NICOSIA General Hospital has introduced laparoscopic surgical procedures aimed at helping obese people lose weight, a surgeon said yesterday.
But one man who has had the operation done privately is afraid that state doctors are using Cypriots as guinea pigs to practice this highly specialised technique.
Laparoscopic surgery involves the use of a small video camera and a few customised instruments to perform surgery with minimal tissue injury. The camera and instruments are inserted into the abdomen or chest through small skin cuts, allowing the surgeon to explore the whole cavity without needing to make large standard openings dividing skin and muscle. This method reduces the recovery time due to its minimal tissue damage, permitting the patient to return to normal activity in a shorter period of time.
Dr. Charalambos Andreou, one of nine surgeons under Dr. Pericles Simeonides, who heads the hospital’s surgical unit, told the Cyprus Mail that this particular procedure was directed solely at obese patients.
“What the operation involves is the insertion of a plastic band around the outer part of the upper stomach, just below the oesophagus. This band then narrows the opening into the stomach, which prevents the patient from overeating and in turn results in weight loss,” he said.
Andreou said ever since the procedure had first been introduced to the state hospital over a month ago, the number of obese Cypriots coming forward had been on the increase.
He said Simeonides assessed patients and if they fulfilled the necessary criteria, the surgery could go ahead. But people should not be fooled into thinking that this was the answer to being thin, since it was still a medical procedure and should not be taken lightly, Andreou stressed.
“Not everyone is eligible of course. They need to be over a certain weight, have no physiological ailments such as hormonal problems, have exhausted all other normal forms of weight loss like dieting and exercise, and they must not have a compulsive overeating eating disorder.”
However, 35-year-old Andreas Stylianou, who had the procedure performed by Dr. Ioannis Ioannou in Limassol a year and a half ago for £4,500 is not confident state doctors are specialised enough to carry out this procedure.
“It involves placing a foreign body into us and so there can be infections and complications such as leakage. An Austrian doctor brought over to train them for a month is not enough time to perfect the procedure.”
But Andreou said complications were a likelihood in all surgical procedures and that this was no different. Besides, patients also had a role to play and had to ensure that they did not abuse the band by overeating again, although they could go back to eating normally, he said.
“Naturally for it to be effective we need patients to co-operate as well. Of course they can eat normally, but within reason. They mustn’t overeat the way they used to and they should remember to chew their food very well so that it can pass through the band and into the stomach,” he said.
Again Stylianou disagrees.
“It’s ridiculous that people are being told they can eat what they used to,” he said. “For the first month I had to have all my food liquefied so that it could pass through the band without me feeling sick. It then took me nearly 14 months to be able to eat more soluble foods. Even now, I only eat soft foods such as pasta, rice, chicken, fish and baked potatoes. I cannot stomach the thought of souvla for instance, or cabbage in my salad, because the former takes longer to pass through the band and the latter gives me wind.”
But when asked if it was all worth it, he replied: “Definitely. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the answer to obesity. I used to be the fat guy in the crowd and stood out, now I’m no different to anyone else. I was 187 kilos and now I am down to 83 kilos and have been able to maintain it, which was what I had difficulty with before. In the past, I could lose weight, but I’d always end up gaining it again. I think it’s very hard to unlearn bad eating habits and so obese people always go back to overeating.”
Stylianou said he used to consume 13,000 calories a day and was not even aware of it because it had become a way of life. Now, thanks to the procedure and ensuing plastic surgery to snip away all the sagging skin that developed from losing over 100 kilos, he is a changed man.
“Life is completely different. There is not one negative consequence. I had all these health problems and now my blood pressure and sugar levels are back to normal. The only slightly irritating thing is when people don’t recognise me and make comments.”
Stylianou’s doctor, Ioannou, told the Cyprus Mail that this was a restrictive weight loss procedure.
“What the band essentially does is divide the stomach into two parts. The top part is the part that then accepts food, about the size of a small lemon. Once it is digested, it passes through the band into the stomach. Therefore patients feel saturated quickly and do not eat the same quantities as they used to. And if they do, they’ll only throw up.”
He said people with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 were eligible for the procedure, or with a BMI of 35 if they had sleeping or knee problems.
“You have to divide an individual’s weight by the square of his height. If it’s more than 40, he or she is obese. It cannot be used on someone that only needs to lose 10 or 15 kilos for instance.”
The plus side about this method is that the band can be tightened or loosened depending on a patient’s weight loss. The more he or she loses, the looser the band is made, until finally it can be removed altogether.
“This is not a permanent band and can be taken out at any time,” he said.
But Stylianou has decided he wants his band to stay where it is.
“Women have silicone in for years without anything going wrong, so I want this kept inside me. It is on the loosest point at the moment because I’ve reached my target weight, but I know I have a tendency to be greedy and am afraid that if I remove it I’ll start to pile on all the weight again.” Although he believes he will probably never again be as fat as he was because his stomach has now shrunk, the scars of being fat for most of his life have remained with him and he does not want to risk jeopardising all that he has achieved over the past 18 months.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
