in the church chior!





Recently others living in her comdominium suprised her by celebrating with this sign:

Robotic Surgery Update

We have now completed our first 44 robotically assisted gastric bypass operations. I am pleased to report that our patients are doing well. We have had no leaks and no transfusions. Most patients are now going home the day after surgery. Surgical pain is much less and patients seems to be pain free on their first office visit after surgery at 1 week after the operation.

We have needed to dilate one patient who developed a narrowing between the gastric pouch and the Roux limb of the small intestine.

We now are completing the operations in 2 hours.

Call for Recipes

Have a favorite recipe(s) that has helped you in your bariatric surgery journey? We would love to hear from you! Sharing with us can help others in their journey.Feel free to share about your weight loss or other items that might be helpful to others.


Appetizers
Drinks
Salads
Vegetables
Soups or Stews
Fish and Poultry
Meats
Pastas
Casseroles
Desserts

Just send them to Kristi, one of our dietitians, at Run4sanity@yahoo.com. Kristi will do the nutritional analysis and we will share the recipes with our patients.

We would especially like to know your ideas of how to improve protein intake and use of non-calorie sweeteners!

Anthem Medical Insurance Company Approves the Gastric Sleeve

Today we noted Anthem changed their policy and will now approve a gastric sleeve for bariatric surgery patients who would prefer to choose this procedure.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies usually follow the recommendation of Anthem.

This ruling reverses the previous policy that stated a "Gastric Sleeve is an experimental procedure".

A gastric sleeve is now the second most frequently performed operation in my practice after a gastric bypass.

I have had the privilege of performing about 150 Gastric Sleeve operations. Our patients lose 78% of their excess weight at one year on the average and it is not medically necessary to take a multivitamin and calcium after this operation although it is still encouraged.

This operation is best considered for patients who do not have significant diabetes since a gastric bypass is more likely to improve or resolve diabetes.

A Bag of Calcium Chews Cost Grace $500!

I saw Grace Sexton in the office today and was startled when she told me a bag of chocolate calcium chews cost her $500. This is the story she said I could share with you.

Grace recently bought a bag of chocolate chews for calcium supplementation and placed it in a drawer at home. The chews must have smelled irresistible to her dog since he opened the drawer and proceeded to eat all 50 of them, wrappers and all!

That amount of calcium is toxic and chocolate is dangerous to a dog as well so off to the veterinarian they went. The dog was hydrated with IV fluids and his stomach was pumped. Five hundred dollars later the dog recovered.

This could be the most costly bag of calcium chews ever.