The operation is performed at Spring Branch Medical Center in Houston, Texas, a 350 bed hospital with complete facilities for the care of the morbidly obese and with more than 25 years of experience with this surgery.

Depending on your order on the surgical schedule, you will be admitted directly to the holding area or a regular hospital room. Family members or friends will be allowed to stay with you until you are taken into the operating room. The preoperative area nurse will interview you, review your chart, complete the surgical check-out list and start the I.V. The anesthesiologist or certified nurse anesthetist (CRNA) and the OR nurse follow. The surgeon will meet you and your family, and ask the latter to wait in the adjacent waiting area. They will be met again approximately 45-60 minutes later, in a quiet, private room, for a full report after the operation finishes.

Pain Management
The surgeon will inject the operative site with a long-acting local anesthetic prior to opening and again before closing the wound. An I.V. analgesic is given at the end of the operation. You will take two types of oral analgesics on an alternating basis every 4 hours. Additional pain medication can be ordered as needed.