Laparoscopic Adjustable gastric Banding
This operation limits the amount of food you can eat at any given time.
An adjustable band is placed around the top part of the stomach to create a small pouch above the band and a very large pouch below the band. Adjusting the band changes how quickly food can leave the small pouch. Once the food reaches the larger pouch the food is processed as normal.
Gastric banding does not work for every patient, and tends to work best with females, young people who love an active lifestyle, patients with a BMI below 45 and an ability to lose weight through dieting.
This type of weight loss surgery is less successful with males, older patients, people with a BMI in excess of 50 and patients that have found diets do not work.
After gastric banding, you are likely to need more than two band adjustments, which will incur extra costs.
The average weight loss between years 1 and 5 after gastric banding is 50% of the excess body weight, but this only applies to patients who still have their band (some patients need their band removing for one reason or another). In Europe the failure rate for gastric banding patients is often 30% to 40%.
Half of the patients who still have a band after five years will develop a degree of acid reflux (where acid from the stomach leaks up into the gullet), but this can be treated by band deflation and / or medication.