General Surgery

Your first consultation with Dr Wong or Dr Lim and one of our Bariatric Nurses will take approximately one hour. In this session, it is important that we get to know you both as a person and a patient in order to be able to help you best.

This session will give us an understanding of your circumstances and offer some information about potential treatment options. We’ll conduct a thorough assessment of your health and your goals for the future, allowing us to ultimately make the best decision regarding your treatment.

It’s important not to rush this stage of the process so that we can offer the most appropriate treatment plan for you.

Obesity is a chronic condition; beating it isn’t a race! We have a program specifically designed to enhance your long-term success with surgery as well as maximise your safety. Therefore it is important to follow the process which can take 2-3 weeks at a minimum.

We understand how anxious you may be to start your obesity surgery, but our care pathway teaches process, patience and planning. This process in itself is therapeutic and will help you start to develop those all-important long-term skills to hasten your recovery and improve your chances of success in the post-surgery phase.

YES! Bariatric surgery is very safe with major complications occurring at a rate significantly less than 1%, and close to 0.1% for Dr Wong’s practice.

Stomachs are made to expand and will not remain exactly the same size forever. The most important factor is to focus on eating a healthy and balanced diet, and regulate your portions based on your nutritional requirements, not your feelings.

By regulating diet in this manner, even if your sleeve or pouch does stretch, it will not necessarily result in significant weight gain.

There are several different factors which can determine whether or not you end up with excess skin after weight loss, such as genetics, body composition, skin tone and shape, and the amount of weight lost. Some of our clients do experience loose skin, while others do not. Some patients who do decide to have skin removal surgery in order to combat this.

We do not recommend that you smoke and drink alcohol post-surgery, as this can lead to complications. Further, we always advocate for our patients to improve their health by avoiding smoking and drinking alcohol, not only for these immediate impacts but also to promote better health on a long-term basis.

The most suitable procedure for you will depend on several factors. Selecting a bariatric procedure that is most suitable for you involves a comprehensive discussion with Dr Wong or Dr Lim. This discussion will take into consideration your weight, medical problems, surgical history, eating habits, genetics, funding status, presence of reflux, and, of course, your preferences.

We advise that you keep an open mind. Selecting the right procedure is not like selecting a pair of shoes; you should take time to weigh up your options and make an informed decision about your procedure.

Find out more about procedures here.

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Dr Wong keeps a prospective database on all his patients which monitors the incidence of reflux and other potential problems among his patients. This is part of the quality control measures at BGOS.

Currently, only 3-4% of Dr Wong’s sleeve patients have reflux symptoms.

Less than 1% of patients have occasional bile reflux symptoms after mini-gastric bypass.

These rates of reflux are low in comparison to what is generally seen. This is achieved by careful patient and procedure selection, and by utilising appropriate surgical technical considerations to reduce the risk of reflux.

Obesity is a chronic disease, which means that it needs constant management. Patients are always at risk of relapse. This risk can be minimised by appropriate procedure choice at the start, and addressing potential factors that contribute to weight gain in conjunction with the surgery.

By creating a comprehensive management plan tailored to each patient’s needs, we can address the ongoing management of these potential weight gain factors. Not everything can be fixed by surgery, and this is a strength of Dr Wong’s bariatric program. Dr Wong has a revision rate of 1% over 5 years.

It is recommended that patients do not drive for one week after surgery. Some patients will still not be fully recovered and require another full or part week to recover sufficiently to drive. By this time, you should be off any strong pain medications and be able to react to unexpected hazards or changes in road conditions without causing discomfort or pain to yourself.

There is no such thing as a predetermined goal weight. You cannot decide what weight you want to become and expect surgery to help you become this weight. The process does not work this way.

Our care model involves a holistic approach, instead of focusing heavily on goal weights and setting expectations to lose a certain number of kilos. In our opinion, this focus on the number on the scales can negatively affect self-esteem, body image issues and mental health.

Most people have chosen to have bariatric surgery because they are sick of weight loss failure and constantly monitoring their weight on the scales. We want you to break that habit also and focus on non-scale victories.

The most important part of post-surgery care is focusing on adopting healthy eating and lifestyle behaviours. This will help you to achieve maximal success with surgery. If you follow these practices, you will be the healthiest that your body will allow through surgery. That way, you can achieve what you wanted from the surgery – to improve your health.