Hello everyone,

my spouse is getting ready to have gastric sleeve in a few weeks. Were going through the cold feet stage.

my spouse needs 10mg buspar & 15mg lexapro daily for anxiety & depression and needs this medicine to live healthy.

Will the gastric sleeve change the absorption of these medicines rendering them ineffective?

Having these medicines not work anymore would be a surgery deal breaker.

Any one have any experience with this?

I think that's more of an issue with bypass than sleeve, but I'll let other, wiser people respond to that - there are a couple of medical professionals on here.

edited to add that your surgeon's office would probably know that as well - I'm assuming they get these kinds of questions all the time.

Edited January 11, 20206 yr by catwoman7

Sleeve gastrectomy is not a malabsorptive procedure. The majority of your nutrients and medications take place in the small intestine, not the stomach. There should be no interference in the absorption of medications with the gastric sleeve.

However, when in doubt, ALWAYS ask your doctor/surgeon.

Ideally, you should speak to your psychiatrist about it. The surgeon is not going to be as well versed as a dr specializing in psychotropic medications.

That being said, one of the requirements for myself was psychiatric clearance before I was approved for bypass surgery. This topic should definitely come up as suggested earlier.

After the surgery, the medications I took were pulverized into powder to aid in absorption. In theory, I was supposed to continue to grind my medication for months after surgery. I got sick of doing that after a few weeks and found that the stomach could digest the pills just fine. (Definately not suggesting that anybody should be as careless as I.)

4 minutes ago, Bronte01 said:

Ideally, you should speak to your psychiatrist about it. The surgeon is not going to be as well versed as a dr specializing in psychotropic medications.

the OP might need to ask both. Yes - a psychiatrist is going to know more about psychotropic medicines, but the bariatric surgeon is going to be more familiar with potential malabsorption issues.

7 minutes ago, catwoman7 said:

the OP might need to ask both. Yes - a psychiatrist is going to know more about psychotropic medicines, but the bariatric surgeon is going to be more familiar with potential malabsorption issues.

Very good point.

19 hours ago, Spouse270 said:

Hello everyone,

my spouse is getting ready to have gastric sleeve in a few weeks. Were going through the cold feet stage.

my spouse needs 10mg buspar & 15mg lexapro daily for anxiety & depression and needs this medicine to live healthy.

Will the gastric sleeve change the absorption of these medicines rendering them ineffective?

Having these medicines not work anymore would be a surgery deal breaker.

Any one have any experience with this?

I took prior to sleeve and continue to take 20mg of Lexapro, consulted with GP and surgeon no issues at all for me

My surgery team never had me alter the form of medication. I was on pills and capsules even in the hospital. My psychiatrist made no changes and didn't feel any changes would be need to be made based on my surgery.

Your spouse is also on low dosages of those medications already so there should be no reason to make changes in regards to surgery.

On 1/13/2020 at 1:31 AM, Lbtnew said:

I took prior to sleeve and continue to take 20mg of Lexapro, consulted with GP and surgeon no issues at all for me

Me too! Never had an issue with Lexapro and sleeve and I “feel” when I’ve forgotten to take it because I start grinding my teeth at night, so I would know if it wasn’t absorbing properly.