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Crohns and sm bowel obstructions/ileus'

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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:08 PM (GMT 0)
confused   I am 31, male Crohns since 10. Several surgeries Illeostomy w a few resections. I am having illeus's or small bowel obstructions at least once a month that hospitalize me for days at a time. My FP Dr will give fluid and pain med while hospitalized until obst passes then we go home. Vicious cycle that we cant seem to break, anyone have similar problems? Thanks
Posted 6/25/2008 6:18 PM (GMT 0)
Yes I had that 15 years ago, that is how everything started. I have had two resections and maybe heading for a 3rd. I am on Humira and Prednisone and although it is not a nice drug Prednisone usually helps stop the flaring and small bowel obstructions. They are painful, I know, been there, and it is gut wrenching. What kind of meds are you on currently?? I hope you settle it down, stay on liquids and a mushy diet, I know it is not fun but better than being in the hospital bed. Welcome, to the forum, everyone here is friendly and has been a great help to me and I have had crohns 30 years, dx15 and still flaring here there. I still learn from these wonderful people, great support here!
Posted 6/25/2008 6:27 PM (GMT 0)
This kept happening to me last year, I have had two resections myself. I had to put myself on a low residue diet and cut all red meat out of my diet. Once I did that they stopped. Could you possibly be having problems with adhesions causing your bowels to kink? Thats what they thought were causing mine. But so far the low res diet and no more red meat has worked for me. I know that another poster, Zanne has gone thru much the same as you and I, and none of us have gotten concrete answers as to why.

Oh and Welcome to Healingwell!!
Posted 6/25/2008 7:16 PM (GMT 0)
As Nanners said I have been going through a similar thing. I tend not to go to the hospital because I have the pain meds at home and I know when I am getting in to trouble. As long as I can keep liquids down, I figure I have a better cable system and its easier on my family. But my doctor wanted me to keep track and let him know if it was happening more than 5 times in a year. Well it happened about 10 times in 5 months, the last 4 times happened within 2 weeks and the very last one went on for 5 days and I did end up in the hospital.

The hard part is that all the test show nothing conclusive. So the best "guess" is that it is adhesions. The only way to know for sure is to do surgery which of course will/can create more adhesions. But whatever was all kinked up seems to have settled down a bit for me because the last spell I had was in April, so I'm keeping everything crossed and hoping that I can make it through the summer before the next bout sets in.

As Nanners said, I too keep to a very low residue diet, but even that doesn't always seem to be enough to help. That really makes me think that its adhesions and not some narrowing that they just aren't seeing.

It is rather trying when you never know when it will hit and how long it will last. I hope you can find some answers and get some relief and Welcome.
Posted 6/25/2008 11:20 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Welcome to HW . I know the pain of obstruction. So what is your DR. doing to help? Hope things improve for you and hope you get as much support here as I do the people are great. lol gail
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