OH BROTHER!

Hi,

Most of you know my story, what turned out being an unneeded sigmoid resection for what I was told was pelvic organ prolapse symptoms of divided bowel moves, lead me to severe scarring and loss of colon, rectum, and small bowel. Then lucky enough to find a surgeon who got the scar tissue off my small bowel and did the ileostomy for me thus saving my life.

Well, he retired, my replacement surgeon is now writing up very odd records saying I have/had a disease etc, etc.

After my last food blockage on tuna this weekend, I asked that he call. He did last night and he said basically that my intestines never worked right and I was searching for a mechanical solution to a functional issue. I said back when I had the original sigmoid resection I was told by three colorectal surgeons at other hospitals that my sigmoid colon was blocking off my rectum (sigmoidocele). I obviously did not know at the time that it was not or I obviously would not have had it out. None of those original docs did funcntional studies.

So I reminded this doc that I needed the ileostomy and take down of small bowel adhesions due to scarring of colon, rectum, small bowel from that first surgery. I did not hammer on about the details. BUT get this, he flat out said words to the effect, scar tissue can't change the function of intestines that much.

YES it can. I had small bowel obstructions for a year due to scar tissue on my small bowel. ONce it was removed, so far no adhesion reobstruction, just these stomal level food obstructions.

What the heck to you all make of this? Surgeons know about adhesions they lyse them every day. He said he did not know why I was developing small bowel dysfunction. I don't have that. It functions fine. Transit is three hours totally normal. The issue is at the stoma. Something is going wrong at the stoma level where poop gets trapped. What is his agenda. I am getting scared. He says no tests, no meds, nothing to do, it's your dysfunction. Sounds like a wimp out to me.

Rosemary

I think so too! My gosh - some docs are tooooo conservative, and sometimes at the expense of their patients. Sounds like he doesn't want to deal with it.

Rosemary, I know you had a bad experience at Mass General, but I really like my surgeon there -- Pat Sylla. I think she mostly does cancer and IBD, but it's all in the same neighborhood, and her research field is finding even less invasive means of surgery (she went to spain to take out a woman's colon through her vagina, no scars anywhere, how wild is that?). She always favors lapro if at all possible.

Just a suggestion. Might be worth a trip to Boston.

Windy, LOVE Your opening line. An assistant is reapproaching him about the CT scan to see if it can show why food obstructions at the stomal level. She did say that unless someone is in the middle of real trouble as in an actual adhesion obstruction, then most often a CT Enterography will show all normal. So if this is the case, then maybe that is why my current surgeon does not want to do it. All he had to do was tell me. I did warn her that he is coming at this whole thing from "dismotility angle" she thought as I did maybe regrowth of adhesions to some degree but luckily so far not to the degree where an actual adhesion obstruction. So she is going to work on this for me. Considering the shape I was in when the original ileo doc saved my life, I am very lucky so far no actual adhesion reobstruction, the food kind at the stomal level does need to be managed, but maybe I can just do this with diet. Sure gotta be careful.

Thanks BLue for the referral. I did actually ask my current doc if I would ever be able to have lap surgery if I need it again and he said no because going into someone with so many past open surgeries, lap was dangerous as the risk of bowel perforation was so great due to all the adhesions that are likely in there. Kind of like going in through a bunch of concrete cobwebs so to speak.


Your doc at MGH sounds great. I will google her, but if she is in that department, then she may be in with the doc who made some real trouble for me and got me locked in their psych ward for 5 hours, nothing I could ever take a chance on again as that was WAY over the edge. BUT, I am glad for you that for you you have made a great contact and I do thank you for your logical referral.

So we shall see what rolls out. Hopefully I will just be able to handle this with diet. Seems like meat spreads and tuna and anything gloppy is not so good. Rosemary