Toni,
I have had several partial bowel obstructions and my symptoms were pain,
nausea, swelling, cramping and vomiting. I have had to go to the hospital
many times with them and the doctors there told me that the way to know there
is an obstruction is the nausea and vomiting. I have also had total bowel
obstructions and that is awful, required immediate emergency surgery. At
that time, I was vomiting every 7 to 10 minutes, just bile. Apparently when
the bowel is obstructed the bile that your stomach naturally produces cannot
get through the bowel and it comes back up and that causes the vomiting. I
am going for surgery next week because of this. After having two partial
obstructions in the last 2 months and having to go on liquid diet to avoid a
total obstruction I have lost over 28 pounds and it is now necessary to have
the surgery. I try everything to avoid it as we all know surgery is short
term help, but at this time I have no quality of life and have lost so much
weight that I have no choice. Hope this helps, I am no expert, can only
share what happened to me. Best of luck and I wish everyone well, Ginni