LapBand Surgery: How to Reduce the Risk of Complications

Have you received the approval to undergo LapBand surgery? If so, you are well on your way to having a lighter and healthier body. At first, you will be excited about your upcoming weight loss surgery. At some point in time, you may experience nervousness. The LapBand is considered a safe procedure, but surgery always involves risks. These risks, no matter how small, may cause you some concern.

So, what should you do? Take steps to minimize your risk of LapBand complications. As for how you can do so:

Most importantly, listen to your primary care physician and LapBand surgeon. Most patients mistakenly believe their surgery begins at their surgery date and time. Yes, technically it does, but a lot of preparation is needed for the LapBand system. Diet restrictions are necessary to prepare the body for surgery in the two to three weeks prior. For that reason, follow all professional advice given.

As previously stated, diet restriction is necessary in the weeks leading up to surgery. Physicians will provide patients with a list of pre-approved foods. Despite the possibility of small variances, you should be able to eat lean meats, fruits, vegetables, and yogurt. Protein supplements will be added. These diet restrictions are necessary to reduce complications. They allow for the reduction in fat around the stomach, making surgery easier and safer.

Also at the advice of a LapBand surgeon, patients are asked not to eat or drink after the midnight before their surgery. This is important advice to follow. Not only may you face complications, your doctor may refuse to perform the surgery!

Post surgery, patients have multiple follow-up appointments with their surgeons. At these follow-up appointments or at anytime following surgery, voice concerns. This includes pain and discomfort. Yes, pain and discomfort is a small side effect of surgery, but still mention it. You never know if complications have started or may later arise.

In the 24 hours following the LapBand procedure, patients start moving. By discharge time, patients should be able to walk, get up and down. With that said, it may be uncomfortable and slightly painful to move too much. For that reason, prepare your home for your arrival in advance. It reduces post-surgery LapBand complications by ensuring you have time to fully recover. Stock up on post-surgery liquids, clean your house, and so forth.

Start with a clear liquid diet. This is advised immediately following surgery. A clear liquid diet may include chicken broth, sugar free gelatin, and diluted apple juice. Your surgeon will provide you with a list of approved foods. To reduce complications, slip your drinks slowly. After approval, the next stages include full liquids, pureed foods, soft foods, and full solids. This process can take between one and two months. Always eat slowly, check food thoroughly, and stop eating when full.

Do not return to work without doctor approval. If you work in an office environment and perform easy tasks, such as typing, you are likely to return to work in one week. If heavy lifting is required, such as in the retail or construction industry, extended recovery is recommended.

Finally, attend all follow-up appointments. Unfortunately, many individuals believe they are in the clear if they dont experience LapBand complications right away, but this is not true. Band slippage, stomach erosion, acid reflux, and regurgitation can occur days, weeks, months, or even years after surgery. These all signal complications, which when known can easily be treated with a band adjustment.

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LapBand is one of the most popular weight loss surgeries in the United States. Why? There are many reasons why. With the LapBand, an adjustable gastric band is positioned around the stomach. There is no cutting or stapling involved. Not only is the band adjustable without surgery, but it is also reversible.

If you are obese, the LapBand system may seem like the best option for you. Yes, it likely is. Those who are 100 pounds overweight can greatly benefit from undergoing the procedure, but still it is not right for everyone. To see success and reduce complications, diet restrictions are necessary. Unfortunately, diet restrictions are something not everyone can handle.

Before you assume that the LapBand system is the best weight loss option, it is important to closely examine what it expected of you. Unfortunately, many hopeful patients make the mistake of believing they will automatically lose weight with the use of the LapBand. This is not true. The LapBand surgery involves more than undergoing surgery. It also involves a lifestyle change.

If you are deemed an ideal candidate for the LapBand, you will receive a surgery date from your surgeon. Since diet restrictions are important to your success, you may want to load up on your favorite sweets. After all, these will need to be eliminated from your diet after surgery. This is not the right step. In fact, preparation for the LapBand surgery will begin two to three weeks before your surgery date.

Two to three weeks before your LapBand procedure, you will be asked to eliminate foods that are high in sugar, fat and calories from your diet. Protein supplements will be added. Protein will help to reduce the fat in the stomach area. This makes surgery easier and reduces complications.

In the two to three weeks before surgery, doctors will recommend a diet that consists of eggs, yogurt, lean meats, fruits, and vegetables. This diet will prepare your body for surgery. In addition to reducing fat content, it promotes a healthy body. A healthy body is what will allow for fast healing and few surgical complications.

In addition to preparing the body for surgery, the initial diet restriction will serve as a test. If you are unable to curb your eating habits, you are likely to continue doing so post-surgery. This means that you are not an ideal candidate for the LapBand. If your doctor notices your inability to restrict your diet, he or she may suggest putting off the LapBand surgery until you are truly ready.

As for the surgery itself, you will be asked to not eat or drink anything after midnight.

After surgery, you will be taken through various stages. Your physician will closely monitor your progress on each stage. On average, diet restrictions and LapBand adjustments will be made for one to two months.

