Bariatric surgery is seen as a vital tool in a person's weight-loss journey, however it can really be a whole new beginning. Your life will change in so many ways, and it is important to know that after you've had surgery there are a few steps you need to take to assure that your weight loss is permanent.
In this podcast Dr. Basil Yurcisin shares what life is like after bariatric surgery for those that under go one of our procedures.
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Life After Bariatric Surgery
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Learn more about Basil Yurcisin, MD
Basil Yurcisin, MD
Dr. Basil Yurcisin is a bariatric and general surgeon. He trained at one of the world’s top fellowship programs in bariatrics and minimally invasive surgery- Duke University Medical Center. In 2010, Dr. Yurcisin joined Garden State Bariatrics, and became a partner in 2017. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). Not only is he an incredibly talented bariatric surgeon, Dr. Yurcisin is compassionate, funny and dedicated to the lifelong success of his patients.Learn more about Basil Yurcisin, MD
Transcription:
Bill Klaproth: Not being afraid to step on the scale after a lifetime of frustration? Could be life after bariatric surgery. Let's hear more with Dr. Basil Yurcisin. He's a bariatric and general surgeon and a partner at Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center.
Tell us what is life like after bariatric surgery for most of your patients?
Dr. Basil Yurcisin: In most situations, I think life gets a lot better for our patients. My patients constantly tell me that they're doing things they never did before, they wish they did it 10 years ago or they come in all excited about the fact that they got rid of this or that medication or the doctor told them they didn’t have to wear their CPAP machine anymore. Life in a lot of ways is better. In the immediate post-operative period, sometimes there's some ups and downs, but when we get to the further longevity of the operation, life is better after bariatric surgery.
Bill: That is so good to hear. Besides looking better, which is the external reason a lot of people want to do this, can you talk about the health benefits you see in people? You were just talking about people not having to take medication. What other health benefits do you see in people after bariatric surgery?
Dr. Yurcisin: Obesity can affect pretty much every organ system in the body and it does play a role in a multitude of disease processes that ail the human race. As a result, looking weight and getting rid of obesity can do the exact opposite. It can help to alleviate those medical problems and things like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, certain types of cancer risk, infertility in women and men – a lot of those things start to get better and go away and become non-issues for those patients. They get off of medications, they're able to do things they were never able to do before socially, they become more confident – depression and anxiety can sometimes be alleviated after the bariatric surgery. Across the board, the medical benefits, in my opinion, are more important than how you look in the mirror because getting rid of those disease processes are what are going to keep you on the planet longer with your loved ones with life experiences. This is really happy medicine in a lot of ways.
Bill: So many benefits. You mentioned confidence. Can you speak a little bit more about that, the transformation you must see in people as they walk in and see you after bariatric surgery more confident, better self-esteem? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Dr. Yurcisin: That’s more of an anecdotal thing. It’s the way I feel or I perceive that person. When they walk into the room the first time when they're coming for their consultation, often times they're nervous and anxious and maybe they don’t do great with eye contact and maybe they have family members around them because they're afraid to be there on that first day. I watch the transformation after the operations and it’s amazing. They come in with their heads held high, they look you in the eye, they tell you stories about how this is positively affected their families, they tell you stories about how they're starting to travel and go on yoga retreats or ran a 5K or got to ride in an airplane without having to have the second seatbelt – the list goes on. Women that were not able to have babies now walk in and show you their child that they just gave birth to. It’s really heartwarming and it’s a really beautiful part of what we get to see as bariatric surgeons and it’s my favorite part of the job, to be honest.
Bill: Truly life changing for the better for these people and that’s got to give you a great of satisfaction when you see your patients coming in and telling you all these great stories of how much better their life is and how much joy they're experiencing. Life after bariatric surgery. Let's talk about after surgery, the recovery for someone listening and wondering what to expect after the surgery. Can you briefly tell us what recovery is like?
