Ileorectal Anastamosis

I lost my colon due to a severe battle with Crohn's Disease this fall. My small intestine was fine and so was my rectum. My GI and Surgeon are proposing a ileorectal anastamosis in six months. I was wondering If anyone else had this operation? Or any advice would be greatly appreciated

Hi NCOT, as myself I had no rectal or small bowel involvement. With that said my surgeon said it is not a matter of crohns returning it is a matter of when!! She told me some get a year some get 10 plus. My friend who has an IRA due to Crohns is in her 18th year and on no crohns meds. But that is rare I am sure my results or your results would vary. The hard part for me is it was planned to have a takedown in six months if I wanted it. Just not sure to go through with it or not..  It is rare finding information on this surgery with Crohns I have four people I have met with this operation done!!  Thanks for your time replying :)

 

My friend had it in her terminal ileum and her whole colon was bad, her rectum was spared and they just did the IRA right away at Cleveland Clinic. She told me she has had more surgeries for other things. But she watches her food and uses supplements. On the other end of the spectrum another person I met got crohns back in his small after two years after his IRA but is doing good with remicade. With that said he didn't keep up with his check ups and medicine. I am going to have mine reconnected they have a great surgeon at Cleveland that can do the surgery through the stoma whole minimizing scar tissue. They use a titanium clamp to hole the small and rectum together. She told me most patients are very satisfied and would do the surgery all over again.

Did they take your rectum? I didn't want surgery at all I am only 34 but they did it emergency and I woke up with a bag. Thank goodness the plan was to reverse it in 6 months so she left my rectum in. As of now I am on anti depressants I lost my girl over this and maybe my job next. If I had my way I would of left my colon in no matter what. Now I have to fly to Cleveland Clinic to get it put back together. My first surgery was done at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and they treated me like dirt. They even terminated me as a patient after I mentioned I was going to Cleveland.

I had my anastomosis in august of 2012 and am doing well.  I have to watch what I eat because some foods cause diarrhea and swelling.

Cynthia

Hey Dude, I'm a colostomate because of CR cancer so I don't know anything about Crohn's or most other things. I did, however, learn to think about my body parts somewhat more realistically. The colon removes water from our digestive system and hydrates other organs. Without the colon we stand a good chance of dehydration.
Connecting the ileum directly to the rectum would mean all the liquid that now goes into the bag would go into the rectum. I wonder how that would affect the number of bathroom visits at the very least. Please, ask people who know about this stuff. It's a big deal no matter what we do with our guts and we owe it to ourselves and those who really care about us to make the best choices.
Too often medical professionals refer to ostomies as last resort procedures and they need to reconnect so we can get our lives back. So many of us have our lives because of our ostomies and, I think, most of our lives are pretty darn good considering the alternatives. You're just a "kid" relative to a lot of us and you need to make a well guided decision because you've got many, many years to live with what you decide.
Ask, ask and ask some more but measure the quality of the answers by their purpose and experience of those answering.
Wish you the very best and I'm betting you'll be so happy with your decision down the road.
Respectfully,
Mike