Realize My Success: A Post-Operative Support Tool For Gastric Bypass And Sleeve Gastrectomy Patients.

Many post-operative weight loss surgery patients find it hard to keep up with their follow up plan. Some of them often revert into their bad eating habits, neglecting to take their vitamin supplement pills, and wind up in serious weight gain issues within the first few years. That is why Ethicon Endo-Surgery created the Realize my Success program.

The program was originally created to provide support during the first three years after surgery for patients who have had the Realize Lap-Band system. Since its launch in January 2008, the program has expanded to include patients of gastric bypass and gastric sleeve.

What Does The "Realize My Success" Program Offer?

This program offers the five phase diet that patients require right after bariatric surgery, input about good eating and hydration habits, personalized tips on meal plans, facts about nutrition supplements and help with motivation and goal setting. The program also lets health care professionals check the progress of their patients.

The primary function of this online program is to provide a support group to patients and a long-term follow up. Patients that do not have long term follow up have limited success and can get into trouble a lot earlier than other people. This program has a multitude of benefits to the patient, perhaps the largest being that it provides an instrument of accountability. The patients are accountable not only to themselves but to the online community that is present there as well.

The fact that the users of the program do not meet face to face, helps to keep them all a little more honest about how they are really doing. In addition it provides a method to remind each other about things they need to do within their routine. The program will remind users to take the supplements they need and keep proper eating habits. There are even live operators at the website’s customer support center available during normal business hours. The accessibility to the information on the site is of course always available no matter what day or time.

It is reported that nearly fifteen thousand bariatric patients have joined the program since its launch in 2008. Statistics show that patients who used this online support program lost more weight in their first year after surgery than those that did not.