Gastric sleeve surgery or sleeve gastrectomy, a weight loss surgery option, has a 60-70% success rate in reducing medication and/or insulin requirements in overweight patients with diabetes. Too often, Dr. Ken Wong sees patients who have been pumping insulin for ten years. Just two weeks after weight loss surgery, be it sleeve gastrectomy, gastric sleeve or bypass, they have found that they do not need even one third of their diabetic medications or insulin. In some cases, patients have been able to go off all their insulin and medications entirely.
The cost of the surgery is recovered within the first year from the savings from not requiring medications and insulin.
We also know that the shorter the duration of the diabetes the more likely the gastric sleeve/sleeve gastrectomy or other weight loss surgery will improve the diabetes.
This is not fully known. Weight loss clearly will help sugar control. We know that weight loss surgery like sleeve gastrectomy helps most people lose weight quickly. However, we also know that sleeve gastrectomy patients report improved sugar control long before any weight is lost. So the theory is that there may be a part of the stomach that is removed during sleeve gastrectomy that is responsible for sugar control dysfunction in diabetic patients.
You may want to consider weight loss surgery, including gastric sleeve/sleeve gastrectomy or gastric bypass. At Central Coast Surgery, Dr. Ken Wong has had much success in weight loss in diabetic patients and improving both weight and sugar control. Contact us for a confidential consultation to discuss your weight loss surgery options.
