Lap Band Surgery Health Video

Last Update: October 23, 2008

Video By: LIVESTRONG.COM

Lap band surgery implants a restrictive gastric band and is designed for obese patients. The gastric band is an inflatable silicone prosthetic device that is placed around the top portion of the stomach. Learn about the different causes of, symptoms of, and treatments for obesity in this video.

Views: 3,599
Comments: 2
Transcript of this video

Take Action

Exercise regularly
Change your diet & manage it accordingly
Visit your doctor to discuss lap band surgery options

About this Author

Dr. Davis is one of San Francisco's finest house call specialist physicians and has been providing house calls and office visits to the Bay Area since 2005. His practice is built upon the philosophy that excellent customer service and excellent patient care go together. Dr. Davis works out of a charming 100-year-old Victorian home, and he believes that healing should begin when you walk in the door. While trained in modern medicine, Dr. Davis also has a deep appreciation of cultural anthropology, the natural sciences, and philosophy all of which he integrates with his medical practice. Dr. Davis received his MD from the University of Florida and completed his Family Practice residency at Lehigh Valley Family Practice. He has also lived, studied, and traveled abroad extensively, including for one year in Beijing, China, where he studied and practiced the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture.

by BetsyWestie on July 3, 2008 at 6:53 AM

This guy is pretty boring! BUT I love my lapband. I have lost over 100 pounds and it kept it off for more then 2 years. Believe me I NEVER kept weight off with all the other diets and exercise I have done in the past. I look and feel great. Now I need to get busy and lose 20-30 more.

by jenbug71 on August 15, 2008 at 1:14 PM

I love my band too! I'm down about 70 pounds so far, with no re-gain!

I've even learned to love my plateaus. Gives my body a chance to adjust and prepare for the next wave of weight loss. Since the surgery, I've kept losing with only a minor gain now and then (2-5 pounds). It is the most amazing thing ever!

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JUSTIN C. K. DAVIS: Hi! I'm Dr. Justin Davis and today I'd like to tell you a little bit about lapband surgery. Now lapband surgery is a special kind of device that's installed surgically to help certain people lose weight. Now loosing weight is never easy for anybody but in certain instances when it's life threatening or causing difficulties in activities of daily living, it becomes necessary to take further actions to help you lose weight. There is something we call a BMI (Body Mass Index) that describes how much fat a person really has on their body. If you have a BMI that is extremely high or you have a BMI that is moderately high but you have other conditions, health problem conditions, then these are reasons why your doctor may consider suggesting that you have a lapband surgery. Now, what exactly is a lapband surgery? This is when a process called laparoscopic surgery, so a very small 2-holes are made, and a camera is inserted along with some other tools are used to put what's called a lapband around the stomach. This is a band that actually goes around the stomach and constricts it a little bit. Now the reason why we would do this to help you lose weight is that by constricting a stomach, it not only makes it more difficult to eat and one must eat a little bit more slowly thereby filling up faster, but it also causes you to have a feeling of being more full, thereby making you feel more satiated, meaning less hungry. So, let me tell you a little bit more what's special about the lapband. The lapband is unusual because of two things. One, it's relatively very easy to install. It's a 1-day surgery and has very few complications. The other reason is that it has a special device that actually comes on the outside of the stomach where you can inject it with saline which is just salt water which can cause it to either get bigger and tighter or cause it if its too tight to get smaller by taking out the fluid, and what this does is it allows some flexibility in how tight the lapband is and lets one to tighten it over time, as you get used to it, you can get better effects from it. Now, one that has lapband surgery, what you can expect is that over a period of about 18 months from having the surgery, typically, you'll need to go in and have the lapband tightened approximately 6 to 8 times and how much weight can you expect to lose? Well, there's no guarantee but typically people that have a lapband surgery will loose 50% to 60% of their extra body weight over a period of two years. Now remember as I said, it's never easy to lose weight. There's no magic cure so typically with the lapband surgery, you'll also still need to have dietary changes, exercise, and some behavioral modifications.