Undergoing weight loss treatments and procedures can make anyone feel anxious or worried. Have you wondered whether endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is safe? It is a relatively new and minimally-invasive treatment that can help you lose weight permanently, without the risks or side effects associated with surgery. Our specialists at Batash Endoscopic Weight Loss Center in Rego Park, NY have helped many patients turn their lives around after undergoing this treatment.
Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty: Is It a Safe Option?
Many people commit to a strict diet and exercise faithfully and reap only minimal results. This can cause extreme stress and the possibility of developing an eating disorder. Dropping down to a healthy weight and completely changing your lifestyle is easier said than done. Instead of experiencing health benefits, they end up gaining even more weight or losing too much to stay healthy.
What other options do you have if you can’t safely achieve weight loss on your own? If you have been overweight or obese for a long time, we recommend you consider an endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG). This procedure is less invasive than surgery and can lead to significant and long-term weight loss. You will not need to worry about an extended recovery period or potential health risks posed by the treatment. It is an easily manageable solution that can change how you live your life.
A Safe, Non-Needle Intervention You Can Count On
You might have heard or tried many ways to induce weight loss apart from diet and exercise. Some people have experimented with diet pills, teas, and other supplements. The goal of these methods is to alter how the body or digestive system naturally works, so you can either boost your metabolism, control your food intake, or reduce hunger. Unfortunately, we know that these methods just don’t work long-term.
If none of these options are working, the next step is to consider a medical intervention with the help of medical specialists.
Does the idea of surgery overwhelm you? Are you worried about how a surgical procedure might affect your body? Endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is a non-surgical treatment without the risks and costs associated with weight loss surgery. This safe and convenient treatment has little to no downtime and has great potential in helping you achieve significant and long-term weight loss.
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How Does the Treatment Work?
When done by an expert in the ESG procedure, the treatment is straightforward, easy to perform, and requires little to no patient preparation. To help you reduce weight and easily control food intake, it accomplishes three things:
- Delay gastric emptying;
- Induce early satiation;
- Reduce stomach capacity.
What Devices Are Used in Performing Gastroplasty?
To help you lose weight, this non-surgical treatment involves the use of a special suturing device. This device will be used to place sutures inside your stomach to make it smaller. Sutures aren’t dissolvable but we don’t need to remove them. In fact, they are only useful for about 6 weeks until tissue grows together.
First, an endoscope is inserted into your throat until it reaches down your stomach. Then, the sutures are placed into your stomach walls using full-thickness bites. Once sutured properly, your stomach size is greatly diminished, by at least 70% or more.
It is important that you choose an experienced and board-certified provider to perform your procedure. Experience does matter. Don’t be shy about asking your doctor for board certification and experience with this specific procedure.
Once the size of your stomach is greatly diminished, you are expected to more easily commit to a healthier lifestyle and make permanent changes to your diet. Your compliance will ensure the long-term success of the procedure. You won’t feel as hungry as before, so you can take control of your food intake and make healthy choices. In a year or two, you can expect to lose 20% of your body weight or more!
What Are The Risks of Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty (ESG)?
All procedures have associated risks or potential side effects, however, when compared to bariatric weight loss surgery, ESG (otherwise known as suture sculpt) side effects are significantly milder.
Endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty has been around since 2013 and its proven track record has helped the procedure gain recognition and popularity. ESG has a very positive safety profile to date and serious complications are very rare (<1%).
Patients may experience pain and nausea for a few days after the procedure but these symptoms can be managed with medication and normally only last a few days. Because it is a non-surgical procedure, the endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty side effects are typically mild and temporary.
It is important for ESG to be performed by an expert who has extensive training and experience in the procedure to mitigate risks. Data that were gathered from 8 pooled studies reported that in a few rare cases (app. 1%), pain and nausea requiring medication and hospital admission were experienced, and other serious adverse effects were experienced by less than a half percent of patients.
How Do You Prepare for a Safe Treatment?
Compared to weight loss surgery, such as bariatric surgery, more candidates qualify for gastroplasty. The main reason is that it is a minimally-invasive treatment that is routinely performed as an outpatient procedure. There are only a few limitations as to who may not be ideal candidates.
Doctors will gather your medical history during a consultation and discuss your treatment options. Some factors that are taken into consideration are:
- The patient is in overall good health;
- If the patient has medical conditions that would disqualify them from being a candidate for ESG;
- If the patient has tried unsuccessfully to lose weight through traditional methods;
- The patient is dedicated to making the lifestyle changes necessary to be successful;
- Have a BMI of at least 30+ or 27+ with other existing weight-related issues (such as type 2 diabetes);
- The patient's current weight;
- The patient's tolerance of general anesthesia;
- The patient is not pregnant or planning to get pregnant in the near future.
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Other Restrictions and Tests
Your healthcare team will provide specific details and advice on how to prepare for your ESG procedure. No two candidates are the same, and your pre-procedure requirements will depend on your specific situation and overall health. You may also need to do some blood work and/or a screening exam before your ESG treatment is scheduled.
To ensure your comfort and safety, as you prepare for ESG, you may need to follow certain restrictions in regards to eating, drinking, and taking medications. It is common for patients to follow a liquid-only diet just before their gastroplasty but only for 24 hours, so don’t be scared.
