Persons considered for surgery must be carefully evaluated. Studies are performed to assess the health of the patient’s cardiovascular, pulmonary, and endocrine systems. A psychological evaluation is considered essential by most physicians to determine a potential patient’s response to weight loss and change in body image and ability for permanent lifestyle change. Nutritional counseling is also a must before surgery.
6. Find out what kind of support the surgeon's practice offers throughout recovery.
7. Request emergency contact phone number
All our patients undergo a psychiatric evaluation to assess their psychological status prior to the Gastric Bypass. It is a requirement for a patient to see a psychologist in preparation for the surgery.
The psychiatric evaluation in preparation for surgery is recommended.
An evaluation by your usual medical doctor will not fulfill these criteria. The patient should have a routine psychiatric evaluation to rule out significant eating disorders or other major psychiatric illnesses that may affect the results of surgery.
Patients with inadequately treated depression need to be appropriately diagnosed and treated prior to surgery. Alcohol and drug abuse are also relative contraindications to surgery. The patient must not have unrealistic expectations of the outcome of surgery.
You’ve probably dieted for years, and you may even know so much about nutrition that you could write a book. Why do you need to see a dietitian?
Well, denial is a part of recovery. A dietitian identifies the type of eating behavior you have.
She can instruct you on the major changes you need to make after surgery. As you describe your eating pattern and verbalize your relationship with food, you help to identify potential danger zones after the surgery.
Most people turn to food for support, stress relief, comfort, and many other reasons. Right after the surgery, your emotional or situational triggers cannot be relieved with large quantities of food.
Your surgeon will refer you to a dietitian who is familiar with weight loss surgery patients. This person is a valuable source of information for what you can expect and the amount of food you can eat after surgery. She has a wealth of information on what other patients have experienced with their diets. So be sure to pay attention during this evaluation. The dietitian will give you helpful tips on what types of food to eat throughout the entire course of your recovery. She can also tell you how to eat after the surgery, how much to chew, and what to avoid.
With time, you may be able to eat more and turn to food for all the wrong reasons. A dietitian can help not with therapy but with good food choices and eating behavior tricks to prevent yourself from regaining weight after your surgery. The bottom line with weight loss surgery is that healthy choices keep your caloric intake to a minimum, and this is an important component of maintaining your weight loss.
When you reach a plateau in your weight loss, the dietitian may have tips on how to kick-start your weight loss again.
Keep a food log for several days and be perfectly honest. Include not only the foods you ate, but the quantity as well as the time you took to eat it. Go over this with your dietitian and identify areas that need work. Remember:
You’re a work in progress, and you should call in consultants when you need them.
Preoperative laboratory evaluation should include a complete blood count (CBC), a complete chemistry panel, liver function tests, thyroid function tests, a lipid profile, coagulation tests, serum iron and total iron binding capacity (TIBC), vitamin B-12, folic acid, blood typing, and urinalysis.
Upper endoscopy is performed to rule out intrinsic upper gastrointestinal disease, because, after gastric bypass surgery, the ability to nonsurgically visualize the distal stomach and the duodenum could be a challenge.
A preoperative trial of weight loss is beneficial to ensure patient compliance with the postoperativediet protocol. Also, a preoperative liquid diet can shrink the liver, thus facilitating the surgical procedure.
Medications you are taking may interact with bariatric surgery or with medications that your surgeon will prescribe before and after your procedure. Be sure to tell your surgeon about any medications you are taking or plan to take throughout recovery. Vitamins, minerals and herbs can also interact with medications, so tell your surgeon about them as well.
Here are some examples of how surgery and surgery-related medications can interact with normal medications or food supplements:
After surgery, your stomach or the outlet of your new stomach will be smaller. Pills may irritate your new stomach pouch and cause nausea or pain, so you may be asked to crush your tablets for several weeks. You should check with your surgeon about which pills to crush and for how long. Some medications can't be crushed because they are "sustained release" and may need to be changed to a non-sustained release form.