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Weight Regain: Is a Bariatric Revision Right for You?
Posted by: In: bariatric revision, Blog Post, COVID-19 23 Jul 2021 0 comments Tags , , , , , , , ,

By Dr. Seun Sowemimo, MD, FACS, FASMBS

Bariatric revision can be a weight loss solution to curb weight regain after covid-19
After more than a year of living inside, we’re finally opening the door and getting back to living life fully again.

But the unrelenting stress of Covid-19 caused some people to gain weight due to:

• Fear and chronic stress
• Indefinitely delayed life plans like weddings, school, vacations
• Financial pressures or job loss
• Worry about family and friends
• Limited access to fitness activities due to lock-down
• Battling Covid or caring for diagnosed loved ones

People who had bariatric surgery also faced these stressors; others delayed the removal or replacement of gastric lap-bands that no longer supported their weight loss.

If your weight gain is less than 25% of your maximum weight loss after weight loss surgery, call us to schedule a Back-on-Track appointment to discuss non-surgical options to take off the extra weight. Your solution may be as simple as scheduling nutrition visits with Lori Skurbe, our staff bariatric dietitian, and reviving a steady exercise routine.

But if your weight gain is more significant (30 pounds or more) or steadily increased even before Covid-19, a bariatric revision can jumpstart weight loss again.

First and foremost–Don’t beat yourself up about weight gain–it’s been an immeasurably difficult year for everyone.

The important thing is not to resign yourself to where you are right now but to take action and resume control of your health.

Prime Surgicare is a Judgement-Free Zone

This is not the time to be embarrassed or feel that you have failed. Obesity is a disease that can affect every aspect of your health and your life. It is a chronic medical condition that can literally determine your lifespan.

We don’t judge, especially after bearing the brunt of the pandemic.

Your Prime Surgicare team is here to help you–especially when times are challenging and you need extra support.

Since April, we’ve seen a steady stream of patients and new patients who are ready to battle back and lose the added weight. For people who have regained more than 30 pounds after a bariatric operation, revision bariatric surgery can be an ideal opportunity to reignite weight loss to get the scale moving downward again toward a normal BMI.

What is a Bariatric Revision?

Revision Surgery by weight loss surgeon, Dr. Seun Sowemimo of Monmouth County, New Jersey

Revision bariatric surgery alters or repairs a previous operation. Most of the revisions we perform at Prime Surgicare are for patients who:

  • Experienced significant weight regain
  • Experienced medical complications
  • Unable to manage the lap-band’s ongoing maintenance requirements (ongoing office visits)

These patients often opt for a re-sleeve or change from their original procedure to gastric bypass.

>>> Read more about how Alaina Garofalo Hickman changed from the lap band to the gastric sleeve and lost 100 pounds eight months after surgery.

Revision Surgery General Criteria

To be considered for revision weight loss surgery, you should have one or more of the following qualifications:

  1. Significant weight regain
  2. First bariatric procedure is more than 3-5 years old and/or is no longer performed
  3. Poor overall weight loss results
  4. Complications from the original operation such as:
  • Staple line compromised (Roux-en-Y).
  • Stomach has dilated over time.
  • Persistent vomiting or dumping
  • Ulcers
  • Slipped lap bands (see below)

 

Gastric Lap Band Slippage

In the past few years, we have helped many patients who eventually sustained health issues and reduced weight loss or significant regain related to their lap bands. Today, we no longer insert lap-bands at Prime Surgicare.

Complications can include:

Food Consumption Changes
You may notice a decrease in appetite, being able to eat more than usual or unexplained discomfort during and after eating.

Nausea or Vomiting
When the band on your stomach slips, it can be difficult for food to pass through. This may feel like there is food trapped in your prolapsed stomach, causing your body to want to expel the trapped food, leading to vomiting.

Acid Reflux
Feeling heartburn-like symptoms is a sign that your stomach acids are coming back up your throat from the stomach (esophagus). This can lead to chest pain, bloating, burping, choking at night during sleep and other GI discomfort.

