What is Laproscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding? An adjustable silicone band is placed around the very upper portion of the stomach creating a small pouch about the size of a walnut or a golf ball. The band allows patients to become satisfied with the consumption of smaller portions of food, and the band also seems to decrease hunger. The band is fluid-filled, and is connected via a long thin tubing, to an access port that is sutured under the skin, onto the strong tissue layer surrounding muscle called the ‘fascia’. Fluid can be easily added or removed to the band by introducing a special needle into the access port, through the patient’s skin. This procedure takes seconds and is performed in the office during a follow-up visit. Patients are often anxious about their first adjustment, but it is less painful than having a blood sample drawn from an arm vein.

What is Gastric Bypass? Oregon Weight Loss Surgery also offers the laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedure, the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and the stomaphyX procedure (for patients who have previously had the gastric bypass procedure and are regaining weight). Please visit our website at oregonweightlosssurgery.com to learn more.

We have three locations to better serve you:

Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital (OWLS main office)
1040 NW 22^nd Ave. Ste. 500
Portland, OR 97210

Southwest Washington Medical Center Specialty Clinics
8716 E Mill Plain Blvd.
Vancouver, WA 98664

Springfield , OR (patient post surgery follow-up only)
2073 Olympic Ste. 102
Springfield, OR 97477

Phone: Portland (503) 227-5050
Toll Free: 1-800-617-5004
Fax: (503) 227-2462

If at first you don't succeed, maybe it's time for a different type of gastric surgery
by Larry Linder, Washington Post 

"For the first time in my life I felt like a normal person," says Josh Thayer, who dropped from 367 pounds to 230 within a year of undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 1998. No longer did he always have to buy the aisle seat at the theater because "you feel guilty hanging over the person sitting next to you." No longer did he have to endure humiliations such as breaking a chair at his brother's wedding.

The best part, says Thayer, a Boston area professor, was not having to "think about food for the first time in my life. It was fantastic. I ate when I was hungry, stopped when I was full. I didn't feel like I was fighting an uphill battle."

Until five years later, when the weight started creeping back on.

Click here to read the full article...

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Vancouver teenager celebrates losing 1/3 of her weight
by Paige Parker, The Oregonian

Yesterday's Jenny Burleson hid behind oversized sweatshirts and baggy pants. Today's Jenny modeled swimsuits for her friends at a party in June to celebrate losing 100 pounds.

Click here to read the full article...

Oregon Weight Loss Surgery, LLC (OWLS) is a “Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence” as awarded by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Our surgeons are some of the most experienced laparoscopic bariatric surgeons in the region, having performed over 2,000 bariatric procedures.

Dr. Emma Patterson, Dr. Valerie Halpin, Endocrinologist Dr. William Raum and Physician's Assistant Lisa VanDerWerff excel in holistic care of the bariatric surgery patient. Oregon Weight Loss Surgery, LLC doesn’t just save lives, we change lives. In fact, our mission statement is:

Helping change lives through compassionate weight loss surgery.

Our practice and staff understand the struggle with obesity and therefore make it a top priority to be entirely patient focused. Every month OWLS offers FREE information sessions in both Oregon and Washington.  Click here for more information or enter your contact details in the form above.