Should someone my age get surgery

So you where falring since may? What did the doc tell you to do?

FeelFine,

My hospital stays on Cyclosporine have been 10 days and 12 days. They are telling me that my hospital stay for surgery would be probably 10 days.

I would recommend meeting with a surgeon while you are in the hospital.... you probably have lots of free time on your hands while you are there. Just because you meet with a sugeon doesn't mean that you have to have surgery.


--Keith

Regarding surgery please be aware that the course of this disease (UC) is unpredictable; therefore take peoples personal experiences as just that, yours may be very different. There is definitely a pro surgery choir on this site, people who have come to the conclusion they should have done it sooner. Fine if that is the conclusion they have come to but I feel this point of view is often presented as an objective conclusion rather than a subjective or personal one. Logic for me dictates the necessity of exhausting ones options in treatment prior to removal of the colon.
Your initial post says they don’t know if you have UC or crohns. Surgery will not "cure" crohns. You have only recently been diagnosed so yes in my opinion it is way too soon to consider surgery given the info you have submitted. There are times surgery is appropriate and or required. Find out what those are, learn about the disease you have and your options before moving forward with irreversible decisions.

I'd say before you decide on surgery, be convinced that if they find a medical cure or universally effective treatment in 8 months you won't be devastated that you gave up your colon. If you feel secure about that, then it's certainly an option for those who aren't helped by medication or don't want to be bothered with it.

Once again, it's an individual decision.

I do not believe there is a "pro surgery" slant to this board as stated. I also believe in exhausting ones medical options (as do all good GIs and CR surgeons) before deciding on surgery. But the one difference between those who consider surgery or have surgery and those who are appauled or dead-set against it is that you have no idea how bad/sick we are or have been to get to the point of even considering surgery. I have not met one UC patient in the past 8 years who really wanted surgery but I have met a lot of UC patients who got to the point that they had no quality of life, had to quit work, couldn't travel, couldn't make commitments, and were taking 2 dozen pills per day to maintain a very low quality of life. Even at that trying to fathom what life is like on the other side is daunting. You know how crappy you feel with severe UC and you worry that surgery will be worse. We have all thought that. Surgery is a personal decision and an extremely difficult decision and must be made in consultation with a good CR surgeon, your GI, and no one should have surgery without doing the necessary research which includes looking at the risk factors.

Please don't think that those of us who opted for surgery did so in a cavalier fashion. Most UC sufferers will never have to consider having surgery, it's only those of us who had the worst of the worse cases and had to make a choice over having a good quality of life over not participating in life.

Sue