Adopting a healthy lifestyle is imperative for obese patients, but bariatric surgery can also help morbidly obese patients lose weight and improve or resolve resulting health issues. For C.J., it was a big decision to have bariatric surgery. She had been overweight her whole life and had tried and failed at many diets. Her weight had reached 280 pounds. She began to suffer from secondary health ailments caused by her weight, such as chronic knee joint problems, migraines, incontinence and asthma. While sitting on a park bench watching her three kids play with their father, C.J. realized she had become a spectator in her family’s life. She decided to ask her doctor about bariatric surgery.

When bariatric surgery — or surgery on the stomach and/or intestines to help morbidly obese patients lose weight — first emerged, it was a very invasive surgery in which long incisions were made in the stomach. Continual innovation in medical technology has enabled more minimally invasive surgery. Today, surgeons create smaller incisions leaving very small scars and use improved tools allowing for faster recoveries, shorter hospital stays and decreased chance of wound complications, such as infection and hernia. Some patients return to work in little more than a week and many quickly return to physical activity.

Minimally invasive laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery, a type of bariatric surgery, worked for C.J. The procedure required very small incisions and precise instruments to literally bypass a large portion of her stomach, so that only a small portion remains functional and absorption of food is dramatically reduced. She was out of the hospital just two days after her surgery, out shopping a day after that, walking the next week and in the gym working out just four weeks after her surgery. She began to lose weight almost immediately after having the surgery, and has lost a total of 110 pounds. The health problems she suffered before the surgery have also disappeared.

Studies show that bariatric surgery is effective in improving and resolving many weight-related health conditions.³ A review of more than 22,000 bariatric surgery patients showed astounding health benefits for patients.

C.J. has transformed herself into a new person since having bariatric surgery. She is now a successful real estate agent, a career she always wanted but felt she could not have given her weight issues. She’s not only transformed her life, but she has helped her family adopt an extremely active and healthy lifestyle. As she put it, “I’m 40 years old and I’m experiencing new things everyday because of the new life that surgery gave me. I’m literally living my dreams.”