Abdominal Pain
Some patients with gastric banding slippage describe it as “something isn’t right” in their stomachs. They can complete normal daily tasks but don’t feel healthy.

READ: Learn more about lap band removal at Prime Surgicare

If You Gained Significant Weight After Bariatric Surgery, Call Us

 

Let’s have an in-person talk where you bring us up to speed about your situation. Then, together, we will formulate an action plan for the future.

Contact Prime Surgicare’s bariatric team at 732-414-2707 to make a prompt appointment at or Jackson or Freehold offices to discuss your future weight loss goals and identify options that will help you achieve your ideal weight quickly and safely.

If you are new to bariatric surgery or need a refresher about the process and different weight loss surgery operations, register for one of our Zoom-based free monthly bariatric webinars for more information.

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Ten Years after Gastric Bypass: How Jessica Kept the Weight Off
Posted by: In: Bariatric Success Program, Bariatric Success Story, Blog Post, COVID-19, gastric bypass 14 Apr 2021 0 comments Tags , , , , , , , ,

The pandemic has made weight loss and weight management a challenge for all of us, including people who had bariatric surgery. Regardless of the procedure—lap band, gastric sleeve or gastric bypass—it is possible to regain the weight after surgery.

A few weeks ago, Jessica Berger Cruz checked in to let us know that she had just passed her 10-year surgiversary and had maintained most of her 150-pound weight loss since 2011. She kindly offered to speak with us and share her personal tools for long-term weight maintenance:

Jessica had gastric sleeve weight loss surgery performed by dr seun sowemimo

Jessica, age 24, before gastric bypass bariatric surgery (2011).

Jessica has faced weight challenges since childhood. Once she was an adult and ready to start her life, her size 24 body restricted her confidence to go after everything she wanted in life.

At age 24, she weighed close to 300 pounds and was out of diet and exercise options. “I had my whole life ahead of me and didn’t want to face it being so heavy,” she recalls.

She and Dr. Seun Sowemimo agreed that bariatric gastric bypass would be the optimal surgical weight loss tool to propel her mind and body forward to living a healthy lifestyle.

“I was inspired to have bariatric surgery because I wanted to live life, not just be living.”

Jessica Berger Cruz

Immediately after surgery, Jessica felt the weight loss momentum finally kick in and she quickly lost more than 100 pounds the first year after surgery.

“The program gave me simple tools to live by,” Jessica explains. “To this day, when I need to regroup, I go back to those steps to start losing again.”

Prime Surgicare’s bariatric dietitian explains Jessica’s success strategy

Lori Skurbe, MPH, CDE

Over the past decade since weight loss surgery, Jessica has faced several common milestones that can lead to weight gain and even obesity: marriage, having a baby, career changes, health challenges and the recent pandemic.

“Jessica sets a terrific example of what dedication to basic bariatric lifestyle principles can accomplish,” says Prime Surgicare bariatric dietitian Lori Skurbe, MPH, CDE.

“Eating healthy meals, drinking calorie-free fluids and consistent exercise are the essential keys to long-term weight management success.”

Facing the stress of Covid-19 and weight regain

“During Covid-19, I’ve been at home working and taking care of my eight-year-old, who is still not back in school,” she explains. “It’s been tough to get out and exercise and it’s also been a stressful time on both the work and home front.”

Six years ago, the paralegal was shocked to see her weight had crept up to 180 pounds during a doctor’s appointment. “I knew I had gained weight after having my son, but I didn’t realize how much.”

She immediately returned to her personalized Prime Surgicare post-op bariatric guidelines to get back on track and eliminate bad nutritional habits that had snuck back into her diet.

One of the key assets she turned to was journaling everything she was eating. “Journaling doesn’t have to be a permanent part of your life, but when you veer off course, it can help you see on paper the wrong things you are eating during the course of a day.”

READ: Why Journaling during Weight Loss is Worth the Effort

The extra weight steadily came off and today, she keeps her weight range between 145 and 160 pounds and a 6-8 clothing size.

“Taking off the weight I had gained made my clothing fit right again and I just felt more like myself,” Jessica explains.

