Dr. Frenzel is one of a handful of surgeons in the country who has completed a bariatric surgery fellowship and a cosmetic surgery fellowship. With extensive training and experience, Dr. Frenzel works with patients who have tried natural dieting and exercising to no avail.
Prospective patients who have a body mass index of 35 or greater, who need to lose at least 50 pounds, who are 18 years old or older, are in good mental health, and those who are deemed high risk in other bariatric surgeries are candidates for the gastric sleeve procedure.
The gastric sleeve, or sleeve gastrectomy, rivals gastric bypass for weight loss; however, it doesn’t have some of the possible complications of the gastric bypass. This procedure can be performed as a single operation or, for those who are morbidly obese, it can serve as a first-stage operation before gastric bypass.
As a minimally invasive bariatric surgeon, Dr. Frenzel does almost 100 percent of his surgeries using minimally invasive techniques. The majority of his sleeve gastrectomies use a laparoscopic technique. This type of surgery benefits the patient with a shorter hospital stay, decreased complications, and faster recovery as well as smaller scars and less pain than open surgical procedures.
With offices in Texarkana, Arlington, and Dallas, Dr. Frenzel is believes in minimizing pain by using the latest technologies available. As one of the few surgeons that uses pain pump catheters for his gastric sleeve surgeries, Dr. Frenzel allows for his patients to recover quicker with less discomfort.
The gastric sleeve surgery is designed to create a thin vertical sleeve of stomach using a stapling device. Removing approximately 80 percent of the stomach, the new sleeve of stomach is a long tubular structure (about the size of a banana).
A typical stomach holds about 1.5 liters of food or liquid, which is a very large volume. There is no need to have a reservoir so large, even when the average personal eats three to four full meals a day. The benefit of the sleeve gastrectomy procedure is that it limits the amount of food a person can eat and helps to give the feeling of satisfaction sooner.
After the gastric sleeve surgery, the new stomach can hold about 50 milliliters instead of 1000 to 1500 milliliters. This allows for normal digestion and absorption; food passes through the digestive tract in the usual order and there is no re-routing of the intestines.
The gastric sleeve surgery varies, but Dr. Frenzel’s average operative time, in general, for this procedure is about one to one-and-a-half hours. Patients typically stay one night in the hospital or surgery center and go home the next day. Normal activities can be resumed about two weeks after surgery .
After surgery, weight loss begins very quickly. Most patients lose about 30 pounds in the first month and go on to reach their weight loss goals in the first nine months. Health problems related to obesity, such as diabetes, sleep apnea, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, etc., may also be resolved or improved after gastric sleeve surgery.
