Stomach stapling surgery

By Weight Loss Consultant • Related • Filed Under

Before reading this article, please remove all staples from the vicinity. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Okay, done? Got all the Swingline staplers in a safe place that you can’t get to? Okay then, let’s go. Stomach stapling surgery, also called gastric stapling, is a process during which special staples are used in order to reduce the size of your stomach. Imagine your stomach as a bean bag. If you were to staple the bean bad down the middle you would end up with two separate pouches. That is what happens to your stomach during stomach stapling surgery.

When you have stomach stapling surgery, your stomach isn’t exactly divided in half. Instead, a small portion of your stomach about the size of a golf ball is sectioned off and becomes your new stomach. As you can imagine, this drastically reduces the amount of food you can eat, since your new stomach will only hold about 2 tablespoons of food at a time. Stomach stapling is considered a restrictive surgery since it restricts the amount of food you can eat at a sitting. Your digestive process remains normal and your absorption of vitamins and minerals is unchanged, unlike with gastric bypass which is a malabsorptive procedure that can result in nutrient deficiency.

Unfortunately, the stomach is not a static, rigid material. The stomach is very soft and flexible and can be stretched. The average person’s stomach is about the size of their fist. An obese person’s stomach can be as large as a melon. That difference in size is, for the most part, a result of the eating habits of the obese individual. Emotional eating or excessive hunger and poor impulse control may have combined to result in the obese individual stretching their stomach, which can also result in increased hunger.

When you have your stomach stapled, you run the risk of repeating the same habits that made your stomach large to begin with. Immediately after the surgery it will be almost physically impossible to overeat without severe consequences including vomiting. After a few months, however, you may begin to eat in a fashion that causes the partitioned off stomach area to stretch and grow. This will help to reduce the effectiveness of the surgery and may result in weight gain, putting you back into the situation you were in to begin with.

Other complications of stomach stapling surgery include:

  • The implantation of stomach staples can be very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.
  • High fiber foods become difficult to eat, which can lead to constipation.
  • Stomach staples may come apart, putting the stomach back to its original size.
  • Gall stones and hernias may develop.

No matter what type of surgery you decide to have to help solve your obesity, there will be a tremendous commitment required on your part. The lifestyle change that is necessary for these diets to work along with the commitment to live within that restriction can be very emotionally and physically taxing. The advice and counsel of a primary care physician, nutritionist and mental health counselor will be extremely helpful in ensuring that you reach your goal for life long health and healthy weight. A mental health counselor will help you to identify why you eat the way that you do and, if it is for emotional reasons, will help you find a method of combating your urges. A nutritionist will teach you how to eat properly, within the special limits of your surgical procedure and for optimum nutrient and vitamin intake. A primary care physician will monitor your progress and ensure that there are no infections or post-surgery complications.

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  1. Comment by D. Rice on 21 September 2009:

    Why is this surgery so dangerous to reverse when one of the complications is that the staples may come apart? My husband had this done in 1980 at the University of Iowa, and now he is facing surgery again because the hole into his larger part of the stomach is closing up. He is 62 years old.

  2. Comment by BOB on 28 March 2010:

    I HAD MY STOMACH STAPLED 25 YEARS AGO.
    IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE THAT REVERSED DUE TO BLOCKAGE OF THE BOTTOM OF THE ESOPHAGUS JUST ABOVE THE STOMACH?

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