Many patients who want to lose weight have tried diet and exercise with minimal long-term success. Gastric balloons have been used in the management of obesity for over 20 years. The technology and design have evolved significantly over the years—resulting in today’s modern designs that are well-established for safe, healthy weight loss.
Gastric balloon placement is a non-invasive, fully-reversible weight loss procedure that’s performed endoscopically (going in through the throat using a flexible camera), which means there are no incisions, no scars and no hospital stay required. After a 15-minute procedure that involves placing a small silicone balloon in the stomach, patients experience a feeling of fullness that limits food intake.
Gastric balloons are ideal for jump-starting your weight loss journey, and they have been proven to help patients lose 3-4x more weight than most experience with diet and exercise alone. Most balloons will remain in place for a designated period of time, generally between 6 and 8 months.
The ORBERA® Intragastric Balloon System is a weight loss tool for adults who have tried other weight loss programs but haven’t been able to lose weight and keep it off. It’s a non-surgical procedure that helps patients initiate and maintain long-term weight loss. The procedure involves the placement of a small silicone balloon into the stomach using an endoscope, which makes you feel full faster and eat smaller food portions.
The balloon is removed after six months and leaves no permanent changes to your anatomy. It’s an outpatient procedure that takes approximately 15 minutes and is performed under sedation, but not general anesthesia (requiring no ventilator use).
In U.S. clinical trials, patients lost an average of 21.8 pounds with ORBERA®, but motivated patients often lose significantly more weight. At True You, our average weight loss is between 30 and 50 pounds, with some losing as much as 100+ pounds.
Spatz3 is an adjustable gastric balloon designed to jump-start weight loss in patients who have been unsuccessful with diet and exercise alone. It’s a fully-reversible, non-surgical procedure that takes approximately 15 minutes and is performed under sedation (no general anesthesia/ventilator).
The silicone balloon is placed in the stomach using bariatric endoscopy techniques that do not involve making permanent changes to your anatomy, so there are no incisions or scars. The balloon is filled with saline that takes up space in the stomach, leaving you feeling full faster and limiting the amount of food you can eat comfortably.
The balloon is removed after eight months. Throughout this time, patients may need to have their balloon down-adjusted (removing a portion of the saline) to improve comfort/tolerance or up-adjusted (adding more saline) to promote additional weight loss after a stall or slow-down.
In U.S. clinical trials, patients lost an average of 15% of their total body weight or an average of 32 pounds. The success rate (defined as greater than 10% of total weight loss of 25% of excess weight) for the Spatz procedure is 84%.