Jessica in 2021, successfully maintaining her weight loss for 10 years.

“My mantra is ‘when you look good, you feel good, you do good!’”

Jessica Berger Cruz

Today, she shares her healthy eating habits with her son. A snack in the Cruz family means fruit or a whole grain bar and a treat is a sweet treat offered only occasionally.

Keeping fit with chronic back pain

Jessica’s low back pain restricts some fitness opportunities, so she relies on cardio dance classes, biking with her family and competitive daily step counting with her husband.

“At the height of the pandemic, I was doing laps around the house just to beat my husband’s number at the end of the day,” Jessica says with a smile.

Advice for future bariatric warriors

Jessica is a healthy living role model for her young son.

Jessica offers words of advice a decade after her own experience having gastric bypass weight loss surgery:

  • Identify your inspiration for losing weight and never forget it
  • Remember that you—and only you–will determine your success
  • You don’t have to give up your favorite foods—just eat them less often and in smaller volume
  • Follow the guidance of your team of bariatric experts who know the tips and tricks to help you lose weight quickly and safely

Prime Surgicare’s top 5 tips to avoid weight regain

Lori Skurbe spells out the tools she offers bariatric clients to achieve—and sustain—a healthy weight after any surgical weight loss:

  1. Enjoy healthy meals comprised of lean protein, non-starchy veggies and a healthy whole carb food, if you still have “room” in your pouch.
  2. Drinking 64+ ounces of calorie-free, caffeine-free fluids between meals.
  3. Consistent physical activity – at least 30 minutes most days of the week.
  4. Eating slowly and paying attention to signs of “fullness.”
  5. Take your bariatric multivitamins daily, no matter what.

Are you ready to tell your weight loss success story?

We would love to welcome you to our Prime Surgicare family and partner with you before, during and after your weight loss surgery journey.

To find out if bariatric surgery may be the obesity treatment solution for you, register for Dr. Seun’s next New Patient Seminar. Or, if you’d prefer to have a private consultation first, call us at 732-414-2707 to schedule an appointment. Feel free to ask our team of friendly bariatric specialists to help confirm your insurance coverage for metabolic syndrome treatment (bariatric surgery).

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Are You Having a Gallbladder Attack?
Posted by: In: Blog Post, gallbladder surgery, GI surgery 11 Dec 2020 0 comments Tags , , , , , , , , , , ,

Unless it’s causing problems, most people pay little or no attention to their gallbladders or what this organ does for the body.

But if you experience pain from a diseased gallbladder or gallstones, it will quickly command your full attention.

Our New Jersey board-certified laparoscopic surgeons have performed more than 1,000 successful gallbladder removal operations since 2007.

Gallbladder removal is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures.

A small organ located in the right upper abdomen under the liver, it stores some of the bile produced by the liver, which digests and absorbs the fats in the food that we eat.

Gallstones sometimes form inside the gallbladder and block the outlet from while the bile is moved out, which can result in considerable pain. In some cases, the stones may move into the bile duct, causing jaundice or an inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis).

If you are suffering from stones in the gallbladder, you may experience intermittent pain in the right upper abdominal region. The pain typically starts after eating and may be cause nausea, vomiting or bloating. Fever may or may not be present.

People who have severe symptoms from gallstones (usually diagnosed on an ultrasound) frequently have their gallbladder removed through a minimally-invasive procedure called a laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

Prime Surgicare Medical Director, board-certified laparoscopic, bariatric and general surgeon Dr. Seun Sowemimo, explains:

Read more…

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Do I Qualify for Weight Loss Surgery?
Posted by: In: Blog Post, Photo 25 Jul 2018 0 comments

Since I began practicing bariatric surgery 15 years ago, I have met hundreds if not thousands of frustrated people who could not lose weight — or keep the weight off — following traditional diet and exercise programs. Their struggle may have been lifelong, started after high school or having children.

To finally rid themselves of an unpleasant term called ‘morbid obesity,’ many people in this situation will turn to bariatric weight loss surgery as a surgical treatment for the chronic disease of obesity.
 

 
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