HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

3.75 feet left?

Support Forums
>
Ostomies
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 8/13/2015 5:53 PM (GMT 0)
So when I was 17 I had a colon resection (6"). In 2010 I had a total proctocolectomy. In 2013 I had a stoma revision with about 13" removed. For the last few years I have had pretty high output. Been working with the doctors trying everything to slow the output. Nothing really works well. I had a small bowel follow through a few weeks back and the radiologist said I have 3.75 feet of small bowel left. ***? Where did the other 18ft go? I asked my doctor and they have no idea. What do I do and where do I go from here?
Posted 8/14/2015 1:01 PM (GMT 0)
Time to get your surgeon's records and find out what happen. The small bowel does not disappear. It had to have been removed if you are missing that much.

Sue
Posted 8/14/2015 3:19 PM (GMT 0)
You say you have only had 13" removed... that means you would only have had less than 5 to start with... that would imply that you were born with short bowel syndrome, which is hard to believe. You may naturally have a shorter gut, but I think that you would have noticed this very early on in your life.

I do have some good news for you, which is that the bowel adapts to this loss over a long period of time (I read two years). Hopefully by using bowel slowers and not resecting any more gut, things could still improve greatly.
Posted 8/14/2015 6:05 PM (GMT 0)

suebear said...
Time to get your surgeon's records and find out what happen. The small bowel does not disappear. It had to have been removed if you are missing that much.

Sue

Kind of weird and I didn't believe in it at first, but I saw a psychic. He basically told me about my Crohns disease without me even saying anything about it. Then I told him about my output issues and he said that something happened during surgery and I need to check the records..
My doctor messages me last night and said that small bowel ranges from 5-12' and that I must have a short bowel to begin with. I'm not sure if I believe that.
Posted 8/15/2015 12:53 AM (GMT 0)
Brian,

Same thing happened to Rosemary. She had hardly no small intestines left and ended up on TPN. But she had a ton of surgeries.

She was also wondering how she had so much small intestines missing?/

It's a mystery. Did your doctor say what you could do?
Posted 8/15/2015 10:25 AM (GMT 0)

Brian84 said...
My doctor messages me last night and said that small bowel ranges from 5-12' and that I must have a short bowel to begin with. I'm not sure if I believe that.

You don't believe it. 5 feet is more like the average colon length.

I'm sure there's better sources than wiki, but this will do for now.

/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_intestine#Structure

Meanwhile, start digging out those records.
Posted 8/19/2015 2:41 PM (GMT 0)

answers4me2 said...
Brian,

Same thing happened to Rosemary. She had hardly no small intestines left and ended up on TPN. But she had a ton of surgeries.

She was also wondering how she had so much small intestines missing?/

It's a mystery. Did your doctor say what you could do?

He said that I should work closely with the dietitian. Ive already talked to her and she suggested a gatorade/water/ salt combination to keep me hydrated. I am not working right now, but I am looking for a job that I can stay close to the bathroom. I have been having a hard time because my background is in construction and I can't do that anymore. I just want to be able to eat normally and not have to make multiple trips to the bathroom.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply