HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Stricture dilation, pain

Support Forums
>
Crohn's Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 6/17/2016 11:31 PM (GMT 0)
Hi all, looking for experiences everyone has had with strictures, specifically how long after a stricture dilation do you expect to have pain (or atleast significant pain) continue? I had pain before the colonoscopy that discovered it and it got to be tremendously bad after the prep to the point where walking was nearly impossible. The GI found the stricture and dilated it. Now I am still not eating much but the pain is definitely still there. There is some improvement I think but I'm not sure if it's from not eating much or that it is getting better. Thanks in advance!

Post Edited (Labradorite) : 6/17/2016 5:47:01 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 6/17/2016 11:56 PM (GMT 0)
hey Lab. been going through the same thing for months. what we are doing is going in each month and stretching the stricture a little at a time , so we don't pop! ;o) . since January I have done 4 stretches and now am taking a break as the last time it bled quite a lot. we will restart maybe in july. how strictured was it? mine started at less than 9mm. and is now at 18mm the last time. stuff moves easier and such. randy
Posted 6/18/2016 12:34 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Randy! Thanks for your response! Yes, no popping allowed, haha! Has yours healed back over/restrictured at all between stretches? Do you have a lot of pain after it?
I was kind of still out of it after the procedure when the GI was telling me about it so I'm not sure if he said what it started at, I just know he said it was too small to fit the endoscope through and was expanded to 15mm. He said that it could have gone to 20mm but didn't want to risk popping or bleeding since I'm on blood thinners for a recent PE and no one wants to see bleeding with blood thinners:(. The goal is to see how I do over the next few weeks and decide whether the procedure needs to be repeated or apparently it's a very small section so it could be cut out without surgery if the repeated stretching does not work.
Posted 6/18/2016 9:12 AM (GMT 0)
well yeah whats been going on is they go up 3mm each time. with three 1mm stretches during the procedures, then it is always back down about1 mm at each procedure. so like 3 steps forward and 1 back each time. this next time they will see if it held or has gotten narrower again. mine is right at the sigmoid /and decending colon juncture. right at the right turn.for years they have always had to use a pediatric scope on me. when ya think about it 9mm is the size of a pencil diameter. and all the poop had to pass through this. which left me with much bloating and pain.. however the relief I have gained so far has been very noticeable.. good luck with yours.. btw always good to have the same dr do all of the procedures, so they are seeing if progrees has been made. each dr may have a different view of whats what.
Posted 6/18/2016 11:34 PM (GMT 0)
Wow, 9mm is insanely scary, I was just looking at what the size comparison would be last night. Unbelievable that anything gets through! I hope it's held (at least enough to not set you back too far) I finally switched to a new GI when I got the most recent partial obstruction and the group has been fantastic so far so I will definitely be sticking with them. Started new meds and was feeling great until I started having pain when I'd wake up again. Luckily this doc took it seriously because the last one when I complained of pain in the morning would totally dismiss it which led to the last obstruction and switching docs. So today, though I'm still in some pain, the one I was waking up with was not there when I woke up. We will see if it lasts but I'm remaining hopeful since that pain has bothered me for a long time with no answers and atleast now I know what it is and how to deal with it.
Posted 6/20/2016 6:04 PM (GMT 0)
Lab, what pain are you describing? Do you get new pain from the dilation procedure or is this pain from the stricture? I've been dealing with a stricture for the last two months. Been hospitalized three times for obstructions, not fun. They dilated it three times but it keeps snapping back. Now it's at 9mm, which is smaller than it was when we first started. So I'm having it surgically removed next week. I didn't have any pain with the dilations, but I have an ileostomy so my situation is somewhat different. The stricture is about 5cm behind the stoma so for surgery they're basically just pulling it out past the stricture, cutting, and that's my new stoma.
Posted 6/20/2016 11:23 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Bania, the pain which is much better today (let's hope that lasts a while) is really two pains- one that ran in a line across my lower abdomen and was an aching pain and had slowly increased in frequency but was most apparent in the morning and was similar to the pains I was having leading up to the recent partial obstruction. the second was a severe sharp stabbing pain in the low right that woke me up in the middle of the night after drinking the first half of moviprep. It was so bad I could not move my leg Much and or stand up straight, it's up there in my list of top ten worst pains. I woke up from the colonoscopy and it was still there and the doc said that that was where the stricture was. I was surprised though that despite having cleared everything out of my system the pain was still pretty intense after the procedure so I wasn't sure if the procedure itself caused some of the pain to continue. I'm 4 days out but today has been pretty decent with relatively low pain and a bit more of an appetite than I had previously.
I am so sorry that you're having such a rough time! I'm glad though that you should get some relief once it's removed. How fast does it "snap back" for you? Do you at least have a few good days or is it fairly immediate?
Posted 6/21/2016 2:07 PM (GMT 0)
Hmm... yes, that is strange that you are having pain right after the procedure. It's supposed to relieve the pain, not cause more. I agree that stricture and obstruction pain ranks up in the top 10 worst pains. It can get very bad! The stricture is snapping back very quickly, within days. I got an obstruction 4 days after my first dilation. Since then I've gotten smart and stayed on a strict "super-soft" diet (ultra low-residue - only solids are low-fiber breads, white rice, dairy, eggs, fish) and been okay. But they've been scoping me once a week and each time it had already snapped back to where it was or even smaller.
Posted 6/21/2016 11:47 PM (GMT 0)
Wow that's pretty fast! Mine so far is feeling decent. Im thinking the major pain after was residual and a continuation from what ever the prep did to me. I'm only eating soft and low residue foods as well or soups so not sure if that's why I feel good. So far (day5) I feel okay/not too much bloating so hopefully it will hold. Though the hernia I have is starting to ache again which is usually a sign of increased pressure but it's not up to the level it was before. Only time will tell. Wish I could make use of feeling well but my mother is still extremely ill in the hospital so I'm pretty much living there.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply