BMI

At BMI, we don’t generally talk about our successes. We focus, instead, on the science, the details that are not covered in counseling sessions with patients and their families. This is probably why we are on the first page of Google on most of the search terms for bariatric surgery. Once in a while, we [...]

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As you may or may not know, mortality in bariatric surgery occurs at a very acceptable 0.2-0.3% rate. Compare this to gall bladder or appendix surgery (0.3 to 0.4%). This means that in this class of obese people, if we operate on a thousand, two will die. If you take these same thousand people and [...]

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Almost all people (with the exception of some bariatric surgeons) believe that the sleeve gastrectomy is a safer operation than the gastric bypass because of the ease and simplicity of the procedure, as also the possibility of leaks in the latter case (multiple staple lines). At the root of the confidence of many surgeons is [...]

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After the initial (and highly popular, if I may say so) posts on the subject (see Parts One and Two), we will now talk about what we have gained in terms of experience and insight about this subject. I had jokingly noted how BMI has not had a leak in many years. This year (obviously our busiest [...]

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Those who undergo or contemplate bariatric surgery do so essentially as a second chance at life. I mean that the severely obese man or woman feels that he (or she) has lost out in life on multiple fronts. Here are a few examples:
Loss of body contour/beauty: you can’t forget how you were once before the fat started piling on.
Poor self image: you hate the thing you see in the mirror.
Poor quality of life: you can’t dance, surf, skip, run or walk without some kind of pain or discomfort. Going up one floor makes you breathless. You avoid holidays where you would need to walk, especially on hilly terrain.

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Weight loss after the lap gastric bypass is a well known fact. What is less known is that there is a certain degree of weight regain in some patients in the long term. Before we proceed, do you know what is a lap gastric bypass all about? An important factor to be considered by every [...]

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When we started out on doing the sleeve gastrectomy a few years back, it was typically over a 60Fr bougie. The important thing, we learnt, was not to leave any part of the fundus of the stomach behind. This was the important technical thing to check. Our old patients have all done well. Since the [...]

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Weight loss plateaus may occur in certain patients who have undergone a sleeve gastrectomy as a primary bariatric procedure. What are the causes? What is the next step? What is the prognosis for these patients? This article discusses these issues. Please buckle your seat belts! First things first, who doesn’t know what a sleeve (as [...]

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Hair loss is one of the commonest laments in female patients after gastric bypass surgery (whether for weight loss or surgical cure of Type II Diabetes Mellitus), and is at once one of the least heralded topics in the subject. This is but natural: after all, surgeons are more bothered by complications that are life-threatening [...]

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In Part One, we came to the reluctant conclusion that the sleeve, safe procedure though it is, has a near 3 percent leak rate. Incidentally, the two of us at BMI have not yet had a leak in nearly five years of practice. For whatever reason though it may be (luck?), we would like to [...]

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