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Everything you want to know about a Gastric Sleeve

What is a Gastric Sleeve and why are extra vitamins essential? Here you can read all about it.

 

Everything you want to know about a Gastric Sleeve

What is a Gastric Sleeve and why are extra vitamins essential? Here you can read all about it.

 

What is a Gastric Sleeve?

In a Gastric Sleeve, most of the stomach is removed. What remains is about 15% of the original stomach. The reduced stomach is shaped like a narrow tube or sleeve. You can compare it to a banana. With a sleeve, nothing is changed in the entrance and exit of your stomach. Also, no detour is made in the intestines. The gastric sleeve allows you to eat less, feel satisfied faster and therefore lose weight. Because of this, the Gastric Sleeve is a frequently chosen procedure for severe obesity.

What changes in your body after a Gastric Sleeve?

After a gastric sleeve, your stomach is about 85% smaller. As a result, you can’t eat much and you lose weight. Normally, the stomach produces stomach acid. Stomach acid is needed to release nutrients from food. With a Sleeve, you produce almost no stomach acid. In addition, after surgery you no longer produce intrinsic factor. This is an important protein in the stomach lining. Without intrinsic factor, your body has difficulty absorbing vitamin B12.

Also, after a Gastric Sleeve your body produces less ghrelin. This hunger hormone sends a signal to your brain when it is time to eat. So after the surgery you experience less appetite which helps with weight loss. About a year after treatment, ghrelin production increases again in other parts of the digestive tract. Therefore, it is extremely important to quickly get used to healthy habits and to keep working on them. Food intolerance also occurs after weight loss surgery. It often involves red meat, dairy products such as milk and cheese, rice, pasta and bread. Usually this is temporary and you can eventually tolerate these foods again.


What is the recovery from surgery like?

A Sleeve is a surgery under anesthesia. Therefore, your body does need time to fully recover. How long is different for each individual. On average, it takes 3 to 6 weeks. Try not to do any healthy lifting or doing any exercise during your recovery. Wait the first few days after your operation with driving and cycling. Because swallowing is often still painful, try to eat only liquids for the first 2 weeks. Your treating physician can tell you more about recovery after your surgery.

What are the pros and cons of a Sleeve?

  • You lose weight and your health improves
  • Type 2 diabetes can become easier to manage or even reversed
  • Symptoms caused by excess weight decrease or disappear altogether
  • Losing weight becomes easier because you eat less and absorb fewer nutrients such as fats and carbohydrates due to the detour in your intestines
  • The risk of dying prematurely is 30 to 40% lower after surgery
  • Your quality of life improves: 95% of people with a weight loss surgery agree.
  • Due to the operation you eat less and you lose weight. On the other hand, you also miss out on important vitamins and minerals. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies can cause all sorts of health problems
  • No surgery is without risk. The same goes for a Gastric Sleeve. After surgery, complications can occur such as wound infections, bleeding, heartburn problems (reflux), stenosis, vomiting and dumping syndrome
  • You may experience excess skin due to the rapid weight loss
  • About a year after surgery, the production of the “hunger hormone” comes back to a different place in the digestive tract. This can cause you to gain weight again. Therefore, follow a healthy diet and lifestyle. Not only in the first year, but for the rest of your life
  • Obesity is not a problem that can be solved by surgery alone. A healthy lifestyle, mindset and the right diet are just as important to staying fit and balanced.

Why do you need extra vitamins after a Gastric Sleeve?

Less food after weight loss surgery also means that you get less nutrients. In addition, your body makes hardly any stomach acid and no intrinsic factor. As a result, you absorb less vitamins and minerals. And these are exactly what you need to stay healthy and feel good. In addition, food intolerance is common after a Sleeve. While meat is an important source of protein, vitamin B12 and iron. And milk and cheese for calcium. A vitamin and mineral deficiency causes all kinds of complaints. Your resistance becomes lower, you feel tired more often or you are more tense. We can not live without vitamins and minerals. This applies to everyone but especially after Gastric Sleeve, the risk of deficiency is high.

A multivitamin tailored to your surgery

Let’s be open and honest: A multivitamin is not a miracle pill. It’s not a quick fix or replacement for healthy eating and living. A multivitamin gives you that extra boost of vitamins and minerals you need. It contributes to a healthy lifestyle. Our supplements help you stay powerful and balanced throughout your life. Therefore, multivitamin intake is not temporary, but lifelong.

FitForMe has been using scientific research for over 10 years. As a result, we know that you need extra vitamin D, iron and vitamin B12, among other things. We have combined the important vitamins and minerals into one multivitamin.

 

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It's the start of a healthy life

Surgery changes your life in many ways. It can be a big challenge physically and mentally, which FitForMe understands well. We’ve developed multivitamins that contain all the active ingredients to help you stay in balance. We deliver the multivitamins to your home and give you personal advice. We support you every day on your journey towards better health.

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