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Is the stomach removed during surgery?

This depends on which surgery you have.

Gastric sleeve (sleeve gastrectomy) surgery makes the stomach smaller by permanently removing most of it. Once you’re under anesthesia, the surgeon will place a small tube in your mouth and guide it down to your stomach. This tube is about the size and shape your stomach will be after surgery. The surgeon cuts the stomach around the tube’s outline. The part that’s left behind is closed with permanent staples. The tube is then carefully pulled back out. The portion of the stomach that was cut is then removed from the body.

With gastric bypass surgery, the stomach is separated into two parts. Each part is stapled shut. This leaves a small stomach pouch about the size of an egg. Like gastric sleeve, this small pouch limits (restricts) how much food you can comfortably eat. Next, the small intestine is cut and reattached to the stomach pouch. This is the “bypass.” The other part of the intestine is reattached to your new digestive system so digestive juices can flow easily. Food now moves from the new stomach pouch directly to the lower part of the small intestine. In gastric bypass surgery, nothing is removed.

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