Description

Dr. Blackstone shares the possible complications of an adjustable gastric band.

Transcript

What are the possible complications of an adjustable gastric band? An adjustable gastric band also can have complications and death can still occur, but it occurs more about a rate of one in a thousand people, okay? So in comparison to the other procedures that are offered, it’s definitely the safest procedure that we can offer someone who wants to get their weight off permanently. The most frequent complication that occurs with the band is something called a prolapse or a slip, and what happens is the stomach actually migrates up underneath the band and forms a larger pouch up above the band than should be there. Usually this occurs when someone has very violent vomiting, like they get a really bad flu or food poisoning or maybe they were on a bench and they got little, you know? So if you have that kind of really violent vomiting and you get abdominal pain or really bad reflux afterwards, then you probably need to seek care from your doctor. Usually what you do is you will start out with a picture of the abdomen, and that can usually tell us something and we take a lot of the fluid out and that can help relieve it. Eventually, some people will need their band removed.