What we offer:

• Surgical Weight Loss
  • LAP-BAND® (Allergan)
  • REALIZE® Band (Ethicon Endo-Surgery)
  • SILS (Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery) for Gastric Banding
  • ROSE incision-less surgery for weight regain after gastric bypass
  • Band over bypass for weight regain after gastric bypass
  • Repair/revision of prior gastric band surgeries
  • NEW-Gastric Plication Surgery (GPS), also known as Gastric Imbrication, Total Vertical Sleeve Plication
• General surgery
  • Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (EGD, colonoscopy)
  • Laparoscopic hiatal hernia repair
  • Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal)
  • Laparoscopic hernia repair of ventral, umbilical, and inguinal hernias

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 Chicago Weight Loss 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.

Gastric Plication Surgery (GPS)

The GPS procedure is performed laparoscopically, under general anesthesia, and involves reducing the stomach volume by imbricating and stitching (plicating) the stomach wall, reducing it to the size of a narrow tube. This surgery emulates the sleeve gastrectomy, but doesn't involve any cutting or stapling of the stomach. Your natural stomach remains; it is simply imbricated on itself so that the stomach volume is reduced. We named this surgery GPS, because we have adapted the procedure to our cosmetic techniques and the routine repair of hiatal hernias. Elsewhere, you may find this procedure called any of the following: greater curvature plication, gastric imbrication, total vertical sleeve plication, etc.

The GPS procedure has no malabsorption like gastric bypass and no need for a port or adjustments like gastric banding. GPS is now the lowest cost weight loss operation available because it doesn't require expensive medical devices. Early results show GPS weight loss equivalent to the sleeve gastrectomy, which is similar to the gastric bypass. GPS patients describe feeling full on small amounts of food and their weight loss is excellent.

Synchrony Chicago Weight Loss is the only practice in Illinois offering the GPS procedure. Contact us for more information.

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 Chicago Weight Loss 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 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 Chicago Weight Loss 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, 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. We evaluate not only the common problems such as hyperlipidemia, diabetes, sleep apnea, but also evaluate rarer obesity-related illnesses such as insulin resistance, infertility, and hormonal imbalances.

More importantly, we not only start with these parameters, but constantly monitor your progress and adapt your program throughout your weight loss progress.