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Small Bowel Resection Questions

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Posted 5/7/2012 1:09 PM (GMT 0)
It seems I may be facing this surgery in my near future depending upon what my next colonoscopy shows (scar tissue or just inflammation). Doc thinks we're dealing with scar tissue since no meds have worked and we're now at the end of the road (pharmacologically-speaking).

1) I would just like to know what to expect after surgery as far as what I may and may not be able to eat. I read that for the first day or two, it's a clear liquid diet or something like that. Then what?

2) For those who have had this surgery done laparoscopically, what was your post-op pain like?

3) How long were you in the hospital afterwards (again for laparoscopic patients)?

4) When you got home, were you pretty much bed/sofa-bound and for how long?

Thanks in advance. Just trying to wrap my head around this whole thing.
Posted 5/7/2012 2:08 PM (GMT 0)
1) No food, not even clear liquids until you start passing gas. Then it was liquids. Then solids.
2) Pain was not bad at all. The second day is the worst. It feels like you did about 12,000 sit ups.
3) I had surgery on a Monday and was in the hospital until Saturday. It depends on how long it takes for your intestines to start working again.
4) I stopped at the store and went shopping on the way home from the hospital. Pain increased a but when I went home because I was a lot more active. It was easily controlled though. Sitting around slows healing, just be careful not to overdo it, get some rest, and do NOT lift anything. Hernias are awful.

Fatigue was the biggest factor. I was still napping in the afternoon when I went back to work 6 weeks after my surgery.
Posted 5/7/2012 2:28 PM (GMT 0)
Hello:

My son had a small bowel resection in late October 2011, it was on an emergency basis. He had an epidural for the pain and that stayed in place for seven days. He was able to administer his own meds for the pain. His Ng tube stayed in for a week after the surgery again so he did not start to eat until that came out. It was a very slow process and until he had a bowel movement and was able to eat and drink they did not leave him home. I am not sure if your hospital stay will be like that where he was completely obstructed at the time of surgery. He came home with pain meds which he in fact did not end using he said the pain was not too bad and he felt better when he didn't take them. He was on a low residue diet and drank boost also. He got up and showered every day but when he felt tired he would take a nap. Small meals worked well for him and small walks a couple of times a day. He was weak but was back to school within a month to the day that this whole ordeal began. He has felt so much better than before surgery. When leaving the hospital he was on antibiotics for a month, Asacol 800 mg twice daily and omeperazole 20mg twice daily which he still currently takes. After 3 months 75mg of 6mp daily was added. He is currently in clinical remission and feels great. I hope it goes well for you I know everyone is different but he bounced back real quick once we were home after laparoscopic surgery.
Posted 5/7/2012 8:23 PM (GMT 0)
I had a small bowel resection last June because of scar tissue that was no longer responding to medicinal treatment. It even wasn't very responsive to steriods. Please see the second link in my signature for a lot of details I shared about my recovery last year. To your specific questions:

1 - I did clear liquids for a day, then full liquids a day, then a strict low residue for one month. The doctors progress you from one level to the next if they here bowel noises when they listen to your stomach with their stethoscopes. (I couldn't hear it but they could, so I got promoted each day.)

After one month, doc said I could start, very slowly adding something non-low residue to my diet if I chewed whatever it was completely and thoroughly. I was supposed to do this gradually over the course of a couple of months. I went slower than that and stuck to a mostly low residue diet for the first month after that recommendation.

2 - Tuesday was the worst day for my pain (surgery was on Monday.) The anesthesia from the day before had completely worn off. I did have a two different pain relievers via IV throughout Tuesday and Wednesday (and moaybe some Thursday.) I started taking oral pain killers on Thursday. I quit taking the prescription pain medicine on Sunday and switched to Tylenol. I took Tylenol daily and quit taking it the following weekend.

3 - Surgery early Monday morning. Home on Friday mid-afternoon. Several folks here report that they are not allowed to go home until after they've had their first BM. I didn't have mine until Sunday.

4 - No, I was not bed/couch-bound. In fact, just like in the hospital, they want you to get up and walk around frequently. I wasn't doing much more than that for the first couple of days at home. By the following Monday, I was up and about a bit more often. My wife went back to work & my kids went to their grandmas. I made my own lunch, and picked up after myself. Mostly watched videos, played video games, and took a walk around outside every couple of hours. I did go to my son's t-ball practice on Tuesday (8 days after surgery) but I did not participate...just watched from the bench. The week following that, I was participating some in practice...playing catch with the kids...I could do stuff like that, I just couldn't make any sudden movements. So, if they threw a ball over my head or too far to my right or left, I could not make a quick grab to get it...just had to let it go past me.

As I noted in my other comment, I missed about 3.5 weeks of work at my desk job. They let me work at home some. I started back mid-week instead of a Monday. Week #2 back was the 4th of July, so it was only a 4-day work week.
Posted 5/9/2012 8:15 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks to you all for the info. You've all helped me to better anticipate what to expect. My mom is planning to come to help my husband with our two young children and I'm trying to figure out how long to have her stay.

One more question. Can you now eat pretty much whatever you want? or now that you've had a resection, will you always have to be careful?

Thanks again!!
Posted 5/9/2012 9:34 PM (GMT 0)
I had a bowel resection in 2007 and I still watch what I eat, the most important thing to remember is that your intestines need time to completely heal, especially the part where your intestines have been reconnected.  So my advice is to try and eat soft food for about 2 weeks after you go off fluids.  The main thing is not to eat anything that can cause a strain in an around the reconnection site and make sure that you really chew your food thoroughly.  Chewing my food thoroughly is something that I always try to do since (in my opinion) I feel that it is the problem that causes me to have so many suspected bowel obstructions, plus the fact that my abdomen is a great big mass of scars and adhesions.

One of the other pieces of advice that you got was to not lift anything for awhile, I went 6 weeks or so without lifting nothing heavier than a phonebook, but of course that depends on the city you live in.

Anyway, good luck with whatever decision you make, and if you decide to have one you will probably feel so much better.

Posted 5/10/2012 2:41 PM (GMT 0)
It's nice to have your mom come help. How long she would need to stay really varies by a lot of factors like how much your husband needs help, how much help your kids need, and how well your recovery goes.

I had surgery on Monday, went home Friday, and the next Friday, I was home by myself with our two young kids (6 yrs old and almost 3 at the time) for one day. I did it again twice late the next week. My wife works about 10 minutes away, and has a flexible enough job that she could have come home if I wouldn't have been able to handle it. The biggest thing I couldn't do was pick the kids up. We had an easy lunch prepared for the kids. Neither need to be lifted or put into high chairs or anything like that.

The biggest thing I've noticed regarding my diet is that I still have trouble with volume. I don't eat large meals anymore. The occasional large meal gives me problems. So I stick with smaller serving sizes and smaller meals in general. I can eat most things I want without issues, but I've still been pretty conservative about eating roughage.
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