Who Should Have Surgery?

 

Surgery for morbid obesity should be considered only if the risk of the surgery is less than the risk to your health of living with obesity. Please review the following:

Previous Weight Loss Attempts

Patients must have failed attempts in a medically supervised weight-loss program. Patients should only consider surgery when safe non-surgical weight loss has been attempted without success.

Age

We will only consider patients for weight loss surgery if they are between the ages of 18 and 60. We will consider selected patients older than 60 for gastric banding and verticle sleeve gastrectomy depending on their medical condition. Patients under age 18 will be considered for exceptional cases only.

Weight

Weight loss surgery is reserved for patients who are morbidly obese. Morbid obesity is a medical term that describes obesity that is negatively affecting one's health. We follow the American National Institute of Health guidelines which limit surgery for patients with a body mass index (BMI) > 40. If patients already have significant obesity-related comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea, then we will consider surgery for patients with a BMI > 35. BMI is calculated as follows: weight (kg) divided by height (meters) squared. Please see this calculator to determine your BMI.

Follow-Up and Reliability

Patient must be willing to continue to follow-up with our program for at least 5 years. Patients must be in a stable social situation, free of drug and alcohol addiction and major psychiatric illness.