Me again (Son with upcoming surgery) - Should he take the spinal block prior to general anesthesia?

Hi Betty Sue,

My son had a small bowel resection when he was 16 on an emergency basis. I do recall that he had an epidural which helped great with the pain. Also, I believe that it could only be in place for X amount of days due to risk of infection. He had a monitor set up so that when he needed pain medication he would press a button and it would be released. The docs had it set that he could not overdose only the prescribed amount would be released no matter how may times the button was pressed. The pain management team at Children's Boston really kept on top of monitoring him and he had no adverse from the medication.

I was reading your other post so I just want to let you know how it was for him after the surgery.

My son's recovery was hard the first 5 or 6 days were miserable for him but he was very sick at the time of his surgery. Then the turning point came one day and he began to improve slowly. However, it is different for everyone. He was in hospital for two weeks and home for another two weeks but insisted on going back to school after a month. After the fact he told me that he went back to school too quick that there were days that his legs could barely take him from one classroom to another.

He has however had no surgeries since (2011) it did come back quick though he had ulcers at his resection site after a year but now he is doing well since his medication has been sorted out. Last colonoscopy and MRI show no signs of active crohn's or stricture. Finding the right maintenance medications is key and keeping on top of him to take it is so important. He started out on Asacol and 6mp but now he takes Humira. In hindsight I think if we had to do it over again that he would have started a biologic right away as we were only prolonging the inevitable as his disease is pretty aggressive.

It has been a difficult journey for him started with having his appendix removed, small bowel resection, battled rounds of c-diff and recently had atypical moles removed which the docs tend to blame on the 6mp but who knows.

I understand how your son is overwhelmed by all of this it is so hard for him at his age there is nothing normal about what he is going through. My son is in college now he commutes which is good because I can still keep an eye on what he eats and medication but I have to set limits on how involved I get now because he gets annoyed so I know when to back off.

I wish you and your son the very best of luck and I hope he gets many years of remission when this is all over and done. Take care.

I had general anesthesia and was not offered a spinal tap, so I didn't even know about that as an option. I had no complications with surgery or recovery besides expected pain, diarrhea, etc. So is the surgeon saying that he'd get the epidural instead of general? Does that mean he'd be awake during the procedure? I had an epidural with my C-sections and I think the risk is of spinal headaches, although I did fine with them. You definitely should read and see what is typical for this procedure.

I had some sort of spinal anaesthesia for both my surgeries, but there seem to be different types and I have no idea which one I had. No issues at all, apart from the needle working its way out of my back in the middle of the night after my first surgery, and the morons taking several hours to get effective oral pain relief to me. Before that, though, it had done an amazing job of blocking the pain.

Think I must have had something different for my second surgery, 'cos I don't remember having a needle stuck in my back afterwards, nor the pain being anywhere nearly as well controlled.

Good luck and I hope all goes well. I know it's scary, but hopefully he will be so much healthier once he recovers from surgery! We'll be thinking of you

I had an epidural for my resection along with a pain pump. I had no problems with my epidural and if I had another surgery I wouldn't hesitate to get another. The big benefit of the epidural with bowel surgery is less opioids are needed to control pain. This decreases the chance of getting ileus from the opioids.

Hi Betty-Sue,

No experience with the anesthetic Just want to wish you all the best of luck for tomorrow. I'm sure it will be a long night tonight trying to sleep and all. A long day tomorrow as well.

I'm sure this will all work out for the best for him. In a few weeks time, you'll be looking back feeling much better about everything.

where are you? I have had 15 major resection leaving me with about 2.5 feet of intestine left and have never been offered a epidural.. i'm sorry but I would never knowingly alow anyone to stick a needle in my spine.. the risks are to high, for infection such as meningitis, or a mistake causing paralysis, nerve damage etc.. good luck to him though.

Wishing your son a speedy recovery from his surgery.

I wouldn't have abdominal surgery again without the spinal nerve block. I barely needed any pain meds while I was in the hospital.

That's great news Betty-Sue. Hope he make a very quick recovery. 4" really isn't that much. A friend of mine had 11" taken out, and recovered fine. Keep us posted on his progress.

That's great news! Glad to hear his healing is progressing so fast! 4" is not that bad, but I think he should give himself more time than just 2 days before returning to college(sometimes surgery complications such as leaks/abscesses are not detected right away). I just had 9" removed of my colon in Feb and was in the hospital for 10 days. Once I got home is when my recovery really progressed rapidly. I made sure to walk everyday on my treadmill at home. While I think it's important to push yourself to help with healing, he should also realize that it's ok if it takes a little while to get his strength back. I think young men sometimes have unrealistic expectations

Great for him!
But what's his long term treatment plan???
A lot of people think that surgery means they don't have to worry about their disease for awhile and can go med free, but that's not a great idea for him since he's so young and his disease is so aggressive. :(