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More and more people are choosing the gastric sleeve as their desired method for losing large amounts of weight in a relatively short time. There are many benefits to choosing the gastric sleeve, such as more optimal blood pressure, lessening the health effects of diabetes, and improving sleep apnea symptoms.
The gastric sleeve reduces the size of the stomach and turns it into what looks like a tube. But how long is this resulting sleeve, and what affects how large it becomes?
In general, you can expect 80-85% of the stomach to be completely removed, with the remainder formed into a sleeve. As a result, the gastric sleeve produces a stomach that is between 2 and 3 ounces in volume, or 60-90 mL.
Gastric sleeve patients have a slightly larger stomach than gastric bypass patients.
Not all post-gastric sleeve stomachs are the same size, however. There are a variety of factors that affect the size of the stomach. Here are a few.
Despite what the nature of the surgery might have you believe, obese people do not tend to have larger stomachs than those with normal BMIs. There are many other biological and mental factors at play, but stomach size isn’t one of them.
However, your stomach size before surgery will determine how much of the stomach is left. Around 80-85% of the stomach is removed. Generally, someone with a larger stomach will have a larger sleeve.
A bougie is the guide that surgeons use to divide the stomach. The size of the bougie influences the volume of the stomach at the end of the surgery.
Each bougie has a measurement in FR (French). Each FR unit is ⅓ of a millimeter. So a 40FR bougie is around ½ an inch, or 13.33mm.
Bougie size is determined entirely by the surgeon and what they see fit for your stomach size. However, the size of the bougie is not the only determinant of stomach volume.
This is how surgeons fit the stomach: is the line loose, or tight? A loose line will result in a larger stomach, and a tight line will result in a smaller one.
The stomach naturally stretches to meet the needs of the digestive system, and the stomach post-sleeve is no different. After the sleeve, you can expect the stomach to stretch a little as you get more and more used to eating larger quantities of food.
Stretching is normal, and is planned for. Don’t worry if you think your stomach is expanding in size: concern yourself with weight plateaus and health metrics such as blood pressure, blood sugar, breathing, and sleep quality.
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