Cut Down to Size

Weight loss surgery can change lives, but patients should be aware of its challenges and complications

By Christina Owens
CTW Features

For the, approximately, 66 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese, bariatric surgery is anything but the easy way out. Many, faced with the challenges of drastic weight loss and enormous lifestyle changes, turn to weight loss surgery. The most common forms, lap band and gastric bypass, have come a long way since "stomach stapling" says Nick Nicholson, M.D., medical director of weight loss surgery program at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano.

The surgeries, however, still present some amount of risk to patients both during and after surgery. Nicholson advises patients do a good deal of research before they undergo bariatric surgery. A good surgeon or program, he says, will have conducted at least 30-50 lap band and 100 or more gastric bypass surgeries. "The best advice is that this is the most important elective medical decision they'll make in their life," he says. "They should go to two or three different places get two or three different takes on it."

And while the chances of fatal complications due to bariatric surgery remain small (0 to 0.5 percent nationally), Nicholson says the biggest challenge for most patients presents itself outside the operating room. "I see that the biggest challenge in weight loss surgery is the post-op[erative] behavioral modification," he says. "I think probably the biggest misperception is that this is the easy way out or that this is some sort of magic bullet...The problem is that you can make that band [the lap band] as tight as you want, but people can still go eat ice cream and milk shakes. People need to be cognizant of that. And if they're not, they're not going to do really well with it."

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