diagrams courtesy of Lynn Karagory and Dr. Pilcher
Home Surgery Story After Surgery Journey So Far
Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass
diagrams courtesy of Lynn Karagory
and Dr. Pilcher
A surgical device places parallel lines of staples diagonally across the upper end of the stomach and cuts between the lines, partitioning the stomach into two uneven parts. (Some surgeons only staple and do not cut, leaving the stomach in one piece, but divided by the staple line.) The upper pouch is the only part of the stomach that food will enter after the surgery. This pouch is about the size of a golf ball and can hold 20-30 ml. The amount of food a patient can consume in one meal after this surgery is severely restricted.
The surgeon then chooses a point along the small intestine and cuts it. The end of intestine that is no longer joined to the stomach is brought up and sewn on to a hole in the new pouch, creating an outlet for food and bypassing the first section of the small intestine. The end of intestine that drains from the lower (now unused) portion of the stomach is connected to the part of intestine that now exits the pouch. This allows digestive juices formed in the lower portion of the stomach to mix with the food after it leaves the pouch. The intestinal bypass causes some of the food consumed to be absorbed incompletely.