It isn’t for lack of trying that you’re still carrying too many unhealthy pounds. You embark on a diet and exercise regimen with good intentions, only to be left frustrated with little to show for your efforts. Or, worse, you end up gaining back your weight, plus some more, which is very common.
You’re certainly not alone in your frustration — more than two in five adults in the United States have obesity, and it’s a fair bet to say that many of these people have been on the same dieting rollercoaster ride as you.
If you want to take the next step in your battle to lose weight and you’re considering weight loss surgery, we have you covered. The experienced team at Rockwall Surgical Specialists performs bariatric surgeries, and we want to do a side-by-side comparison of two of them here — the Lap-Band® and the gastric sleeve.
These are two very different weight loss procedures that share a common goal — helping you to shed pounds.
In 2022, nearly 280,000 weight loss surgeries were performed, and slightly more than 160,000 of them were the gastric sleeve, making it the most popular bariatric surgery in the US.
The gastric sleeve is a restrictive procedure in which our surgeons remove a large portion of your stomach — about 80%, on average — leaving you with a much smaller stomach that resembles a sleeve rather than a pouch.
Also called a sleeve gastrectomy, our surgeons are well versed in using minimally invasive laparoscopic surgical techniques to make the changes to your stomach, which means you don’t have to deal with larger incisions and long recovery times.
Not only will your stomach be considerably smaller after your gastric sleeve procedure, restricting the amount you eat, but we also remove the portion of your stomach that produces ghrelin, the hormone that initiates food cravings.
While results vary, many patients lose between 50 and 90 pounds after their gastric sleeve procedure, which explains why it’s so popular.
The Lap-Band procedure is much different from the gastric sleeve for one very important reason: We don’t make any anatomical changes to your stomach or digestive system.
Instead, we place a silicone tube around your stomach that we can inflate and adjust using a port that we place just under your skin. The band essentially divides your stomach in two so you feel full once the smaller top portion is full, causing you to eat far less.
The average weight loss with the gastric band is about 40% of your excess weight over two years. And once you reach your weight loss goals, we can easily remove the Lap-Band and restore everything to normal again.
While both the gastric sleeve and Lap-Band can successfully help you eat far less, they’re very different in that one is permanent (sleeve) while the other is reversible (band).
The best way to figure out which bariatric surgery would work best for your goals and lifestyle, it’s a good idea to sit down with one of our surgical experts. To get that ball rolling, please contact us at the location that’s convenient to you. We’re located in Rockwall, Rowlett, Greenville, Terrell, or Forney, Texas.
