Follow-up of the obese patient, especially one, who has undergone a LAP-BAND procedure, is an essential part of the treatment.

The ILOST team of surgeons has established a network of physicians in the US and Europe to assist us in this phase of the program. For most of our US patients, the international staff can find someone near your home to perform follow-up and fills. Patients need to come to our foreign locations only once (to have the surgery done). If there are no physicians available in your state, travelling to some nearby US city can be a less-expensive option than coming back to one of our foreign locations. Therefore the ILOST surgeon would contact the physician nearest to your home location and see to it that you have all the necessary information for a follow-up visit. The cost for the fills would vary from physician to physician in the US.

Follow-up for the LAP-BAND requires three things: nutritional counselling, weight monitoring, and fills. Your own Primary Care Physician can provide the first two, and you can arrange a schedule with your doctor that will best fit your needs. The suggested follow-up schedule is 1, 3, 6, and 12 months and yearly thereafter.

Regarding fills, they should be done either by a doctor that we can recommend, or an Obesity or Radiological Center familiar with the practice of inflating or deflating the band. Technically, fills can only be performed not until 6 weeks after the procedure. The actual timing of each fill depends on your weight loss. You would be ready for a fill once you stop losing weight at your previous fill level.

Barium swallow: This is crucial and it is one of the main differences between European and US surgeons. The barium swallow should be done once a year because it’s the only way to know what is going on with your band. To rely only on symptoms can be totally wrong and misleading. Many complications occur because the system was adjusted without an x-ray evaluation. Usually a radiological check of the situation before and after every fill is the best way to be sure.

For more information on the fill procedure, visit the Adjustment page on our website.