Laparotomy may be the only way to really see all of the adhesions but if you know you have adhesions, I would strongly advise against it. That is just my opinion. Adhesions are going to reform either way. But with open surgery you have more of a chance for them to develop along the scar line, which, can I just tell you how miserable this can feel? Certainly, the advantage to open surgery is that they can place seprafilm more thoroughly but this is not a be all end all solution. I had seprafilm placed at my last adhesion surgery, which was done by laparotomy when the doctor actually intended to do it laparoscopically (the adheshions were to dense and massive to do the surgery laparoscopically, and I had plenty of adhesions that reformed. It's an individual decision and no one can tell you what to do. This is one of the lonliest parts of this condition. BUT, I can just tell you, from my experience I've chosen to just find alternative ways other than more surgery to deal with my adhesions. Hopefully, they'll come up with more conclusive solutions to these blasted things in the future at which time I'll consider more surgery - - but not until then unless absolutely necessary. Good luck!
-- Anita