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The biliopancreatic diversion surgery is done under general anesthesia. This procedure can be performed in two separate ways which includes the use of a laparoscope or it may be dome by hand. The laparoscope of course is the most commonly used method today as it features a couple of small incisions less than 2 centimeters long where as when the technique is done by hand there is usually one large incision.
After you are put under general anesthesia for a 2 to 3 hour procedure the surgeon will quickly go to work on your stomach where he or she will bisect the stomach using gastric staples before finally cutting off and removing 85% or more of the stomach. The surgeon will be very careful as to not cause any damage to the nerves of the upper side of the stomach as the goal of a biliopancreatic diversion is that the stomach will stay fully functional upon completion of the procedure. While this part of the biliopancreatic diversion is not reversible in any way it is also only temporary. When saying that the removal of 85% or more of your stomach is only temporary what this means is that with the pyloric valve still attached and working you will soon be able to return to normal sized meals and you will even be able to eat many of the foods that you would never be able to eat again if you had opted for the standard weight loss surgeries.
This first part of the procedure while only temporary is considered to be the constrictive portion of the procedure in which over the course of the next year it will in fact restrict the amount of food you can eat at any given time. However after about a year or so the biliopancreatic diversion patients will soon find themselves being able to sit down with friends and family in a restaurant without looking out of place for only ordering a bowl of soup.
The nest portion of the biliopancreatic diversion is the duodenal switch in which the surgeon will literally cut the intestines in half and reroute them. The reason for this rerouting is to cause malabsorption. This malabsorption is caused because the rerouting of the intestines was to keep the pancreatic juices and bile separate from the flow of food and thus minimizing the amount of food that one can absorb. |
