Tubal Ligation Reversal by Dr. Levin

For many years our facility preformed tubal reversals on women who were significantly overweight, even those who weighed up to 370 pounds on a 5'2” frame. We are specially equipped with instrument packages (and different lenses for our microscope) for very thin patients, normal sized patients and very overweight patients. We have recently changed this policy and now will perform this procedure only on women up to 75% above ideal body weight.

In order to have the best chance of a successful tubal reversal, all cases in the 50% to 75% over weight range will be performed using a midline incision.

For those of you who are in the 25% to 75% range it would be best for you to lose as much weight as possible prior to the tubal reversal surgery in an attempt to get closer to your idea body weight (as indicated in the first two columns of the table below). The closer you get to this weight the easier the surgery will be for both you and for Dr. Levin which will in turn, most likely lead to a more successful surgical outcome for you. We have had a small number of patients who had so much belly wall fat, pelvic wall fat or omental fat (fat that hangs off of the intestine) that it was almost impossible to even see the reproductive organs much less give a good tubal repair. Such outcomes could be prevented by weight reduction prior to surgery so please consider looking into a weight loss program in your area or even consider a surgical weight loss procedure (gastic lapband or laparoscopic roux-en-y procedure). Please feel free to discuss this issue during your “telephone consultation”.

Why the price differences: For many years there was no difference in the charge for reversal surgery, irrespective of weight. That too has changed because the hospital realized that the operative time for women at higher weights is up to twice as long as women in the normal weight range. Because of this extra time, there is longer use of the operating room, more anesthesia time and medications, more disposables used, etc. Consequently the pricing structure has changed for some overweight patients.