Dr. Yurcisin: Usually, you're in the hospital for a day or so, 24-72 hours depending on the surgeon and how large the operation was for you and just how you recover from operations based on your medical problems and things like that that you started with. Once you leave the hospital, your pain is pretty much under control. You may have a little bit of nausea from time to time. You may have a little bit of heartburn from time to time. The real next big step is relearning your new diet or your new stomach if you will. In most cases, after bariatric surgery, your stomach has been altered in some way to make it smaller or less complaint to food and you have to relearn to eat slowly to divide your liquids from your solids in the way you eat. You have to change the composition of your meals so that you're eating more meals and less carbs and fat. All those things take time and it may take as much as a month or a month and a half after the surgery before you're really feeling you got this and understand what the diet is going to look like going forward and back to understanding what you're going to be able to eat or not eat and what you're going to be able to tolerate. That part takes a little while. As you get further out, it becomes second nature, and as long as you fight whatever demons you have coming in as far as the bad habits that may have gotten you there in the first place and you're cognizant of those and you don’t let them creep back in, patients do very well long-term when they implement those lifestyle changes.
Bill: I want to talk about lifestyle changes in a minute, but first, I imagine this is a common question. How soon does the weight start coming off?
Dr. Yurcisin: Pretty quickly. Even more soon, the medical problems start getting better. We have patients who come into the hospital with diabetes and they go home post-op day one or two without diabetes, or at least not on any diabetic medications, or their high blood pressure medications have been cut in half already. Usually, by the end of the first month, they've lost somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds. Depending on the operation that they have, the sleeve, the bypass or the duodenal switch, they get more robust in the amount of weight loss they can cause as you go up that scale. You have a front-loading weight loss in these operations where you lose the majority of the weight in the first six to nine months at 60% or 70% of what you're going to lose overall, then it starts to taper over the course of the next year or so. It could be pretty rapid weight loss on the front end and you can see some real transformation over the course of three to six months. These patients come in and sometimes they're not even recognizable how much they've changed for the better.
Bill: That’s amazing. Six to nine months for the initial rapid weight loss, so about a year or year and a half before the full transformation takes place, is that about right?
Dr. Yurcisin: A year and a half to two years is probably a little more accurate, but yes. The idea is sound.
Bill: Let's talk about that timeframe and life beyond that. Earlier you were talking about lifestyle changes, so let's talk about this. It takes work on the part of the patient. This isn't a ‘go and have surgery and I go back to my regular lifestyle.’ Talk to us about the discipline and the work that it takes and the lifestyle changes that have to occur for this to really be successful.
Dr. Yurcisin: I like to say to my patients that the equation isn't ‘come in, do all the work to have surgery, have surgery and then go buy skinny jeans.’ That’s not how it works. Its ‘do the surgery,' which is the relatively straightforward, easy part, and then the hard part is changing the habits that got you there in the first place and making those lifestyle changes long-term. The nice thing is that these operations – the sleeve, gastric bypass and duodenal switch – are very good at helping you see a return on your investment. Where you may have gone to the gym every day for the last month and only see a minor change or you had one cheat day and you end up gaining a bunch of weight or any of the frustrations that come from yo-yo dieting, you see a more durable effect. You apply yourself properly following the rules of your nutritionist and your bariatric surgeon and you see real results and see them manifest in a relatively quick fashion, and you see them maintain over time and you see that it's easy to do it because those changes that have happened during surgery make it more tolerable to be on a diet. Some people get really frustrated when they're on diets because they feel like they're depriving themselves. This isn't a deprivation situation; this is more of an ‘I'm comfortable with the new amount of food that I'm eating because I feel full, I feel satiated,' so it makes it a little bit easier. Those things are really the most important aspect of the weight loss and maintaining the weight loss. It’s not ‘did you get through the surgery;’ it’s ‘did you apply yourself and make the changes that you needed to do over your life so that you can live with the surgery and have a new healthier lifestyle going forward.’
Bill: I think it’s important to know that you are with them through this journey after surgery. Can you talk about the regular checkups that you provide after surgery for the person’s entire life after the surgery? Can you tell us about that process?
Dr. Yurcisin: I like to say to my patients we're going to be buddies forever in a lot of ways. In the immediate post-op period, we see the patients more frequently. We see them one week, one month, three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, and then in the second year, we see them even six months. 18 months, two years after surgery, then we see them yearly thereafter, and that yearly checkup is really important to make sure we're still on track, that we haven't fallen off the wagon, that we're really implementing the lifestyle changes over time. If there is any hiccups along the way, we can be there as a support system to check in with the nutritionist, to check in with a doctor, to check in with the metabolic specialist if needed to make sure we're going to be successful long-term with these operations.
