Patient Testimonial / Gastric Bypass / Betty McCauley

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Gastric Bypass - Jennifer Pierce Reports 3 Years Later

-----------------JENNIFER NOW-----------------



"Best thing I have ever done for myself!" Jennifer exclaimed. It was my privilege to see Jennifer Pierce in the office three years after her laparoscopic Roux en-Y gastric bypass by me at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

She was very willing to share some of her journey.

She told me she weighed 267 lbs before surgery and now weighs only 155 lbs. She is near ideal weight and doesn't she look great?

"I now love to work out," Jennifer said when I asked if she is staying active.

She is much happier as you can see from her photos. She has more confidence in herself and is feeling much better than before her operation.

Jennifer's weight loss is a result of her strong effort to get her best result from her operation by staying active and making great choices. She lost nearly all of her excess weight in the first year after her gastric bypass but her weight has remained stable since then.

Great job Jennifer! I am delighted with your result and you should be very proud of yourself for what you have accomplished and how you have kept the weight off.Keep up the good work!

Gene Carey shares his success story - Pt. 1

Gene Carey shares his success story - Pt. 2

Finding "New" Things after Bariatric Surgery

Finding “New” Things after Bariatric Surgery

Last week one of my patients who had lost a lot of weight after her bariatric operation returned complaining of finding a new mass just below her breast bone. She was obviously very worried.

After I examined her I indeed noted a firm ½ inch hard rubbery mass just as she had described.

I explained that this finding is called the xiphoid process and is a normal anatomic structure. She was just now finding this for the first time because she had lost enough weight it was no longer hidden in the fatty tissue!

This is a very common occurrence. As a bariatric surgery patient loses a lot of weight, say 100 to even 200 lbs or more they are able to “find things” they did not even know they had such as hip bones, back bones, clavicles, tail bones and even ribs that they thought were breast masses!

Of course these patients are often embarrassed when they find out these structures were always there but could not be felt until they lost significant amount of weight but it is just part of discovering themselves anew.

Having bariatric surgery is truly a Fresh Start for many and a new discovery of the new you.

Losing Weight Prior to Bariatric Surgery May Help Obtain Your Best Result

Every week I see patients who have been operated on at other programs only to gain back much of their weight or disappointed with the amount of weight they have lost. Often people had their operation when their weight was considerably more than a BMI of 55. (That would be more than 355 lbs for a person that is 5 foot 7 inches tall.)

This is the message:

Gastric bypass and gastric sleeve operations help people lose weight for only about one year.

After the first year the operation is likely to help the patient to maintain their weight at about the same level but it is unlikely that they will lose more weight from the operation.

Whatever a person’s weight is one year after a gastric bypass or gastric sleeve operation is at 1 year after the operation is likely to be about near their best weight.

That is why we choose to make sure each patient is no more than a BMI of 55 prior to surgery. This can be done with dietary changes, medications and/or a physician supervised very low carbohydrate diet.

Shifting the curve I drew for you downwards, (note the purple arrow pointing down), before surgery is the way to obtain the best result after surgery.



The weight loss curve is about the same regardless of how much excess weight someone has. Although there may be the occasional exception, the most a patient is likely to lose after a gastric bypass or gastric sleeve operation is about 170 to 200 lbs. That means if you have 300 to 400 lbs of excess weight you are still likely to have 200 lbs of excess weight after surgery. This is why we encourage our patients to "shift the curve" downward to a BMI of 55 if their weight exceeds this number. Then after surgery they are much more likely to lose nearly all of their excess weight and approach ideal weight and resolve many of their obesity related medical problems.

These are the benefits of reaching a BMI of 55 or less before surgery.

Better results
Weight reaches near Ideal weight at 1 year
Better resolution of obesity related medical problems
Less complications
Less likely to need a tracheostomy
Less likely to need to need ICU stay
Less likely to have skin or muscle breakdown from being in bed after surgery

This is the bottom line:
Safer operation with better results

Posted by Stephan Myers, MD, FACS, Bariatric Surgeon, Columbus , Ohio

Outcomes of Bariatric Surgery at Fresh Start Bariatrics at Riverside

We continue to be transparent and bring you as much information as possible.

Below you will find the results of 277 bariatric surgery patients operated on by Stephan Myers, MD, FACS at Riverside Methodist Hospital. Each patient was seen in our office in follow up 1 year after their operation where the following information was obtained.

I would like to caution you before you make too much of this information.

First, there are only 25 patients who had a gastric sleeve operation and had 1 year follow up at the time these numbers were tallied. Therefore there is less certainty about the gastric sleeve results. In fact there are so few patients in several categories to make any conclusions. For example note that there are only two patients that had stress incontinence in the gastric sleeve category and both had resolution of this problem. More numbers will undoubtedly show many patients will not resolve this medical problem.

Second, there is a definite bias in these results since patients with diabetes and severe acid reflux most often choose a gastric bypass since this procedure is the most effective operation to resolve these problems. Therefore, patients with less severe diabetes and reflux often choose one of the other operations but since their disease is less severe it is unfair to compare the numbers between operations.
You are welcome to this raw information but please understand that this is not comparing “apples to apples” and this not statistically valid for comparison between the three operations.

Key:
LRYGB ---Laparoscopic Roux en-Y gastric bypass
Sleeve ---Laparoscopic Gastric sleeve procedure
Band ---Adjustable gastric band procedure
N= ---Number of cases in each category

Dr. Myers, how do patients that had a gastric bypass do several years after surgery? (Before and After Pictures)

Although it is clear patients lose alot of weight over the first year after having a gastric bypass, I was recently asked how patients do several years after surgery. I recently saw Twila at the time of a routine follow up visit and sh wanted to share her story with patients that are curious about the long term outcome after surgery. I follow our patients for life as long as they are willing to have our practice involved with there care. Each year we make sure they maintaining their weight at a reasonable level and to make sure their vitamin levels and other labs are normal. Twila is doing great and had encouraging lab results. This is what she wanted you to know:

"My name is Twila Senters and I had bariatric surgery Jan 16th 2005
I am doing great keeping my weight off, I started at 273lbs and I now weight 132lbs. I now have more energy, I dont come home and sit in my chair until bedtime now, I dont even have a chair now. I am always doing something, before surgery you could not get me out of the chair until bed time and the next day would be the same , work, home to chair and bed. and all of that has changed for the better. I never stay home if there is something to do, which there always is."

This result is not unusual for patients several years after surgery. In fact it is very unusual in our practice for patients not to do well long term. That is what this blog is really about. I am trying to share with everyone how they can obtain their very best result regardless of where they choose to have surgery. I believe the princilals we are sharing can help anyone be more sucessful. There is alot of noise and errors shared on the internet and although what I say others may disagree with, Our patients are doing extremely well and are very happy with their outcomes. This is not because I am a better surgeon. I believe it is the principals we teach our patients that meke the difference.
I just hope the effort I am making to share this will help more patients to do well.