The Intra Gastric Balloon is a non-surgical aid in the treatment of obesity. The Intra Gastric Balloon is a soft, expandable; silicone balloon placed inside the stomach via endoscopy (enters through the mouth and into the stomach with or without sedation).

The Laproscopic Gastic Banding is the least invasive of all procedures. An adjustable silicon band is placed around the stomach to create a small stomach. Small quantity of food can fill up the small stomach providing satisfaction/satiety to the person. Narrow outlet of this small stomach delays progression of food into intestine – person feels full for longer period. The size of the stomach opening can be adjusted by injecting saline through a button under the skin. Person is able to eat smaller meals at long interval.

Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy does not require disconnecting or reconnecting the intestines and food absorption is normal. It is a technically simpler operation than the gastric bypass. It is known to reduce hunger because hunger stimulating hormone producing part of stomach is removed. Unlike gastric bypass & gastric band, patients will feel full with liquids as well. 

In a Laparoscopic Roux en Y Gastric Bypass, stapling is used to create a small, upper stomach pouch leading to early satiety/satisfaction with small quantity of food. Essentially a large part of stomach & small intestine is bypassed, so that food & digestive juices mix with each other distally. This results in delayed & reduced absorption of nutrients & calories.

Find out more about Bariatric Surgery here. 

The next consideration was gastric banding, either Lap-Band or Realize Band.  I thought at first that this was what I would most want to have done, but I was never overly comfortable with the idea of a device left in my body, and the need to have fills done on a regular basis was a bit daunting.

In May, however, I attended an online seminar by Dr. Trace Curry in Cincinnati, and he discussed the sleeve gastrectomy and gastric plication.  I had heard of the sleeve but didn’t know a lot about it, and I don’t think I had ever really heard of the gastric plication surgery.  With the sleeve, the largest portion of the stomach is actually removed, leaving a narrow tube to act as the stomach.  With plication, the stomach is folded in on itself and stitched, mimicking the restriction of the sleeve but without actually removing any stomach tissue.  Better hunger control is reported with the sleeve, but it does have a slightly higher complication rate.  Both were more appealing to me than the band, except I wasn’t excited about the idea of cutting my stomach apart.  That just made me nervous.  On the other hand, plicaton was a fairly new operation – Dr. Curry had only done a dozen or so at that point – and that made me nervous.  On top of all that, the sleeve was half again as much as the plication (roughly $15,000 vs roughly $10,000).

Over the ensuing months, I did a little research into the 2 procedures.  By the time I got the email from Dr. Curry’s office in late October, I was pretty comfortable with the idea of gastric plication, but there was still a little corner of my brain that was toying with the sleeve.  When I had my consultation with Dr. Curry, however, he did put my mind at ease and even said he had chosen that option for his girlfriend’s mother.  All “mother-in-law” jokes aside, that did reassure me that he was completely comfortable with it.  He told me that weight-loss results tended to be a bit slower than with the sleeve and RNY but faster than with banding.

I have to admit, though, that all the way up to the time of surgery I was second-guessing myself.  One of the few people who posts regularly on the 1 forum I found for gastric plication had very little success, losing only 17 pounds.  Still, the overall statistics were reassuring, especially from outside the US, and I ultimately committed myself to gastric plication.

Next up, my actual experience with preop and the procedure itself …