No if you are only asking about surgery alone gastric bypass holds risks like any major surgery, and therefore like any surgery the safety and effectiveness of the procedure depend largely on the competency of the surgeon and the discipline of the patient. However unlike almost any other surgery gastric bypass must be looked at well beyond the general risks of anesthesia, blood loss and recovery.
Gastric bypass is the only surgery recommended for the sole reason that a person is in fact obese. Obese may be the word the doctor uses but “fat” is the word the patient has been hearing for most of their life. While the doctor considers the dangers of the weight surpassing the dangers of the surgery the patient considers becoming a whole new person.
For most this is incredibly exciting, if for nothing else the anticipation of no longer exerting so much effort and energy for the basic and mundane movements most people make daily. For just as many is the consideration of improvement to ones appearance, but here is where it all goes so much differently for the gastric bypass patient. Unlike a breast implant, tummy tuck or face lift a gastric bypass does not change one part of your body, but instead ultimately over time leaves not one aspect of appearance the same. Faces are thinner, arms are thinner, bellies are reduced and so are thighs and while health improves and the fat falls off, soon the only reminder of the identity the patient has ever had is the large layers of sagging skin where “fat” once was.
A large percentage of gastric bypass patients will find a new addiction and the highest percentage seems to be alcohol. Many people, usually the same ones somewhat cruel when the person was “fat” will cast a new shadow to accuse them of addiction exchange, truth is most patients are looking for ways to cope and process becoming someone else….literally. Many patients will lose enough weight to make up another body, and in doing so will begin, usually for the first time, to walk down streets and not be stared at, be flirted with, invited more often and approached instead of ignored by the sales clerk. They will for the first time fit in and have conflict of joy and guilt for doing so, after all these are the very same people who before rejected them. For other patients the beauty they focused on internally now becomes fixated on the external and a rejection of the person they once were can mean a complete denial of the life they had “fat” and the people that loved them that way.
The dangers of gastric bypass surgery are serious, and more serious then some, but with a respected surgeon the gains in health will almost always out “weigh” the risk. So the surgery it self is safe and safer then the health risk. The problem is most will not fully seek the counseling suggested with this surgery and because of all the things I have written about and more too many will have a life ended prematurely anyway….but at their own hand as confusion causes depression and complete identity change causes panic.
Many of us know at least one person who has opted for gastric bypass surgery not one story is exactly the same but every gastric bypass surgery has a much longer recovery time then any other surgery as the recovery begins when the weight is lost…. not in post op so the biggest risk is at home not in the hospital or with the procedure.