The first week or two post-surgery, all patients are on an all-liquid diet. Liquids are easier to digest, allowing your stomach to heal and adjust to its new size. When on a liquid diet, sip slowly.

The liquid diet itself is divided into two categories. To get started, healthcare professionals recommend clear liquids. These liquids include sugar free gelatin, non-carbonated drinks, chicken broth, and watered down apple juice. A few days after surgery, progression is made to full liquids. These include milk, yogurt, pudding, and soup.

The next step is pureed foods. At this point, your body will be craving some type of substance, but it is still important to take it slow. Consuming too much can result in post-surgery complications, including pain, discomfort, nausea, and vomiting. Since pureed foods are still in liquid form, remember to sip slowly.

After one to two months, depending on the healing progress and doctors recommendations, traditional foods can be incorporated into a diet. Remember, it is important to eat traditional foods, not normal foods. You do not want to revert back to your old eating habits.

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To develop a healthy eating program to maintain a healthy weight, its a good idea to do some research on health and nutrition. If youre not trying to lose weight but just want to eat well for good health, then its important to understand how your body uses food. This makes it easier for you to choose healthy food and not be tricked when less-than healthy foods call themselves natural and healthy.

A healthy eating program should offer you much more than just a good balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates. But if that balance isnt in place to start with, the plan probably isnt all that healthy. Any plan that keeps fat at about 30% or less of the diet and stresses good fats over saturated fats probably has a healthy fat balance. There should be plenty of sources of protein other than meat, like lots of fish, healthy dairy sources like yogurt, and beans.

And carbohydrates should be mostly whole grain sources like whole grain bread and oatmeal. Whole grain pastas are better than regular pastas, and basmati rice is better than regular white rice. A healthy eating program that stresses these smart choices over things like instant white rice and instant pre-packaged sweetened and flavored oatmeal is better than one that includes too many convenience items.

A healthy eating program should follow the government food pyramid pretty closely. Whole grain carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, beans, fish, lean meat and dairy products can all be part of a very healthy diet. But there are other things to look at, no matter what kind of diet you choose to follow.

You want to make sure your healthy eating program has enough diversity so that you dont get bored, and you get all the vitamins and minerals your body needs. Baked chicken breasts, broccoli and a whole grain roll might be a healthy lunch, but no one wants to eat that several times a week. Your plan needs to include a variety of vegetables, not just one or two. There are more lean meats than chicken breasts, and many different ways to prepare these and other dishes.

Youll also want to make sure that unhealthy things arent creeping into your meals. Some diets stress that you use margarine instead of butter, for instance, because its lower fat and not full of saturated fat like butter. But margarine is mostly trans fat, a fat that even the government now agrees is worse for you than saturated fat. Its a fat that should be eliminated, or at the very least severely restricted, from our diets. A healthy eating program that allows certain commercially packaged low-fat cookies and treats might not take into account the amount of trans fats and sugar in those foods, either.

You have to be the detective and examine all the parts of the diet you want to follow. Yes, the balance of foods and nutrition is important, but dont forget to look at all the other parts of your healthy eating program.

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You and I both know that with a little self-control, exercise and eating healthy we can experience a fifteen pound weight loss fairly quickly. The real challenge comes from keeping it off permanently and staying healthy in the process. We also know it’s easier to say it than it is to do it.

What you may not know is you may have some preconceived ideas about how to do it and the fact is those ideas are false. It’s not your fault you believe them, because they have been preached for so many years, by so many people. These legends have taken on a life of their own, when in fact they need to die and be buried forever. This article will give you the true way to shed the extra fat and keep it off.

1. Legend–Skip Breakfast to lose weight: Not a good idea!
In order for you to lose weight quickly and safely you must eat breakfast. This is what will kick your metabolism into high gear for the day after resting all night. Skipping it also means your body will draw the energy from lean muscle not the excess fat.

2. Legend: Low carbohydrate diets will make it easy to keep off the weight: Partly true, but because your body needs carbohydrates for your energy and the building of muscles you may cause more damage to your overall health. In other words you could negate the good you have done with the weight loss.

3. Legend: Eating what you want when you want it as long as you exercise: Not True! Just because youre exercising to burn the calories does not mean you can go carte blanch when you eat. It’s important for you to eat the right foods such as veggies, fruits and lean meats. When you practice the right diet you will keep the weight off naturally and safely.

4. Legend: Restrict your calories to keep weight loss down: Partly true again. You and I both know that true weight loss comes when we reduce the amount of calories we eat. Calories we won’t burn! But if you reduce your calorie intake way under what you need, for your body to function properly, you are asking for trouble. It’s important for you to know how many calories your body needs to stay healthy.

There are many more legends or myths that need to be buried, but its beyond the scope of this article. Losing weight the right and healthy way doesnt take an IQ of 160 to figure it out. Nor is it difficult once you set your mind to it.

Look, let’s face it! There is only one way to lose 15 pounds and keep it off permanently. You and I both know what it is. It is a combination of self-control, eating healthy and exercise. Weight loss is not a game, for some of us; it’s a matter of life and death. Which one is it going to be for you?

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