The gastric sleeve weight loss surgery is a serious life-altering surgery that offers a solution to obesity.  This tool is a serious surgery due to the permanent altering of your stomach size.  Eighty percent of your stomach is removed, leaving just a small thin tube.  Because of your new stomach size, you are only able to digest a small amount of food at a time.

Because of the serious nature of this surgery, there are many precautions you must take before and after surgery for it to be successful.  Before surgery, you must be deemed healthy enough for the operation to be successful.  To promote a healthy system before surgery, you must participate in an all-liquid diet before your surgery to clean out your entire system.  You also need to stop smoking and drinking alcohol before surgery.  After surgery, there are specific food guidelines you also must follow for your stomach to heal properly.

All of these changes promote successful gastric sleeve surgery and make it safer in the short and long term.

The gastric sleeve surgery is considered safe by medical professionals.  There can be minor complications. Therefore specific health criteria need to be met before surgery is scheduled.

Gastric Sleeve Facts

The gastric sleeve is generally considered safe when compared to other weight-loss surgeries.  Deaths are rare when a competent surgeon performs this surgery.

After the gastric sleeve procedure, your new stomach can initially only hold about four ounces, which is significantly less than the standard size of your previous stomach amount.  Your new stomach size only allows for a half a cup at a time.

Even with the new size of your stomach, you can still overeat and have minimal weight loss after surgery.

Stanford University shows 30 day death rate from gastric sleeve surgery is just .08%.  This is considered low by medical standards, but complications can and do occur.

Complications are Possible

Acute Complications

Some acute complications that occur shortly after surgery are gastric leaks.  This is post-surgery bleeding that occurs in 1 in 200 patients.  This can lead to difficulty in breathing, fever, and an increased heart rate.  Another complication is a wound site infection.  The infection is under or near the area where your doctor made the small incision. Contamination leads to redness and heat in the area.  There may be a fever, dizziness, and an increased heart rate.  These infections are commonly treated with antibiotics.

Clots are other acute complications that occur in under one percent of patients—common areas where clots form are in your veins or lungs.  There can be swelling or redness of the area, loss of feeling, and extreme pain.  

Chronic Complications

Some chronic complications that are commonly seen six months after surgery can occur when you do not follow the diet instructions after surgery. Sleeve dilation is a complication that occurs when your sleeve stretches over time that increases your food intake over time, which can lead to weight loss stopping or weight gain starting.

Another complication after surgery is dyspepsia, food intolerance. Dyspepsia occurs when there is regular indigestions or upset stomach pains that can increase after surgery.

The stomach can also narrow with scarring after surgery creating a stricture that makes it difficult to digest food.  

Decreased absorption of vitamins and minerals, especially iron, vitamin B12, and Calcium  may lead to anemia and osteoporosis. Because of your lower caloric intake, taking vitamins and maintaining your protein levels are vital to maintaining your health.

Addiction transfer is a widespread side effect after weight loss surgery.  Because you no longer can use food to medicate your emotions, many weight loss patients turn to other substances to handle their moods.  Common addiction transfers include alcohol addiction, drug abuse, and sex addiction.  Alcohol addiction is especially dangerous due to your small stomach size, thus making your reaction to alcohol levels in your bloodstream dangerous if not monitored.

The bariatric divorce is a phenomenon that I have heard many stories about.  Because of the drastic physical and mental changes needed for a successful surgery, you change how you respond and react in your new health-focused life.  In the United States, divorce occurs fifty percent of the time, while in the bariatric community, divorce occurs as high as eighty percent.  If there is not continual support throughout this process, many marriages experience great difficulty when one partner is changing and growing while the other remains stagnant.

Post Surgery Liquid/Food Outline

After your gastric sleeve surgery, there is a strict plan in place for you to heal properly.  This plan includes a strict clear liquid diet the day after surgery.

Preventing hydration is the number one concern after surgery. If there are no complications after surgery than for your first week after surgery you are on an all-liquid diet.  This includes two high protein drinks daily.

After this step, than for your second and third-week post-surgery, you graduate to pureed food as long as your stomach is healing correctly with no further complications.  The pureed diet consists of food high in protein and one high protein drink daily.  You can only eat one or two ounces of pureed food every three hours and drink four ounces of liquid every thirty minutes between meals.

After the pureed diet, you can then start introducing solid foods into your diet.  I had surgery in August, and by Thanksgiving, I was able to eat solid foods.  Do not excite your stomach; small bites that are chewed considerably will help with the addition of solid foods back into your diet.

My Gastric Sleeve Surgery Experience

I was lucky not to have any acute or chronic complications with my gastric sleeve surgery. It was my first ever surgery, so I was very apprehensive before surgery.  I remember my incision sites being tender, but I had no infection.  The only pain I experienced after surgery was the sides of my abdominals were sore, so twisting and rotating my body was tricky and required slow movements.

As for the specified liquid diet, I was able to follow the recommendations of my health care team.  Over time my stomach was able to handle slow additions to my diet without any problem.  My stitches were able to heal comfortably, which I am incredibly grateful for.

I have only had two upset stomachs from eating after surgery.  The first was I ate green beans too quickly, and I experienced a sudden discomfort in my stomach.  Then the second was recent, I had steak for dinner, and it did not agree with me.  I was extremely uncomfortable.  I usually have fish or chicken as my meat choices and this particular piece of steak of too much for my stomach to handle.

For stomach related complications, I do experience lightheadedness at moments.  It was frequent after surgery and has lessened since.  I view my lightheadedness as a reminder to hydrate because that is a general concern for bariatric patients.

Overall I am pleasantly surprised and happy with my surgical results and am happy I never had any complications because I understand that is not always the case.