Planning for Adjustments
After endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty, the recovery period is relatively short and does not last for weeks or months as with bariatric surgery. Most patients recover within two to three days. However, we still advise that you should arrange for help at home, with children, or pets if needed for the first 24 hours after the procedure.
Your doctor will give you the “all clear” when you are ready to resume your normal active lifestyle but it is advised that intense workouts should be avoided for a few weeks after the treatment. However, there are no limitations on physical activity and you may resume your daily activities and exercise as soon as you feel up to it. Most patients can return to almost all their normal activities within a few days, but strenuous activities like heavy weight lifting should be avoided until the doctor allows it.
For your health and safety, and to ensure a speedy recovery, it is better to focus on adjusting to your new stomach size and making the right lifestyle changes.
What Happens During the Treatment?
How invasive is minimally invasive when it comes to non-surgical interventions? What can you expect to happen to your body? There’s no need to worry about stitches, incisions, or scars because it is a no-needle option, non-invasive, and no-cutting option. The procedure takes about 40 minutes only and you are ready to go home within a few hours. There are a few steps involved in the process: endoscopy, suture placement, and endoscopic sleeve creation (this procedure is reversible and sutures can be removed).
1. Endoscopy
First, you are put under general anesthesia. You will not be conscious or aware during the entire procedure. Your doctor will insert an endoscopy device down your throat and through your stomach. This device is a long, thin tube that will be used to observe your stomach and digestive tissues in detail. Endoscopy is completely safe, and in some instances can be performed without the use of general anesthesia. But general anesthesia is necessary to perform an endoscopic sleeve.
2. Suture Placement
Your doctor uses permanent sutures that do not dissolve. Typically, the process requires 4-12 sutures in your stomach. This will be enough to reduce the size of your stomach by about 70-80% of its original size. By the end of the procedure, it will look like a tube-shaped pouch with less capacity, so you can better control your food intake and eating habits.
3. Optional Removal
Since the procedure is not permanent, you can choose whether or not you will want to have your sutures removed in the future. You can discuss this with your doctor or make it a part of your overall weight loss plan. The removal can be performed on an outpatient basis and is also completely safe. However, up to date, no request for the removal of sutures was made!
What Can You Expect After the Treatment?
Very few people who’ve had the treatment report experiencing adverse events. You may even consider these as isolated cases. You can easily manage any resulting discomfort through the use of prescription medicines. Two or three days after having the treatment performed, you can resume your normal, day-to-day activities.
Are you worried about medical risks, pain, and long recovery periods associated with surgery? Then you will find endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty preferable. It has a much safer and shorter period of adjustment. To promote healing, it is common to be put on an all-liquid diet for only one week. To compare, a gastric sleeve requires months of liquid diet!
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Is the Treatment Safe and Ideal for You?
Ideally, candidates for gastroplasty have a BMI of 27-50. If you have a lower BMI, we may advise you to follow other weight loss procedures or consider different types of treatment.
Two Great Reasons to Choose ESG for Weight Loss
1. You Are Apprehensive About Bariatric Surgery
If the idea of a major surgery makes you feel anxious or overwhelmed, then ESG may be better and safer for you. Bariatric surgery poses potential health risks and comes with a recovery period of several weeks or months.
Although endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is considered inferior to bariatric surgery in terms of weight loss potential, it has little to no recovery time. You will be able to resume normal daily activities in as little as two weeks. There is little to no discomfort involved in the treatment. The weight loss potential of ESG is directly related to how well the patient adheres to the lifestyle changes necessary to continue to lose weight and keep it off. Patients have reported losing as much as 126 pounds in one year after having ESG.
2. You Are Ineligible For Other Surgical Procedures
If you are not eligible for bariatric surgery, you may want to consider endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty as an effective alternative. It is a safe, feasible, reversible option that offers significant results. Some reasons that may render patients ineligible for bariatric surgery may include:
- Their BMI is too high;
- They have health concerns that would exclude them from surgical procedures;
- They are not committed to conscious lifestyle changes.
How Effective Is Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty for Safe Weight Loss?
Within one or two years, you can lose about 15% to 20% of your total body weight. However, these impressive results can only be achieved when combined with a healthy, active lifestyle. You can achieve safe weight loss after the treatment, but you will need to make personal adjustments. These changes will ultimately cause you to drop the excess weight.
Commitment, personal accountability, and knowledge is the key to safe and sustainable weight loss. Medical specialists can only help you with the process and guide you. Remember, there’s no miracle cure for obesity. It is up to you how you will make the right changes that will improve your physical fitness. By undergoing endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty, you can make these changes much easier.
The Importance of Personal Accountability
As a non-surgical option, endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty requires personal effort on your end for it to become truly effective. After it alters how your digestive system works, you will be responsible for living a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, your ability to make dedicated changes is one of the most important criteria for whether or not this treatment is safe and ideal for you.
Furthermore, you will need to be able to implement safe weight loss strategies. This option must help you embrace a healthier life, and not possibly cause an eating disorder instead. Your medical team will give you all the necessary advice and may even recommend safe weight loss programs that you can participate in.
A Safe Way to Drastically Transform Your Life
Does the idea of surgery overwhelm you? Do you think that diet and exercise are insufficient to cause you significant weight loss? There is a safe way to drastically transform your body, without worrying about incisions, stitches, and scarring. Contact Batash Endoscopic Weight Loss Center in Rego Park, NY today to learn more about endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty. We are committed to only providing you the best care and support for your improvement.
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