GI

GI Distress
I am 26 years old.  When I was 16 I had an appendectomy. At 25 I had my gallbladder removed.  At 26 I had the same sharp debilitating pain in my stomach that made me collapse back when I was rushed to the hospital for my appendix and gallbladder.  The gallbladder took 8 months and 2 hospitals to discover.  This time I was admitted to the hospital for a week.
The ER Dr had originally thought constipation but when they did all the horrific bowel cleansing they knew it was not that.  They said it was something with my liver it was holding bile and they needed to make a cut in the liver to open it up so it could drain.
After the procedure for about a good 2 months I had chronic diarrhea.  I would eat something and 5 min later it would be right out the back end.  It was like my body had a built in laxative.  Finally they did a colonoscopy and that came out fine.
Now I no longer have the issue with the chronic diarrhea it is opposite.  I eat I bloat and look I’m pregnant.  I only weigh 105 lbs.  Today I just don’t know what to do or what direction to ask my Dr.s to go in.  Last night I went to dinner and felt like I needed to have a bowel movement, no luck.  This morning I was at breakfast and I got a sharp depilating pain in my belly it knocked me to the ground.  I embarrassingly crawled to the bathroom and had a bowel movement but the pain is still there along with the bloating.  
I haven’t had alcohol in 6 months I don’t drink soda (ginger ale from time to time to calm my stomach).  I was treated for IBS but nothing worked.  There was talk of something called SMA but a vascular Dr said no.  My husband said increase my fiber but what’s that going to do?  What could be wrong with me?
Thanks

[Jaybay]

Something tells me that you have a whole lot of scar tissue - also called adhesions - in your belly.  It develops in response to inflammation, and that can come from infection (like an infected gallbladder and appendix) and from a wound like surgery.  Scar tissue is the body's normal response to inflammation and a normal part of healing.  

BUT - problems crop up when that scar tissue adheres to abdominal structures and moves them out of place.  Intestines are particularly vulnerable; the small bowel and sigmoid colon being the worst.  Those structures are not fixed in the abdomen and need to kind of freely move around in there.  If even one good strand of scar tissue prevents that movement, it can cause the intestine to kink just like a water hose and cause a full or partial bowel obstruction.  That causes pain, cramping and bloating because waste cannot pass through.

There are all kinds of problems with diagnosing and treating adhesions. Because they're soft tissue, adhesions don't generally show up on imaging studies, and surgeons naturally want some kind of proof of a problem before they cut into a body.  Laparascopic surgery (adheliolysis) is both diagnostic and therapeutic, but more surgery can also cause more adhesions, so absolutely perfect technique on the part of the surgeon is essential.  If adhesions are found, the surgeon doesn't necessarily "remove" them, but rather cuts them to release the structures that are glued together.  There is no guarantee of success with surgery.  Scar tissue WILL reform immediately in response to the surgery, but the patient may never have another symptom depending on where and how much of it forms.

I have lived with adhesions for well over 10 years.  While it's no fun, I live primarily on a liquid diet.  Just call me the Smoothie Queen!  If you really do have adhesions and a partial bowel obstruction, do NOT add more fiber to your diet.  Fiber only makes it that much harder for waste to pass through and believe me, your pain and bloating will be phenomenal.  

All you can do is raise the subject of adhesions with your doctor (preferably your surgeon) and see what he says.  If you've had every other test they can think of and still no diagnosis, in my layperson's opinion you are a candidate for an exploratory laparascopy.  Something is obviously very wrong in there, and your medical history points to adhesions.  It's worth talking about anyway.  :-)