What we offer:
Typically, patients who consider surgery are tired of losing and regaining weight and just can't face another diet program. Most people have tried everything by the time they consider surgery. They want a powerful tool to help them succeed. The most powerful weight loss tool today is the gastric band (LAP-BAND®, REALIZE™ Band).
We understand that many people suffering from obesity have abnormal appetite mechanisms and their bodies are very efficient at storing calories. Skinny people do not have this physiology. We all know skinny people who don't eat right and don't exercise but they don't become obese.
It has been shown that if you are more than one hundred pounds overweight, many patients regain all lost weight and often more over the long-term. Dieting can be associated with depression, anxiety, irritability, weakness, and preoccupation with food. Many patients will repeatedly lose and regain weight (yo-yo). This is why gastric band surgery is so effective. We believe the best way to achieve a healthy weight is by losing weight in a healthy, natural way, without the disadvantages of a diet mentality.
There are many important differences between laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding and gastric bypass surgery. Synchrony Health Chicago does not offer gastric bypass. If you look at the common complications of weight loss surgery, the gastric band (LAP-BAND®, REALIZE™ Band) is much safer. Many complications related to the gastric bypass do not exist with the gastric band. Gastric bypass complications are common, severe and can result in death or long-term disability. Band complications are rare, minor, and easily fixed as an outpatient procedure in most cases.
Gastric bypass surgery can make the number on the scale look better, but it accomplishes this in a very unhealthy way causing your body to waste muscle and bone. Gastric bypass uses a disease called malabsorption to create weight loss, which causes severe diarrhea, and makes the absorption of medications, vitamins, and nutrients unreliable and unpredictable.
Even if gastric bypass patients reach a healthy weight, they are still stuck with a chronic disease (malabsorption) for the rest of their lives. After band surgery, when you reach your healthy weight, you're healthy. We think this is the right way to do it.
Treatment for Failed Gastric Bypass
Although we do not offer gastric bypass, we do help patients who have undergone and have sub-optimal success with this type of surgery. Gastric bypass patients frequently regain some or all of their weight. This is due to dilation of the gastric pouch or stoma (the connection between the gastric pouch and the small intestine). In the past, this was treated with risky, radical surgery performed through a large open abdominal incision. We can treat this by placing a gastric band around the failed pouch, which is a procedure called Band over Bypass.
Synchrony Health Chicago is fortunate to have been chosen as one of the few centers in the United States to offer a new treatment for failed gastric bypass. This new technology, the ROSE procedure, repairs the bypass pouch without surgery; instead, the procedure involves cinching the dilated pouch or stoma from within to make the dilated pouch or stoma smaller. This is accomplished by a scope that is passed through the mouth - no incisions. To learn more contact Synchrony Health Chicago at 630-990-2440.
Obesity is a complex disease that requires complex treatment. Many medical weight loss programs are geared toward short-term success. Our approach is to maximize your long-term success. A comprehensive approach is needed to evaluate and treat obesity through medical, medicinal, behavioral, nutritional, and physiological means.
We are constantly adding to our list of medical services such that we may have something new for you at any time. At present, our offerings include but are not limited to: screening for metabolic conditions that cause obesity, nutritional evaluation, medications, psychological services and counseling, physical therapy evaluation for calorie burning, etc.
If you are serious about losing weight, before embarking on a weight loss program, it is important to make sure that the excess weight is not due to a medical condition; for example a person's metabolism may be too efficient at absorbing food nutrients and storing it as fat. Also, certain medications such as anti-depressants and steroids may lead to weight gain. Our Bariatrician evaluates the common problems such as hyperlipidemia, diabetes, sleep apnea, but also evaluates rarer obesity-related illnesses such as insulin resistance, infertility, breast and colon cancers. There are also many other lesser known complications such as acanthos nigrans, pickwickian syndrome, and pseudo-tumorcerebri which we are careful to watch for. While some of these conditions are simply uncomfortable, the complications may be quite serious, including premature death.
A thorough medical evaluation that includes history and physical, laboratory testing, and physiologic testing help our patients determine whether there is a medical cause of their obesity and to formulate the ideal course of treatment for each patient. At Synchrony Health Chicago, your comprehensive evaluation not only includes a full medical evaluation but goes well beyond that by evaluating insulin resistance, LDL sub-fractionization, and intra-arterial inflammatory markers to start. Then, your Synchrony program also excels to further evaluate your basal metabolic rate and defining your anaerobic threshold using sub-V02 max testing, body composition through biometry, and physical activity monitoring.
Calorie burning is an integral part of any healthy weight program. The more calories you burn the faster you will reach your healthy weight and the more you'll be able to eat in the process. Because the mobility of our patients ranges from those that require a wheelchair or scooter to get around to the very active, Synchrony Health Chicago uses mobility specialists and a customized approach to help people maximize their calorie burning.
More importantly, we not only start with these parameters, but constantly monitor your progress and adapt your program throughout your weight loss progress.