It's Important to Understand These Risk Factors When You're Considering Weight Loss Surgery

If obesity or weight-related health conditions have you considering weight loss surgery, you probably know that surgery offers many potential benefits. For example, surgery can help with health problems such as Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and heart disease.

Weight loss surgery, also known as bariatric surgery, may even extend the length of your life.

When you’re considering weight loss surgery, it’s easy to get excited about the ways in which it could improve your health and your quality of life. But you should be aware of the possible risks of weight loss surgery.

At Peachtree Surgical & Bariatrics in Atlanta, Georgia, our team of experienced weight loss care providers believes that everyone who has weight loss surgery should fully understand all of the potential risks and benefits. 

That’s why we give you comprehensive information about possible risks, no matter how unlikely they are to occur.

Here, we outline some of the risks of weight loss surgery. Your provider will give you more information about risks than what we can cover in a blog, but the information we present here can help get you started thinking about potential risks.

Risks during surgery

Overall, weight loss surgery is known for being very safe. But all types of surgery, whether minor or extensive, carry the risk of complications. 

Naturally, we take every precaution to protect you. But even with those precautions, surgery does present the risk of problems such as:

• Blood clots, including life-threatening blood clots
• Breathing problems
• Excessive bleeding
• Gastrointestinal effects, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or constipation
• Infection
• Pain or soreness

Risks after surgery

During the hours, days, weeks, months, and even years after surgery, you can still experience a range of adverse effects. These adverse effects don’t commonly occur, but there is a chance that they may happen. They include:

• Anemia (low iron)
• Gallstones
• Hernias
• Leaking from your gastrointestinal system
• Less weight loss than expected
• Loss of bone density
• Nausea or vomiting
• Need for revision surgery
• Obstruction of your bowels
• Problems absorbing nutrients
• Trouble swallowing
• Weight regain over time

Reducing your risks

The specific types of possible risks you could face may depend on several factors, including the type of weight loss surgery you receive, your age, your overall health, and any risk factors you may already have.

We discuss all possible risks with you before you decide whether to have surgery. Ask your provider any questions you may have.

Before and after surgery, we work closely with you to make sure that we take every possible precaution to protect your health and increase the chances of long-term weight loss success.

Learn more about weight loss surgery

We invite you to attend our free online seminar, which provides important details about weight loss surgery options at Peachtree Surgical & Bariatrics. We also encourage you to read our helpful blogs, inspiring success stories, and useful treatment descriptions here on our website.   

When you’re ready, we welcome you to schedule a consultation with one of our highly skilled weight loss care providers. Contact us today to make an appointment.