Adhesions - - Should you have surgery for adhesions?

From: Helen Dynda (olddad66@runestone.net)
Fri Feb 18 13:41:29 2000


Should you have surgery for adhesions? This is a question that you, as an adhesion-sufferer, will be contemplating when your chronic pain becomes so unbearable that you know that you need help of some kind.

The following items will give you information about some of the things to think about before ever considering or agreeing to surgery:

* Most surgeons will not do surgery on patients who have adhesions because:

a.) Surgery for adhesions is too risky for the patient -- too many things can go wrong (like nicking the intestines, etc.).

b.) Surgery for removal of adhesions (adhesiolysis) is a very time-consuming task for the surgeon. I know of a patient who was in surgery for 9 hours!

c.) Surgery for adhesions is a very difficult task for the surgeon -- requiring many hours of advanced surgical training and many hours of experience before a surgeon has developed the meticulous skills necessary in order to perform a surgery for adhesions.

d.) There are no adhesion barriers that are currently 100% effective. For this reason many of the best surgeons have elected not to use the adhesion barriers currently available.

e.) Adhesions are the way the body heals itself. With repeated surgeries it is very possible that new adhesions (de nova) will develop and previous adhesions will reform - which will only increase the chronic pain a person already has.

f.) Gel adhesion barriers are currently in clinical trials. With a gel adhesion barrier the surgeon will be able to apply this protective gel-adhesion barrier to most of the organs in the abdominal cavity - which would give the patient a much greater chance to be as adhesion-free as possible.

g.) When a person has had previous surgeries, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the surgeon to do surgery laparoscopically.

h.) Only a surgeon, who does surgery for adhesions on a regular basis, is able to develop the skills necessary to help the patient become as adhesion-free as possible. Even these adhesion specialists cannot guarantee that their patient will be adhesion-free following surgery.

j.) Too often patients compare their surgeon's ability to that of a mechanic - in that if a mechanic can fix a car, a surgeon should be able to do the same for a surgical patient. It is not that easy! The body is in charge of the healing, not the surgeon!


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