Balloon treatment boosts battle of the bulge

The Windsor Star May 10, 2010

By Sonja Puzic, The Windsor Star May 10, 2010   WINDSOR, Ont. -- Windsor-area residents struggling to shed excess weight will soon have another option that doesn't involve stomach surgery or extreme dieting.

All it takes is a grapefruit-sized balloon and 10 or 15 minutes.

Dr. Sanjeev Kaila, a plastic surgeon who runs an innovative weight loss program at the Bluewater Surgical Centre in Sarnia, is bringing the intragastric balloon procedure to Windsor, saying it can help overweight men and women finally win their battle against bulge.

The balloon was approved in Canada recently. The procedure is simple: A deflated silicone balloon is inserted into the sedated patient's stomach through the mouth and down the throat, then filled with sterile water.

"When you wake up, you feel like you've eaten 10 Thanksgiving dinners. You don't feel interested in eating," Kaila said in an interview.

Unlike gastric bypass surgery, where the stomach is surgically divided and the small intestine rearranged, the balloon procedure is "very low risk," Kaila said.

"There's no cutting, no bleeding, no risk of infection. It's a pretty natural process," he said. "The only real side-effect is nausea."

There is a risk of the balloon tearing inside the stomach, but Kaila said that hasn't happened to any of his clients.

The balloon remains in the stomach for six months, leaving less space for food and keeping hunger at bay.

Kaila, who doesn't perform the procedure himself but works with a network of general surgeons, said the average weight loss among his clients is between 40 and 60 pounds in six months.

"You lose a significant amount of weight because you always feel full," he said. "When you're on a diet, you're always hungry, you're stressed and you have that gnawing at you."

The balloon method is also very discreet, Kaila said.

"You can have the balloon put in, go back to work and ... no one will even know."

After six months, it's deflated, then removed -- under sedation -- the way it went in.

Kaila, who appeared on the popular U.S. TV show The Doctors Thursday to talk about intragastric balloons, said his centre has performed about 120 balloon procedures in the past eight months.

Many patients travelled to Sarnia from Windsor-Essex. Kaila said some people came from as far away as California, since the procedure is not yet approved in the U.S.

Demand from Windsor-area residents led Kaila to team up with two local surgeons to perform the procedure here.

A local clinic should be set up within the next month or so, Kaila said.

So far, Kaila said he's seen a success rate of more than 90 per cent.

He said followup studies show that people who've undergone the balloon procedure regain only five per cent of the weight after two years, while dieters regain about 95 per cent of the weight.

While the balloons can be inserted in people who are considered morbidly obese, Kaila said his ideal client is more of an "average person who's got those 20, 30, 40 extra pounds they can't rid of" -- people who've tried everything from traditional exercise and

diet routines to herbal pills and weight management programs with no luck.

The procedure is not covered by OHIP and it's not cheap. The total cost, which also covers weekly consultations with a dietitian for a year, is about $8,000.

Kaila said there are financing options for about $200 a month.