Although if you think about it, I think a hernia can probably cause very similar symptoms. The hernia binds a loop of intestine much in the same way that an adhesion can.
After feeling this pain and working on the problem of what the pain is, and what causes it, for many years, I think the most likely scenario is that the "episodes" of pain are in fact intestinal spasms, but those spasms are in response to being aggravated by a mechanical pulling either from a hernia, adhesions, or both.
My two questions:
1) Is your pain more or less constant, or does it come on acutely and then go away after a period of time?
2) Have you had any relief with the smooth muscle relaxing drugs like Levsin or Levsinex? If the adhesions are causing spasms of the intestine, this might be a way to manage the disease. At one time I used to take Levsinex when I felt "funny" feelings in my abdomen - which I usualldy did before the pain came on fullblown - and it did seem to work.
Ok, I have three questions: :)
3) Does the location of the pain, in your abdomen, the "center of your being," cause you much more emotional distress, than say, if you had a diseased limb? To me, there is something much more emotionally disturbing about having pain in my abdomen than anywhere else on my body. Hard to describe but I suspect some of you know what I am talking about.
Get well soon to all who need it...
Oh, and one more quick point: Doctors ignore men with these "mysterious" abdominal problems too! They are not just ignoring you because you are a woman, it's at least as much that they don't understand the pain, so they think you must be inventing it.
Thanks, Bob