What Is Involved With Stapling Your Stomach to Lose Weight?

Many people use diet and exercise to try to lose weight when they are obese. However, some people have great difficulty seeing any results from these methods. A person who is severely overweight may turn to his doctor for help when conventional methods fail. In some cases, stomach stapling may prove a viable option.

Function

• In stomach stapling, a doctor creates a small pouch in a person's stomach. The pouch is created at the top of the stomach, where it is sealed off from the rest of the stomach using special staples. Typically, the pouch is created to hold only a small amount of food at one time. To bypass the rest of the stomach, the surgeon attaches part of the small intestine directly to the pouch.

Features

• There are a couple of ways stomach stapling helps people who want to lose weight. First, the small size of the pouch makes a person feel full faster. Second, the small pouch makes it virtually impossible for a person to eat enough to continue to gain weight. Third, since consumed food bypasses most of the person's stomach, going directly from the pouch into the small intestine, a limited amount of calories are absorbed by the body.

Potential

• According to the National Institutes of Health, most people lose an average of 10 lbs. per month after stomach stapling, reaching a level weight about 1 1/2 years to 2 years after surgery. WebMD cites a study that puts the average amount of weight loss at about one-third of excess weight while MedicineNet puts average weight loss at two-thirds to three-fourths of a person's excess weight. Unfortunately, some people regain this weight after a few years. In fact, MedicineNet estimates that as many as 25 percent of these surgeries are not successful, leading to stretched pouches and continued weight gain.

Considerations

• Stomach stapling is done under general anesthesia.This means a patient is asleep during the procedure. In most cases, stomach stapling takes just a few hours to complete. Following surgery, a patient recovers in the hospital for about three to five days. After stomach stapling, it is necessary to eat very small meals. For the first several weeks following the surgery, patients follow a special diet recommended by their surgeons. At first, they may have to consume fluids only. Eventually, they move on to pureed foods and then regular, solid foods. It may take about 12 weeks to go from consuming liquids only to solid foods.

Effects

• For a few months after surgery, patients may feel tired and have body aches. This is a normal part of recovering from stomach stapling. If a person eats too much or too quickly, he may also experience vomiting or pain. In some cases, he may experience mood changes, hair loss and dry skin. These symptoms may occur as a normal part of the body's reaction to very rapid weight loss. Depending on a person's unique health status and how well he responds to--and bounces back from--surgery, he should be able to go back to his regular activities about three to five weeks after surgery. If his job requires heavy lifting or a lot of physical activity, however, he may need longer to recover.

Warning

• Stomach stapling is a major surgery and carries serious risks, including death. For example, death could occur as a result of a blood clot that travels to the lungs or problems with breathing that occur during or after surgery. Other potential complications include incision hernias and tearing of the pouch. It is even possible for the staples to break after surgery. Even after a successful surgery, a person may suffer from malnutrition, as his body may absorb too-few nutrients because of the size of the pouch and the fact that it leads to the small intestine. According to WebMD, about 5 percent of patients have serious complications after surgery. About 10 percent experience minor complications.