when is it time for surgery?

To me, the thought of surgery was just out of the question unless I had an obstruction or was unable to get a flare under control for an extended period of time. However, I've been thinking about it a lot lately especially since the GI who did my last scope said that surgery looks pretty inevitable. I don't even want them to cut out all of the CD affected area, I just want to get rid of my stricture. It is never going to get better on it's own and it is super noisy and painful at times. I fantasize about cutting out my own guts which is twisted and probably really unhealthy. Is it crazy that I want to volunteer for surgery? I don't even know if my GI would let me, I haven't met with him about the scope results yet.

Would you get surgery to remove a stricture if you were "mostly ok" or would you only do it for something like an obstruction?

I had elective surgery. I was feeling fine, but my stricture was 7mm, a disaster waiting to happen. I'd had obstructions once or twice a year for some time, and was tired of fearing the next one. I'm glad I had the surgery when I was relatively healthy rather then waiting for an emergency. I think it helped me heal better.

When they found a stricture in my colon and recommended surgery I did not even know I had Crohn's. I was feeling fine, only narrowed stool. I was referred to many GI's and two surgeons and had many tests over the next two years. It was determined that it was scar tissue, no medication was going to take it away and there was a risk of leaving it so I had surgery while all the time feeling fine. That baffled every medical professional that I saw(the fact that I was feeling as good as I was when they saw the stricture; it was referred to it as a real mess). I am  glad that I went through with it but only after more knowledge.  I would want to know where and what we are dealing with before surgery.

Good luck.

 

I had 2 obstructions before having surgery. The funny thing is that my GI said that I would never need surgery. Anyhow I was told that is was scar tissue and that no meds would fix that.

I never really had any pain or problems , then that last obstruction and a colonoscopy told me it was time.

The surgery and recovery all went well they removed 18" of some nasty looking intestine. As luck wpuld have it my Crohns has come back 10 months after surgery :-(

I will fight this to the end!!!!

I will say this, I would rather have surgery when I want to rather then when it is an emergency.

Good luck with your decision.

Hi misscris, I recently found out that i had 4 small stictures removed from the small bowel i got to the stage where i wouldn't eat because i knew i would get pain, ended up malnourished surgery was really the only option as it had gone past meds sorting it out. Crohn's wise doing great now.
As wolfie40 said maybe better to have surgery than to wait for it to become an emergency.Wishing you all the best in whatever you decide to do Bev x

when I had my first obstuction I had to have surgery to remove 9ft.I was good to go in 8 weeks. I was 21 then

59 now 2 other resection surgeries between 21 and 59

hey misscris, ny surgeries were obsturction and elective, the elective was to prevent obstuction. I felt so good after i healed it was amazing. until it started to flarethat was 1989, started flaring again 1995. so far no surgery planned. just meds and diet and exercise, serious mountain biker.   take care keep me posted

  curt

I'm so glad this thread is here. I'm in the same boat right now, waiting for Dr to tell me what his plans are.
My issues in a nutshell:
10 years with Crohns, have a J-pouch (originally had a dx of UC)
Past fall, had at least 6 obstructions, twice hospitalized.

Had another obstruction last week, Surgeon said, that's it, lets schedule surgery. Surgery was scheduled for next Tues. Well, he wanted to be 100% sure of what he was dealing with, so I had a CAT scan. Showed stricture and narrowing.
Had a pouchogram on Wed, showed stricture and narrowing. However, 2 weeks ago he did a scope and saw no stricture.
So I have another scope on Monday to see what's going on.

Complication is that the diseased area is very close to the opening of my j-pouch and he does not want to damage the pouch. This is coming from a top surgeon who came from Mount Sinai in NYC.

Sigh. I hate being in limbo and as stupid as it sounds, I am half tempted to just eat something stupid so he'll just do the darn surgery. (dont' worry, I wont. But I think about it!!!)