Fistula

Hello Yellowfin43. I don't have the type of fistula you have, so I can't provide any help for you. I just wanted to welcome you to the Forum! Hopefully someone will be along soon who has experience in abdominal fistulas.

i had one from my sigmoid colon to my bladder. i say had cos it required surgery to remove about 8 inches of my colon cos it wasnt getting any better. i had been on remicade for like 5 or 6 years up until then (2005). they postponed the surgery for 2 months cos they did double doses to see if that would induce any healing. it didnt. so now i am truly suspicious and skeptical about the healing powers of remicade. it is supposed to prevent fistulas. but after being on it for years i still developed one, and then it couldnt heal it. i believe it just masked my symptoms cos even though i felt good, i can now see in hindsight my system just got worse, to the point of no option but surgery. now i just have some perianal abscesses that flare on occasion, especially in hot, humid weather. anyhoo, fistulas suck.

well, so far, i am fistula free around my ileostomy....thank god (or an equivalent power you may believe in)

I do have a friend who has a traditional colostomy and also a fistula to his abdomen....i know it's hard for him to cope with, but he manages.

I can relate to all that goes with having a fistula though, as I have more than myself or a team of doctors can accurately count. They are all located in my peri-anal area though, and they simply won't go away.

Remicade, Humira, setons, antibiotics, prednisone, none have really closed any of these fistulas, just helped slow down there progression.

I had the unfortunate reality of devloping another abcess this last week, that finally opened up and began to drain this weekend. It is located right at the place where your inner thigh meets with the rest of my "manhood" not fun! completly painful, just to walk, or even sit down, but that's life. I have weathered the storm for qhat seems like forever, and am fully confident I can deal with this new pesty fistula as well as I have with the others.

Reluctantly, I called my GI today to get a referral to my surgeon again, since the setons he put in a while ago have come out, and need to be replaced. That's what probably caused this new one to start! argh!!!!

sorry for not offering much in the line of positive thinking, but fistulas is one of the few things in this world that cause me to use the word "hate"