New Procedures for Weight Loss

Baptist Health Louisville: New Procedures for Weight Loss

Bariatric surgeon JOHN OLDHAM explains how minimally invasive weight-loss surgery can help treat patients with obesity, describing the steps to surgery and its life-changing benefits.

New Procedures for Weight Loss Health Talks Transcript

John Oldham, MD, Bariatric Surgery
Obesity is a major, major problem worldwide, but a huge problem here in America. Morbidly obese patients die 10 to 15 years earlier than normal weight patients. Obesity causes many, many diseases: diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, liver disease. Obesity affects your entire body, so it’s a deadly disease, and it is a disease. You know, patients will usually come to a seminar, and find out about all the procedures and things that we do. Then they’ll come in, and they’ll see a psychologist, they’ll see the dietician, so a lot of education is involved. There are multiple steps before they would go to surgery. The new procedure is called the Orbera gastric balloon. It is done endoscopically, so there’s no surgery on the abdomen. Everything’s done endoscopically through the mouth. The balloon actually goes in empty into the stomach, and we fill it up while the balloon is in the stomach. It basically occupies the stomach, and it makes the patient feel full, satisfied. They will feel full on smaller portions. It kind of trains them to be eating like that, and then in six months the balloon is taken out. And, it’s part of a whole, comprehensive program where they’re seeing a dietician, doing monthly follow-ups so they can maintain the weight loss. It’s amazing to see patients, you know, come back in after surgery. When they’re losing weight, they feel much better. Their energy level is just unbelievable. They basically have a new lifestyle.