News, Updates, and Blogs in Weight Loss

Help! I am regaining my weight!

No bariatric surgery has a 100% guarantee. Even the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, the most effective surgery, has an 80% success rate. We are offering a NEW endoscopic incisionless procedure to help restore the size of your pouch and opening.

Feb 28, 2009

Help! I am regaining my weight!

Regaining weight after gastric bypass? You are not alone. 80% of people achieve permanent and significant weight loss with improvement, if not complete resolution, of their obesity-related medical problems. But 20% do regain significant weight. Often people forget to adhere to an appropriate nutritional and exercise regimen and they return to old habits. If you find that you are snacking and grazing, drinking while you eat, gobbling up food rather than eating slowly, and eating high carboydrate foods and drinks then you really need to come in for an office consultation to allow us to figure out the issues and get you back on the right track. We will measure your metabolic rate, your body fat, determine your caloric intake goals, make some exercise planning and help you get back down to a healthier weight and lifestyle. Some people have an anatomic reason for regaining weight.

If your pouch has stretched or if the opening from your pouch to your intestine has stretched, then you have lost the restriction that allows you to get full on the correct size portion of food. Portion control is one of the most important tools that your gastric bypass should give you and if it is taking more and more food to fill you up, then something may have stretched. How did it stretch? We don’t know for sure but we believe that overeating over time may have caused this. Even though we make the gastric pouch out of the thickest, less stretchable part of the stomach wall, some dilation can still occur. Fortunately, there is a new endoscopic (incisionless) technique available to tighten up you pouch and opening. It is called the ROSE procedure and it has already helped many other patients around the country to get back on track by giving them back the restriction necessary to succeed. Are you a candidate for the endoscopic ROSE procedure? Are you putting on weight since your gastric bypass?

Does it take more than one half of a sandwich or a portion the size of your fist to fill you up? If so, then you might be. We would need to evaluate you both in the office and perform and endoscopy to measure the size of your pouch and opening. At this time, insurance does not cover the procedure but it is a lot less expensive than revisional surgery and financing is available. It is outpatient, involves no incisions and very safe and short term results have demonstrated significant weight loss. For more information, see the ROSE procedure at www.usgimedical.com and click on the box marked “spotlight”. Please contact our office to arrange for an evaluation and begin the process.