Duodenal Switch Gastric Surgery
Duodenal Switch, known as Bilio-Pancreatic Diversion with Duodenal Switch or the DS, is a weight loss surgery in which stomach size is altered and the path food takes is a changed also. This leads to dramatic weight loss.
This type of weight loss surgery works like a one-two punch.
- Part one reduces the size of the stomach to about a quarter of it’s original size. This makes it more difficult to eat as much which will in turn help you lose weight.
- Part two reroutes part of the small intestine making two pathways food can follow. The longer of the two pathways is the normal route food usually takes, the sorter of the two routes food from the stomach to the large intestine..
Double Trouble?
Ok, so I have two routes for food, won’t I get twice as heavy? No. The trick is that part of your food skips your small intestine. The small intestine is what extracts nutrition and calories from your food. By routing part of your food around this, you are still able to get the calories you need and the nutrition you need, but you don’t get the excess calories.
Wow this sounds great, where do I sign up
Not so fast! There are disadvantages and risks as well. Usually (almost always) patients need supplemental vitamins to offset the nutrition they are missing by having food routed around the small intestine. DS patients require extensive blood tests throughout the rest of their life to check for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. This follow care is NOT optional.Due to the difficulty of this surgery, fewer doctors are trained on it. The surgery does have higher risks due to the sheer invasiveness of it. For the extremely obese, though, one needs to (oh, God, no! Here it comes. The terrible pun.) weigh the risk of the surgery vs the risk the obesity poses to ones health.
More info about other types of weight loss surgery