HOUSTON—A new procedure is giving people who’ve already had gastric bypass surgery a second chance at weight loss.
Liz Bonetati is one of those patients.
Ten years ago, she weighed 631 pounds. After gastric bypass surgery, she got down to 219.
But then, she had surgery on her leg. That wound never healed properly, and she had to endure six more operations.
"Each time that I went back into the operating room, I gained about 10 pounds," Bonetati said.
Now, she’s back up to 334 pounds.
"I’m on my way to being diabetic if I don’t get the weight off. My pancreas and liver have been ailing due to it," she said.
So Bonetati went to Memorial Hermann and became the first patient in Houston to undergo the ROSE procedure.
ROSE stands for Restorative Obesity Surgery Endolumenal.
The procedure reduces the size of the stomach without any incision.
"This way, we can go in, endoscopically through the mouth, with no incisions, and make the pouch smaller from the inside," Dr. Terry Scarborough said.
The "pouch," or stomach, gets smaller – just like it was right after the patient had gastric bypass.
And with no wounds to heal, the recovery time is much shorter.
