What to Expect With Surgery

What to Expect When you are Going to Have Surgery:

- Before Surgery:
     If you are a candidate for bariatric surgery, your insurance provider will be requested to approve the surgery and hospitalization. This generally requires 6-8 weeks. Following receipt of approval for surgery, the surgeons office will notify you and a pre-operative visit with your surgeon will be scheduled. At this time, any questions you have regarding surgery will again be answered, and then surgery can be scheduled. A pre-operative visit to the hospital will be scheduled for blood work, registration and orientation.

- Day of Surgery
     You will be asked not to have anything to eat or drink after midnight the night before your surgery. After your arrival at the hospital and pre-operative nursing evaluation, you will be brought to the pre-operative "holding area" about an hour before your surgery. Following discussion of administration of anesthesia, you will be taken to the Operating Room for your surgery. The operation generally lasts between two and three hours. Following your surgery, you will be taken to the Recovery Room.

- After Surgery
     When you arrive in the Recovery Room, a catheter will drain your bladder, avoiding the need for you to get up to urinate. You will also have compression sleeves on your legs to maintain circulation and avoid blood clots. Most patients spend between one and a half to three hours in the Recovery Room. Then you will be transferred to a post-operative room.

     Admission to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is not typical, but can occur if there are several health problems pre-operatively or if evaluation in the Recovery Room makes closer monitoring necessary. Private rooms are not needed post-operatively, and are not paid for by insurance companies, but can be requested during pre-operative processing at the hospital for a moderate cost.

     Pain control post-operatively is generally by all intravenous medication given by patient controlled analgesia (PCA) pump. Additional medication can be given as needed. The primary goal of pain control is to allow you to cough, deep breath, and move around with some assistance, but not have you asleep too much.

     Approximately 24 hours after surgery, X-rays will evaluate the gastric pouch. You will be allowed to have sips of clear liquid and as the bladder catheter and leg compression devices are removed you will become more mobile. Over the next 48 hours, you will be given liquid pain medicine and PCA will be removed. As you tolerate increasing amounts of liquids, your diet will be changed to thicker liquids. As you might expect, the diet that immediately follows a Gastric Bypass is somewhat specialized, to be gentle on the new stomach pouch and Roux intestinal limb as they heal.

Related Links

Surgical Weight Loss
Restrictive & Malabsorptive
Different Procedures
Paying For Surgery
Surgery & Success
Risks & Complications
Post-Surgery Diet
Follow-Up
Definitions