Bill: That’s so important and so comforting to know for a person that’s thinking about doing some form of bariatric surgery to know that you're going to be for them throughout this journey of theirs to keep checking on them and keep helping them realize their goals and make this procedure successful because that’s what everybody wants. Thank you so much for your time. Love talking to you. For more information about Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center, you can visit their website at gsbwc.com. That’s gsbwc.com. This is Winning Through Losing, a Weight Loss Surgery podcast with Garden State Bariatrics. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth: Not being afraid to step on the scale after a lifetime of frustration? Could be life after bariatric surgery. Let's hear more with Dr. Basil Yurcisin. He's a bariatric and general surgeon and a partner at Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center.
Tell us what is life like after bariatric surgery for most of your patients?
Dr. Basil Yurcisin: In most situations, I think life gets a lot better for our patients. My patients constantly tell me that they're doing things they never did before, they wish they did it 10 years ago or they come in all excited about the fact that they got rid of this or that medication or the doctor told them they didn’t have to wear their CPAP machine anymore. Life in a lot of ways is better. In the immediate post-operative period, sometimes there's some ups and downs, but when we get to the further longevity of the operation, life is better after bariatric surgery.
Bill: That is so good to hear. Besides looking better, which is the external reason a lot of people want to do this, can you talk about the health benefits you see in people? You were just talking about people not having to take medication. What other health benefits do you see in people after bariatric surgery?
Dr. Yurcisin: Obesity can affect pretty much every organ system in the body and it does play a role in a multitude of disease processes that ail the human race. As a result, looking weight and getting rid of obesity can do the exact opposite. It can help to alleviate those medical problems and things like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, certain types of cancer risk, infertility in women and men – a lot of those things start to get better and go away and become non-issues for those patients. They get off of medications, they're able to do things they were never able to do before socially, they become more confident – depression and anxiety can sometimes be alleviated after the bariatric surgery. Across the board, the medical benefits, in my opinion, are more important than how you look in the mirror because getting rid of those disease processes are what are going to keep you on the planet longer with your loved ones with life experiences. This is really happy medicine in a lot of ways.
Bill: So many benefits. You mentioned confidence. Can you speak a little bit more about that, the transformation you must see in people as they walk in and see you after bariatric surgery more confident, better self-esteem? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Dr. Yurcisin: That’s more of an anecdotal thing. It’s the way I feel or I perceive that person. When they walk into the room the first time when they're coming for their consultation, often times they're nervous and anxious and maybe they don’t do great with eye contact and maybe they have family members around them because they're afraid to be there on that first day. I watch the transformation after the operations and it’s amazing. They come in with their heads held high, they look you in the eye, they tell you stories about how this is positively affected their families, they tell you stories about how they're starting to travel and go on yoga retreats or ran a 5K or got to ride in an airplane without having to have the second seatbelt – the list goes on. Women that were not able to have babies now walk in and show you their child that they just gave birth to. It’s really heartwarming and it’s a really beautiful part of what we get to see as bariatric surgeons and it’s my favorite part of the job, to be honest.
Bill: Truly life changing for the better for these people and that’s got to give you a great of satisfaction when you see your patients coming in and telling you all these great stories of how much better their life is and how much joy they're experiencing. Life after bariatric surgery. Let's talk about after surgery, the recovery for someone listening and wondering what to expect after the surgery. Can you briefly tell us what recovery is like?
Dr. Yurcisin: Usually, you're in the hospital for a day or so, 24-72 hours depending on the surgeon and how large the operation was for you and just how you recover from operations based on your medical problems and things like that that you started with. Once you leave the hospital, your pain is pretty much under control. You may have a little bit of nausea from time to time. You may have a little bit of heartburn from time to time. The real next big step is relearning your new diet or your new stomach if you will. In most cases, after bariatric surgery, your stomach has been altered in some way to make it smaller or less complaint to food and you have to relearn to eat slowly to divide your liquids from your solids in the way you eat. You have to change the composition of your meals so that you're eating more meals and less carbs and fat. All those things take time and it may take as much as a month or a month and a half after the surgery before you're really feeling you got this and understand what the diet is going to look like going forward and back to understanding what you're going to be able to eat or not eat and what you're going to be able to tolerate. That part takes a little while. As you get further out, it becomes second nature, and as long as you fight whatever demons you have coming in as far as the bad habits that may have gotten you there in the first place and you're cognizant of those and you don’t let them creep back in, patients do very well long-term when they implement those lifestyle changes.
