Re: Gallbladder surgery adhesions
From: Kathy Terrell (Homeplay@cox.net)
Wed Dec 8 09:51:45 2004
Sounds more like Adhesion Related Disorder to me.
Pain after eating and feeling the stool move thru
narrowed bowels from adhesions. Do you get nauseated
too? Cramps from the laxative - try Miralax - its an
Rx, but its non addictive and milder than Senakot ( which
can cause your bowels to become dependant on it to work
at all).
As far as cramps. I still get them from the Miralax
(not as intensesly) about 4 hours after I take it -
once every day - so I've started taking it at night,
an hour after I take my night meds. Always take a
laxative an hour before or 2 hours after any other
meds or it will just wash them away before they can
absorb.
I was always constipated and impacted before the
daily Miralax, even tho I took Go-Lytley every week
and Lactulose several times a month. They are both
Rxs that don't cause addiction but the Go-Lytely
(by the glass, not the gallon) just adds water to the
bowels and would sometimes just go around the stool
whereas the Lactullose works by leaching amonia from
the blood into a gas that passes thru the bowel therby
having a laxative effect. It pushed the stool out
better, but also gives too much gas which adds to
the pain level.
They say I have the worse case of function bowel
disorder ever seen from a wonky central nervous
system that never turned on the large bowel peristalsis
appropriately from birth. (1st obstruction at age 10,
pain during and after every meal since I can remember).
The 16 abdominal surgeries didn't help. Those adhesions
just make a bad situation much worse. When my large
bowel is slow or stopped, my small bowel hyper-spasms
to try and get it to move which creates my daily 7-10
level nause and spasm/cramp pain.
Now, from the massive adhesions, the small bowel twists
into small loops (where its tacked down to other organs)
from the hyper-spasms and that causes intermittent
obstructions. If I don't take the pain meds to slow
the small bowel down, the loops don't relax and open up
again which cascades into parital obstructions that
evolve into full obstructions unless I go to the ER
for an NG tube.
So its a balancing act between the laxative and the
pain meds.
Unfortunately, with my slow peristalsis, antispasmodics
do work for the pain and nausea, but they stop the
peristalsis compeltely, causing complete obstruction,
whereas the pain meds just slow it down.
I hope your surgeon can prescribe Miralax for you. If
not, have him reccomend a GI specialist for the functional
bowel disorder caused by your surgeries. You may not
have to take it every day, just enough to have daily
bowel movements or enough to keep the constipation from
creating cramps and obstructions by itselft.
You could try the antispamodics - the kind that melts
under your tongue - hycoscyamine sp? is really effective
for the pain after eating. It works in
5 minutes! and you can take it anywhere. It can
keep the whole pain cycle from starting, but it can
add to the constipation.
Try keeping a dialy log - when you eat, what you eat,
when the pain starts, how often you move your bowels,
etc. This will help you decide what works
and what things like emotional stress, or exhaustion,
etc.can make it worse.
I have a complex one I've created if you want to
download it. You can personalize it from there.
The new drug Zelnorm works too, but they say not to take
it if you have adhesions - I take it anyway, but I have
that wonky CNS disorder and this is the first drug that
works on that brain signal process to make your bowels
move appropriately.
With ARD, every little bit helps - especially if you're
getting off a high fiber diet because of the pain after
every meal. I still get sick even on a liquid diet, so
I just change my diet as needed daily, to help keep up
my nutrition.
Remember, you can't get rid of the pain, just control
it enough that it doesn't control you. And laugh at
every opportunity. Create joy from the smallest
moment - if you look for it, you['ll find it. You are
not making up the pain, but you can make up the joy
to counteract the silent part of ARD -
depression. I find laughing out loud at myself helps
a lot. I happen to
have started burping when I spasm/cramp now, (upt to
every 5 seconds for 5 hours at a time) since my 16th
surgery. They think the air can't move forward because
of those hyper-spasms intermittent loops, so the air I
swallow when eating has to come back out thru the stomach,
even hours after I've eaten. So instead of getting
embarassed, we just pretend my stomach is adding to
the conversation and laugh about it. My mother calls
it Jurasic Park Syndrome, since it sounds like the
dinosaurs are around the corner and getting closer
Also, you'll run into the fact that most doc's don't
believe you about your pain, or will tell you that
you are causing it yourself. Don't expect to change
their minds and don't let them change yours. Having
to justify yourself to everyone is exhausting and
counterproductive. Find at least one doc who believes
in you, keep educating yourself about your disease,
experiment with what works for you and never, never
doubt yourself, no matter what the other doc's and
ER's say.
Here's laughing with you, kid...
kt
>---- Original Message -----
From: "International Adhesions Society" <tracy.joslin@adhesions.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 10:00 PM
> Sender: tsmenear@yahoo.com (Susan)
> Subject: Gallbladder surgery adhesions
>
> I read where so many people have trouble with gallbladder
> adhesions.Tell me how you feel with them.Sometimes when I
> eat my food feels stuck or either I can feel the food moving
> through my entire body.I have had C-section,and Hyst so I
> know I have adhesions.
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