Plastic surgery has little to offer patients with obesity. Large volume Liposuction or Ultrasonic Liposuction may help but needs several operations. An option, for the highly motivated obese patient, is surgery on the stomach. These operations make the stomach smaller and reduce absorption of food.
Two main types of operation are used. The first maintains the normal passage of food from the stomach into the duodenum This is a vertical band gastroplasty. The second, called a gastric bypass, not only reduces stomach size but redirects the food and bypasses a part of the small intestine.
Both methods are effective. Most of the weight is lost during the first year. Bypass patients may lose up to 50% of their excess weight and gastroplasty patients can lose about 60-70%.
Not everyone responds well, but about 80-90% can expect major weight loss.
After stomach surgery about 10% of patients request cosmetic surgery to remove folds of skin or other problems. This type of surgery is not performed until the patient has lost the maximum amount of weight. This is usually about a year or so after the gastric surgery. After some weight loss operations malnutrition is a problem, so before body contouring surgery they may need nutritional support.
liposuction • breast augmentation • breast tightening • breast reduction • gynecomastia • abdominoplasty