Bariatric Surgery: What Happens Next
Approximately one out of three children is considered overweight or abuse and two out of three adults suffer the same affliction. Bariatric surgery is a way to compensate for the extra pounds. It allows patients to be an average of 100 pounds lighter. This means that if you had the surgery, you could be healthier than ever before.
Benefits of Bariatric Surgery
There are a lot of benefits to the bariatric surgery. In about 85% of patients, sleep apnea is eliminated and in about 76%, Type 2 diabetes goes into remission. Depending on your own personal levels of health, you may be able to say goodbye to excess weight, high cholesterol, and even hypertension. If diet and exercise alone hasn’t been enough to lose the weight, surgery may be the answer.
One problem is commonly replaced with another, however. Loose skin is seen with bariatric patients because the body loses all of the weight so fast that the skin does not have a chance to snap back into place. The skin is often so stretched out that it cannot do so – which means that you may have to look into plastic surgery in order to remove this skin.
Drawbacks of Foregoing Surgery
You could leave the skin in place, however it can cause a number of infections – bacterial, viral, and fungal. It can also lead to a poor body image, back pain, and ultimately depression. A body lift is done in one treatment that takes approximately four to seven hours. There is then a three to six week recovery.
Poor fitting clothes and sagging skin may not be what you want to deal with for the rest of your years following bariatric surgery. If you have loose skin in your abdominal area, buttocks, groin, and thighs, you need to look into the body lift as it is one of the few solutions that will allow you to enjoy the boost in self-confidence. You worked too hard to lose the weight – so it’s important to know what you are now up against.
After a survey by the North American Journal of Medical Science, those who wanted to improve their body image before the bariatric surgery had the same concerns afterwards- to the tune of about 65%. Reconstructive surgery is highly recommended as the secondary form of surgery to achieve all of your goals.
If you are going to go through bariatric surgery to lose the weight and be a healthier person, you might as well know about the true outcome. The loose skin that often results from the surgery can lead to health problems and body image problems, too. If you get the bariatric surgery, it’s best to plan on reconstructive surgery as well to ensure you get to experience all the benefits that can go with a “new you.”