Intragastric Balloon Information

The process takes about 15 minutes, and the patient returns to his home shortly after. The intragastric balloon made of silicone (an inert compound) does not produce any kind of adverse reactions in the stomach.

The intragastric balloon will last a maximum of 6 months in the stomach and the withdrawal of it is made similarly to the introduction.

After 2 or 3 days, the stomach adapts to the intragastric balloon. The great advantage of this method is that disappearance of hunger is caused by a decrease in the gastric volume and thus the amount of intake, so the patient will lose weight effortlessly. There are no contraindications specific to the type of foods that can be ingested.

A team consisting on doctors, nutritionists, psychologists and physical trainers will make a thorough control of the patient during treatment. Also, control over the process will be to re-educate obese patients on their dietary and physical habits. This learning helps the individual to maintain or even continue losing weight, once removed the Intragastric balloon. Once the treatment over, a regular basis control will remain.

Candidates in general are all obese people except for those with psychiatric problems or gastroduodenal ulcer. Obese is defined as one whose body mass index exceeds 30.

Treatment with intragastric balloon is already being successfully applied in clinics specialized in obesity in other countries like England, Belgium and Holland. The outcome in all patients is a considerable loss of weight. Clinical experience indicates that two thirds of individuals treated maintained the weight achieved during treatment with the intragastric balloon, or continue to lose weight after the removal of it. These results exceeded the expectations of any treatment for obesity, including surgery.