Surgery for morbid obesity is about one and only one thing: improving your overall quality of life; this is done by addressing health issues you may have.

 

We consider weight loss of more than 30% of preoperative weight a good result. For instance, a person weighing 300 pounds who loses 90 pounds would be considered to have a good weight loss result. We hope and expect about 90% of patients to achieve a good to excellent result. We anticipate that the average patient will probably lose about 30% of the preoperative weight, but there is a great deal of variation with some losing more and some losing less. As with all forms of treatment for obesity, your results will depend greatly on your motivation and long-term compliance.

 

Thus, a distinct minority of patients will reach a truly normal weight. In fact, such marked weight loss may not be desirable because of baggy skin and other related problems.

 

Successful weight loss corrects or improves diabetes, high blood pressure, reflux, and high cholesterol in more than 90% of patients with these obesity-related problems, and helps to resolve sleep apnea, urinary incontinence, and osteoarthritis in more than 75% of patients. Many patients are able to significantly reduce the amount of medications they take on a daily basis for these conditions.