Bill: I want to talk about lifestyle changes in a minute, but first, I imagine this is a common question. How soon does the weight start coming off?
Dr. Yurcisin: Pretty quickly. Even more soon, the medical problems start getting better. We have patients who come into the hospital with diabetes and they go home post-op day one or two without diabetes, or at least not on any diabetic medications, or their high blood pressure medications have been cut in half already. Usually, by the end of the first month, they've lost somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds. Depending on the operation that they have, the sleeve, the bypass or the duodenal switch, they get more robust in the amount of weight loss they can cause as you go up that scale. You have a front-loading weight loss in these operations where you lose the majority of the weight in the first six to nine months at 60% or 70% of what you're going to lose overall, then it starts to taper over the course of the next year or so. It could be pretty rapid weight loss on the front end and you can see some real transformation over the course of three to six months. These patients come in and sometimes they're not even recognizable how much they've changed for the better.
Bill: That’s amazing. Six to nine months for the initial rapid weight loss, so about a year or year and a half before the full transformation takes place, is that about right?
Dr. Yurcisin: A year and a half to two years is probably a little more accurate, but yes. The idea is sound.
Bill: Let's talk about that timeframe and life beyond that. Earlier you were talking about lifestyle changes, so let's talk about this. It takes work on the part of the patient. This isn't a ‘go and have surgery and I go back to my regular lifestyle.’ Talk to us about the discipline and the work that it takes and the lifestyle changes that have to occur for this to really be successful.
Dr. Yurcisin: I like to say to my patients that the equation isn't ‘come in, do all the work to have surgery, have surgery and then go buy skinny jeans.’ That’s not how it works. Its ‘do the surgery,' which is the relatively straightforward, easy part, and then the hard part is changing the habits that got you there in the first place and making those lifestyle changes long-term. The nice thing is that these operations – the sleeve, gastric bypass and duodenal switch – are very good at helping you see a return on your investment. Where you may have gone to the gym every day for the last month and only see a minor change or you had one cheat day and you end up gaining a bunch of weight or any of the frustrations that come from yo-yo dieting, you see a more durable effect. You apply yourself properly following the rules of your nutritionist and your bariatric surgeon and you see real results and see them manifest in a relatively quick fashion, and you see them maintain over time and you see that it's easy to do it because those changes that have happened during surgery make it more tolerable to be on a diet. Some people get really frustrated when they're on diets because they feel like they're depriving themselves. This isn't a deprivation situation; this is more of an ‘I'm comfortable with the new amount of food that I'm eating because I feel full, I feel satiated,' so it makes it a little bit easier. Those things are really the most important aspect of the weight loss and maintaining the weight loss. It’s not ‘did you get through the surgery;’ it’s ‘did you apply yourself and make the changes that you needed to do over your life so that you can live with the surgery and have a new healthier lifestyle going forward.’
Bill: I think it’s important to know that you are with them through this journey after surgery. Can you talk about the regular checkups that you provide after surgery for the person’s entire life after the surgery? Can you tell us about that process?
Dr. Yurcisin: I like to say to my patients we're going to be buddies forever in a lot of ways. In the immediate post-op period, we see the patients more frequently. We see them one week, one month, three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, and then in the second year, we see them even six months. 18 months, two years after surgery, then we see them yearly thereafter, and that yearly checkup is really important to make sure we're still on track, that we haven't fallen off the wagon, that we're really implementing the lifestyle changes over time. If there is any hiccups along the way, we can be there as a support system to check in with the nutritionist, to check in with a doctor, to check in with the metabolic specialist if needed to make sure we're going to be successful long-term with these operations.
Bill: That’s so important and so comforting to know for a person that’s thinking about doing some form of bariatric surgery to know that you're going to be for them throughout this journey of theirs to keep checking on them and keep helping them realize their goals and make this procedure successful because that’s what everybody wants. Thank you so much for your time. Love talking to you. For more information about Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center, you can visit their website at gsbwc.com. That’s gsbwc.com. This is Winning Through Losing, a Weight Loss Surgery podcast with Garden State Bariatrics. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.