Had the phone consultation with Nichols today. GREAT personality. Very personable. Wanted his opinion being he is familiar with function. He is an MD who practices alternatively. Wrote the book Optimal Digestion, to repeat. I wanted HIS opinion being he DOES practice alternatively and to give this issue fair chance. Any MD is going to say remove it all. Alot of naturopaths, without real understanding of the true picture, will say leave it all in! Nichols would understand more as to under what conditions do you do either. If I was just starting this jaunt and had no diagnosis, he'd probably go down the road I've already been on. After a time though, he might wonder. Or maybe with my particular symptoms, he'd be able to diagnose off the testing I had in the past that no one else could. Then again, volvulus doesnt usually show on xray.
His first question was where we were at now [since he's had my letter and xrays over a month waiting for Boston to give me an answer].
So once we established Cecal Volvulus, he said well, thats a simple surgery, you would resect a portion of the colon. I said yea . . . .? Simple alright, and I want to stick to the point of my question and that is HAVING a resection and no function or worse, pseudo-obstruction. He said yes and that could very well be [that I am dealing with this as well] and in that case you would want a total colectomy. Okay, he's on the same wavelength as Irwin except it would be a subtotal colectomy.
At that point I opened up more and disclosed Irwin's recommendation for a subtotal colectomy, and why - which is he cannot guarantee function. He started talking about the digital arches in fingerprints! He said theres a way you can determine pseudo-obstruction by fingerprints. There are 3 types of markings - whirls, arches and loops. If you have 2 or more arches, no doubt you had a motility problem since birth even though it didnt show up until later and in which case, you would be dealing with big time pseudo-obstruction problems and the recommendation would to be remove all of the colon. Asked which procedure Irwin was doing, if he was leaving the rectum. I said yes.
He said he would send the instructions on the fingerprint thing and then figured he'd FAX them which we're receiving right now. Images are not clear. What else is new? He asked me if I've had a motility test - to determine if any of the colon is working and where. I said no. Only a motility specialist can determine [just what I need - another doctor] - this is who people with pseudo-obstruction are having to see [Ive researched extensively on this] and then the MD's dont do anything about it. I read the horror stories on the net all the time. Where in my case, I would be solving THAT problem right in surgery by removing it. He said you dont want ANY portion left that isnt going to function, its not going to do you any good. I said right and worse coming out obstructed. No thanx, did that 3 times but the other 3 times I was at least able to relieve the pressure. This time they'll be working on the colon.
He said he would call Peter [?] and get me the name of a motility specialist. Already found out you wont find them except in Universities. I already printed out 30 pages of the list a month ago so I have the names. Two way to do it are with electrodes and manometry.
In essence, Nichols has found out the truth about the way he WAS practicing [conventional] and its not doing any of us any good. Quite the contrary. Yet, he's intelligent enough to understand there ARE instances when surgery is necessary. Thats why I wouldnt deviate from my question and wanted no influences. Just wanted a point blank answer in this particular situation. No one practicing this way is going to recommend surgery if its not necessary. When they do, you KNOW you need it done.
Thats where things are. In the meantime, surgery is scheduled for Sept 24.
Shali