Hi. I am currently waiting for insurance approval but met with the surgeon 2 weeks ago and I am a candidate for either surgery. I do not have diabetes but have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and sleep apnea. I need to lose 150 pounds. I am very torn as to which surgery to choose. My family has a history of colon issues so I'm thinking the sleeve might be better.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Michele

Minnesota

I'd have a long talk with the surgeon, he would be your primary source of information. My personal opinion is go for the sleeve. Probably the most common or at least one of the most common bypass surgeries is the Duodenal Switch, which is a sleeve plus a bypass. For people to fragile for the full surgery the sleeve is done first followed by the bypass or switch. So even if you choose the sleeve and a year from now decide you need more you can always do the second half then.

Setting aside the national statistics the really good surgeons are getting results with the sleeve alone that rivals many of the bypass options without the extra surgery or the re-routing of the intestines and the side effects that can go with that.

If I was 200lbs or more overweight I might have gone with one of the bypass procedures, but like you I had about 140lbs to go and chose the sleeve as a safer, simpler, easier procedure than the bypasses and I'm very confident in my choice. I'm just 15 days post op and between the pre-op diet and since surgery I'm already down 44 lbs or nearly 1/3 of my goal. Sure a lot of is the clear liquid diet and the weight loss will slow as I get to normal foods but at the same time I don't have any doubt I'll see my goal weight in a time frame similar to what I would have seen with the bypasses.

Agreed, discuss it with the surgeon. But my opinion is that no matter how heavy, the sleeve is a good place to start. No rerouting of the intestines, no mal-absorption issues. Plus with the sleeve, the stretchy part of the stomach is removed, and the grehlin-producing is greatly reduced.

The sleeve, while invasive, is less invasive. My father had 75% of his stomach removed over 50 years ago due to serious bleeding ulcers, very much like a sleeve. He lived many years afterward - nice and thin!