Escaped serious bowel obstruction for now but still struggling with j pouch

I was hospitalized last week saturday about 1:00 am for a very painful obstruction. At first i attempted to let the problem resolve itself with at home treatment of laxatives, hot baths, heating pad etc...This ofcourse didnt work -just my crappy luck...I waited approximately 2.5 days of no eating or drinking before my wife finally demanded I go to the hospital. I will mention that I had a partial blockage once before after my second surgery and it got better in just 3 days and thought maybe this one would pass in time....well this obstruction did NOT and I was in much more intense pain. It felt like i had a tennis ball under my belly button. My wife and kids were scared because i was throwing up brite green bile and screaming in pain, I was turning white in face and dehydrated/hyperventilated. It felt like I was in labor or something with contraction pain similar to I would imagine a woman feels during birth..

So here i am crawling in to ER on hands and knees where they picked me up and rolled me to a bed where they then strapped me to EKG because they didnt know what was wrong with me. My heart rate was showing bunny ears and then I saw the look of fear and tears on my wifes face. I knew it was serous and prayed that I was not gonna have a heart attack or stroke from this obstruction. I was so weak I could not talk to tell them I simply could not poop. They gave me morphine thank god because I was able to calm myself down enough to lower heart rate. After ER staff got all my background info and hooked me up to IV they decided to do a CT scan which sure enough revealed 98% obstruction.

The obstruction is where they reconnected me from ileostomy (completed over a year ago) so the healing had formed scar tissue around the band that joins the j pouch to my original small bowel.
They told me I had to do swallow the tube to feel better. I heard about this NG tube nightmare story and a simple google search and you can see how uncomfortable these ng tubes are.

I said well I gotta do it but I was so irritated with the ng tube they shoved up my nose, down my throat to my stomach that I pulled it out 3 times in the first 30 minutes. Then finally, the fourth time i was able to deal with the gagging to let the tube suction the stomach however, this only lasted 8 hours and i could not take it any more. I wrote down on a piece of paper (could not talk) that I wanted the tube out and if they didnt remove it I would do it myself. After crying and complaining for over an hour they said they would remove it if I signed a release form stating that it was against advice of doctors who recommend at least 24 hours to hopefully fix the problem and if it didnt then surgery would be required. Despite the recommendation I got better in only 2 days of clear liquid to soft diet. They did an xray that showed my obstruction was much better but still there. I sort of demanded to be discharged early because I hate hospitals. I've been hospitalized so many times I suffer from anxiety/depression just being there.


After leaving the hospital feeling i escaped a lucky man who nearly had a rupture. Thought maybe I could tackle this with doing the 'no eating' thing at home but something told me that I made a mistake by pulling the tube early and leaving early. I decided to eat regular food today and here I am feeling blocked again. I just downed some milk of mag last and that worked last night but not tonight. I want to just die because I went from pooping 12 times a day to leaking green bile acid a few times a day. If this gets worse I will need to go back to hospital and let them insert the god awful NG tube all over again. I've had very little sleep. Keeping calm and relaxed with a thin garden hose tube down your throat is near impossible so if I do strike up courage to go back then I will be in for a long night once again.

I wish there was some way I could regrow a new set of bowels. I am down to my only my small intestines with my colon and rectum totally removed. This is just the worst thing ever for my little kids who adore me yet I can never play with them because of my health. I hope things better and I hope this will not lead to another surgery.

What would be the surgery? I had that thing up my nose and went hysterical. It was because I couldn't stomach the liquid for the CT scan. I kept thrsowing it up. Well, once I experienced the alternative, I freaked out. 24 hours, that would be hell.

You'll probably need surgery... but what type? I feel so bad for you. This must be h-ll.

You really need to learn the difference between a partial obstruction and a full obstruction. A partial obstruction you can manage at home but a full obstruction needs intervention at the hospital. You are lucky. If this is indeed scar tissue, it could happen again so you need to chew well and be in touch with your symptoms.

Sue