Initial Recovery
Most lap-band surgery patients are able to return to work within a week and encounter few problems. People recovering from lab-band surgery must follow a careful diet, determined and approved by the surgeon and a nutritionist. Vitamin supplements may be required due to dietary limitations. A liquid diet is initially followed for a few weeks until soft foods (such as pureed food, pudding or baby food) can be tolerated; after a longer period of time (two weeks after the soft foods have began, or four to five weeks after the initial surgery), solids are gradually introduced. The speed with which solid foods can be incorporated into the diet will vary from patient to patient, depending on how well each tolerates it. The surgeon recommends an exercise regimen as well as behavior modification techniques to aid weight loss and help patients adjust to a smaller gastric area that does not allow for consumption of large meals.
Follow-up Visits
A patient must make several follow-up visits to his surgeon to ensure that there are no complications from the surgery and to adjust the lap-band as necessary. Physician visits after lap-band surgery generally occur between six and eight times over the course of the 18 months after the surgery; most of these visits are of short duration. An average of 50 to 60 percent of excess weight is lost in the two years following the procedure. Additional plastic surgery procedures may be required depending on the amount of weight lost.
Complications
Lap-band surgery is generally safe, but there are some complications from the surgery that prolong recovery time or require additional operations. As with most surgeries there is the risk of infection of the surgical site, as well as bleeding from damaged blood vessels. A more specific complication is the possibility of the lap-band slipping: The stomach can slip above the band as weight is lost, leading to vomiting and heartburn. This complication requires a corrective procedure. There may also be problems relating to the band not deflating, the band blocking the stomach's outlet or the stomach pouch becoming abnormally large; these also require additional procedures and prolong recovery.
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