The Wrap is one of the latest innovations in weight loss surgery. This laparoscopic procedure is significantly less invasive than other bariatric procedures. The Wrap uses a technique known as gastric plication to reduce the size of your stomach dramatically. This decreases the amount of food your stomach can contain, improves satiety, and expedites weight loss.
What is Gastric Plication?
Individuals struggling with obesity have several factors working against them when it comes to weight loss. Hormones trigger cravings and drive them to seek out food. This problem with achieving satiety makes dieting a much more complex challenge than it seems at face value. Obesity can also make exercise a struggle due to the strain on the individuals’ joints.
Gastric plication is a type of bariatric, or weight loss surgery that reduces the stomach’s size. Bariatric procedures like gastric plication help address these issues by reducing the stomach size. Unlike other bariatric procedures, gastric plication doesn’t involve cutting the stomach or rerouting the intestines. Surgeons make minuscule incisions and use the latest laparoscopic techniques to create folds in the stomach to reduce its size.
While gastric plication is a comparatively new procedure, this latest approach to weight loss surgery is effective. A four-year study examined 202 gastric plication patients and monitored their weight loss. The study found patients had lost 57.84% of their excess weight one year after their procedure. At four years post-op, this increased to 68%.
What are the Advantages of Gastric Plication?
Gastric plication has several advantages over other kinds of weight-loss procedures. The top advantages include:
- It’s a less invasive procedure. Gastric plication procedures like The Wrap don’t involve cutting into or permanently altering your stomach and digestive system. Because it’s less invasive, your recovery time is shorter, and you can resume your normal activities faster. It’s also reversible in the future, which isn’t possible with more invasive bariatric procedures.
- It doesn’t require foreign devices or implants. Gastric banding is a popular bariatric procedure, but it comes with potential risks. Band erosion, band infection, band rejection, and band slipping may occur. Gastric banding devices may require adjusting as well. Gastric plication procedures like The Wrap don’t involve implanting any devices, so you don’t have to worry about these issues.
- It doesn’t disturb the digestive system. Many bariatric procedures alter or restrict the digestive tract, which can cause issues with absorbing enough vitamins from food. While your surgeon will make supplement and vitamin recommendations, this problem is less prevalent with gastric plication as it doesn’t cut into or reroute parts of your digestive system.
- It allows for a wider range of food than other bariatric procedures. Following bariatric surgery, your diet will change significantly. While the same general dietary rules hold true for gastric plication patients as they do for other bariatric patients, the recovery period differs. Because gastric plication is less invasive, recovery is typically much easier on the body. As a result, gastric plication patients can typically tolerate a much larger range of food than other bariatric patients.
- It’s available to anyone with a BMI over 30. Most bariatric procedures include a list of qualifiers. Among those is having a BMI over 40 or a BMI over 35 with an obesity-related health problem. Gastric plication procedures, like The Wrap, are available to anyone with a BMI greater than 30 regardless of other conditions.
If you’re considering bariatric surgery, you may be overwhelmed by all the information and various procedures. You and your surgeon will decide together which bariatric procedure best suits your needs and health goals. To learn more about the benefits of gastric plication surgery for weight loss, contact Dr. Waldrep today.
