Blog Archives
The Psychological Component of Recovery After Surgery
We have our postoperative paperwork, our check-sheets, our prescriptions, and lots of phone numbers in case we need something. More importantly, we have our comfy chair, maybe someone to wait on us with our favorite smoothie, and uninterrupted Netflix.
This is the recovery period after bariatric surgery.
But during this time, it’s not only our vitals, and maybe the pounds on the scale, that we need to keep an eye on. The first, and maybe most obvious fact, is that you’ve undergone true physical trauma. You may not be feeling any pain, or might be quite mobile, but your body has undergone an intense physical change and needs to recover. You are coming off medication and anesthesia – these alone requires an adjustment period.
Ways to Improve Your Body Image
We are often told the first step in reaching emotional stability and a sense of well-being is to “love yourself.” One can wonder if the person that came up with this ever truly struggled with a broken sense of self. There’s probably not a person around who wouldn’t love to love themselves, but sometimes, for those of us that have struggled with body image issues and the lifestyle habits and social behaviors that stemmed from them, loving oneself is a lot harder than most will know.
Ways to Reduce Your Risk of a Hernia
With over 1,000,000 hernia operations performed every year and millions of other hernias going untreated, either because patients live around their hernia or their hernia is not readily apparent, prevention is even more important. To fully discuss how to prevent a hernia, it is important to understand what exactly a hernia is. Hernias are defects in the fascia of the abdomen – a thin but very strong layer of tissue that with muscles, makes up the abdominal wall. If there is a defect in the fascia, this may allow the contents of the abdomen to push through, which may lead to further problems.
Dealing With Plateaus After Bariatric Surgery
Unfortunately, with bariatric surgery or not, we will always experience setbacks in our quest for better health. At times when progress slows, we can feel like failures. Nothing is more frustrating than plateauing after bariatric surgery, having had months or even years of consistent weight loss. However, before we get into how to manage plateaus, it is important to remember they are perfectly normal, and you should not feel like you failed or take drastic measures to overcome them. Rather, we have a few practical tips to help you work through them and get back to your weight loss progression.
To understand how to break through a plateau, we need to understand what they are and how they are caused. Continue reading
Five Ways to Reduce Your Sugar Intake
Glucose is a necessary part of life. It sustains every cell in our body and without it we would not be able to survive. However, with diets worsening in the United States and around the world, excess glucose in the form of added sugar has become a primary culprit in many of the worst metabolic health problems. While men and women should consume about 13 teaspoons of sugar per day, the actual number is closer to 42. This means over the course of a year, the average person can gain a significant amount of weight simply from their sugar intake. Furthermore, sugar is often hidden in labeling as sugar alcohols, high fructose corn syrup, glucose, fructose, and more.
What Your Stool Says About Your Colon Health
Between individuals, and even between bowel movements, “normal poop” can be very different. However, there are general hard and fast rules about how your stool should look to make sure you keep your colon in top shape. It is also worth remembering that your intestinal health plays a huge part in your overall health as well. If you are having digestive issues, there may be underlying health problems we need to discuss and address. With that being said, most issues involving the color composition of stool revolve around three key issues – hydration, fiber consumption and illness, whether bacterial or viral.
Dr. Forrest Ringold and SAMPA – The First in AL to Use Titan SGS Stapler
As part of our goal of improving bariatric surgery for our patients, Dr. Forrest Ringold and SAMPA are excited to announce that we were the first in Alabama to perform a sleeve gastrectomy using a newly approved stapling device known as the TITAN SGS™ made by STANDARD BARIATRICS® in Cincinnati, OH.
Where Caffeine Fits in to Your Post-Op Lifestyle
Before bariatric surgery we may not have thought twice about having a few cups of coffee or some tea. Caffeine was only a concern as we got closer to bed and worried about staying up all night. However, caffeine must be understood and moderated after bariatric surgery for several reasons.
Maintaining Muscle Mass after Bariatric Surgery
While our quest for health and wellness didn’t begin with bariatric surgery, it may have very well been the jumpstart we needed to start looking at our lives and our health through a different lens. Of course, the naysayers would have you believe we are taking the “easy way out,” but nothing could be further from the truth.
Bariatric surgery is essentially the framework around which our new lifestyle and health choices can be organized. A framework does not mean the trophy. The framework is merely the path on which we must walk the walk in order to achieve our ultimate goal.
The good news, however, is the trophy is attainable, and if you really think about what it took to choose bariatric surgery, you’ll realize the victory is already within your grasp. To have made the decision to undergo bariatric surgery took a combination of guts, self-education, and faith — all necessary for any major lifestyle change.
Comparing LINX to Traditional Fundoplication For GERD
Traditionally, patients suffering from chronic acid reflux or severe gastroesophageal reflux disease (known as GERD) were treated with a minimally invasive surgical procedure known as a fundoplication. Essentially, the fundoplication takes the upper part of the stomach and wraps it around the lower part of the esophagus to increase pressure on the lower esophageal sphincter or LES and reduce or even completely eliminate the incidence of acid reflux. Indeed, the fundoplication comes in three flavors. First is the Nissen or total 360° wrap, the Toupet or 270° wrap and the Dor or 180-200° wrap. The latter two are modified Nissen fundoplications to minimize some of its risks.
While the fundoplication is extremely effective and generally well tolerated by most patients, it does come with several risks and considerations that ultimately led to the development of the LINX reflux management system. Unlike the surgical wrap performed during a fundoplication, the LINX system involves a bracelet-style device with magnetic clasps to wrap around the LES. It is about the diameter of a quarter ( SILVER DOLLAR). The bracelet can expand and contract to allow food and drink to pass through the LES easily.