Obesity Surgery Complications
Quick-fix solutions are a sure-fire way to encounter future problems, something doctors are finding to be especially true when it comes to the quickest weight loss fix of all: obesity surgery.
A recent federal study has shown that 40 percent of obesity surgery patients suffer from complications within six months after the surgery. And 18 percent of those patients wind up back in the hospital.
A 40 percent complication rate is between two and three times higher than that of most surgeries.
It just goes to show that when you opt for the quick fix, you're bound to encounter problems. And some of those problems suffered by obesity surgery patients include:
Vomiting, reflux, and diarrhea (20 percent of patients)
Leakage at the point where doctors surgically join the stomach and intestine (12 percent)
Abdominal hernias (7 percent)
Infections (6 percent)
Pneumonia (4 percent)
Of course insurance companies usually won't pay for weight loss surgeries unless the patient is morbidly obese, and their weight is already putting them at a high risk of death or disease. And most doctors are very careful about only performing the surgery on patients who genuinely need it. (The usual criteria include a person with a body mass index of 40 percent and failure to lose weight through other means. To get a better picture of who might have a 40 percent BMI, imagine a 5-foot-tall person who weighs 205 pounds.)
But, unfortunately, even though medical providers and insurers are strict, there are still patients who slip through the cracks and manage to get the surgery even when they would probably benefit more from diet and exercise.
Oh, and there's another problem with this procedure: Getting it done doesn't mean a patient will start eating maintaining a healthy diet.
In fact, too many patients get this surgery done and continue to eat the unhealthy junk foods that caused the problem in the first place. They just can't eat as much of it, and what they do eat passes through them at a much quicker pace.
And, no matter how skinny you are, a diet full of junk food and trans fats will still guarantee a lifetime of health problems.
