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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