Surgery For Gastroparesis In St. Petersburg, FL

St. Petersburg patients researching gastroparesis surgery usually run into two very different procedures, and it helps to understand the split. One is a gastric pacer, or gastric electrical stimulation (the Enterra device), which is available within Pinellas County. The other is G-POEM, the pylorus-directed procedure Dr. Grandhige performs in South Tampa. They are not the same operation, and neither is universally better.

A gastric pacer is an implanted device with a battery that sends electrical stimulation to the stomach muscles. It is placed through a minimally invasive operation, and its settings can be adjusted afterward without repeat surgery. Because it is a device, it involves ongoing follow-up for battery life and programming.

G-POEM is a one-time endoscopic procedure. There is no implanted device and nothing to adjust later. It targets the mechanical problem at the pylorus directly. For many patients with medically refractory gastroparesis, a pylorus-directed approach is a reasonable first procedural step, which is part of why some St. Petersburg patients make the short drive to Tampa for it. Which path fits you depends on your cause, your dominant symptoms, and what the testing shows, and that is a conversation to have after the workup, not before.

In carefully selected patients, published research puts G-POEM’s one-year clinical success at roughly 70 to 72 percent, with technical success (completing the myotomy as intended) above 95 percent. These are pooled figures across many centers, not a single clinic’s marketing number, and they are the honest range to plan around.

Success is not identical for everyone, and the cause of your gastroparesis matters. In a 2024 meta-analysis of 982 patients, one-year clinical success was about 70 percent for postsurgical gastroparesis, 65 percent for diabetic, and 60 percent for idiopathic (no known cause). Patients whose main problem is nausea and vomiting tend to do better than those whose main problem is pain. Durability is real but not permanent: among patients who respond at one year, about 71 percent still benefit at two years and about 58 percent at three years, so symptoms can gradually return for some. Serious complications are uncommon, with an adverse event rate around 8 percent, usually minor issues like transient pain or bleeding.

Careful selection is also about knowing when to say no. Following the American Gastroenterological Association’s clinical guidance on G-POEM, patients on opioids are weaned off and re-tested first, because opioids slow the stomach on their own, and most patients whose gastroparesis followed a viral infection should not be offered G-POEM at all. Dr. Grandhige is known for turning down surgery when the odds do not favor it. That restraint is the point, not a limitation.

Dr. Gopal Grandhige is a board-certified surgeon and Fellow of the American College of Surgeons who has focused only on foregut surgery, the esophagus, diaphragm, and stomach, in the Tampa Bay area since 2009. That narrow focus is the reason patients drive in from across Pinellas and Florida rather than defaulting to the nearest general surgeon. You can read Dr. Grandhige’s full training and background for the complete picture.

His training runs through Johns Hopkins University, a medical degree from the University of Michigan, and a general surgery residency plus a fellowship in foregut and minimally invasive surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is a founding member of the American Foregut Society, a member of SAGES, and one of a handful of surgeons in Tampa Bay who performs G-POEM. Across his broader foregut practice he has performed more than 600 fundoplications, more than 600 LINX procedures, and more than 200 TIF procedures, which is the kind of volume that builds judgment about when to operate and when not to. His board certification and Florida medical license can be verified independently through the American Board of Surgery and the Florida Department of Health. For deeper reading on reflux, testing, and foregut conditions, see our blog.

Tampa Bay Reflux Institute is at 1315 South Howard Avenue, Suite 101, Tampa, FL 33606, in the yellow brick building next to Sally O’Neill’s Pizza, with parking behind Sally O’Neill’s. It is about a 25 to 35 minute drive from central St. Petersburg, and surgeries are performed at HCA South Tampa Hospital. Office hours are 9 AM to 6 PM, Monday through Friday. Phone: 813.922.2920. To have your records reviewed before your visit, email them to info@tampareflux.com.

If gastroparesis is running your life and diet and medication have stopped working, the next step is a workup that tells you whether the pylorus is the cause and whether G-POEM can help.