Colectomy without jpouch or ileostomy bag

[Kazann34]

Hello everyone. I recently had surgery to have my colon removed and did not need to have an ileostomy or other surgeries to create a jpouch. The surgeon removed my colon and attached my small intestine to my rectum. That's it. Almost everyon out there has had more than one surgery or has the bag, am I alone? Looking for others to compare outcome of surgery with.

[sgmpmr1001]

I drank Diet Pepsie in 1995 and had a severe reaction to it. After months of awful abdominal pain, diarrhea, tugging sensation in throat, etc. and after years of constipation, my large colon simply stopped working. After years of many tests, finally a sitz marker test showed that the large colon no longer functioned.

I was supposed to have a total colectomy in August 2010, but the doctor made a bad judgement call during surgery and left 2 feet of the large colon intact without telling me or anyone. There were post surgery complications because I had a blockage on 3 separate occasions. The doctor discharged me 3 days after the surgery even though I had a blockage and complained to the entire staff about my acute abdominal pain, but no one listened. The doctor told me to "deal with it". Three days later, I was in the ER getting my stomach pumped.

Months later the constipation returned. In January 2013 I had a colonoscopy and we learned that 60cm of the large colon remains to my horror. My new doctor asked the first surgeon why he left a portion of the large intestine inside me, and he replied "because I'm a man". I sought legal action but no law firm wanted to take the case. Since surgery, I've been having chronic headaches, fatigue, constipation, and generally feeling sick.

Now on October 2, 2013 I'm having the remaining section of the large colon removed. I'm optimistic and can only hope that all goes well.

I see from the many posts that I am not alone in dealing. Many others here have very similar issues and I wish you all the best. There's always hope. One day at a time. God Bless.

[sgmpmr1001]

I drank Diet Pepsie in 1995 and had a severe reaction to it. After months of awful abdominal pain, diarrhea, tugging sensation in throat, etc. and after years of constipation, my large colon simply stopped working. After years of many tests, finally a sitz marker test showed that the large colon no longer functioned.

I was supposed to have a total colectomy in August 2010, but the doctor made a bad judgement call during surgery and left 2 feet of the large colon intact without telling me or anyone. There were post surgery complications because I had a blockage on 3 separate occasions. The doctor discharged me 3 days after the surgery even though I had a blockage and complained to the entire staff about my acute abdominal pain, but no one listened. The doctor told me to "deal with it". Three days later, I was in the ER getting my stomach pumped.

Months later the constipation returned. In January 2013 I had a colonoscopy and we learned that 60cm of the large colon remains to my horror. My new doctor asked the first surgeon why he left a portion of the large intestine inside me, and he replied "because I'm a man". I sought legal action but no law firm wanted to take the case. Since surgery, I've been having chronic headaches, fatigue, constipation, and generally feeling sick.

Now on October 2, 2013 I'm having the remaining section of the large colon removed. I'm optimistic and can only hope that all goes well.

I see from the many posts that I am not alone in dealing. Many others here have very similar issues and I wish you all the best. There's always hope. One day at a time. God Bless.

[suzanne206]

Hi i need advise. Last year, i went in to hospital with chrones disease, to have a small intestine surgery, to remove only 5 inches of  inflammation.  I was told only 5 inches would be removed.
The doctor, general surgeon , in emergency , lied to me and told me he was an expert with chrones patients.  He did the surgery and punctured several areas of my large intestine-my large intestine was perfectly fine before he touched it.  Realizing he had done it he tried to stitch back up all the holes, he was so careless that he forgot a few and stitched me back up.  Once in my hospital room the nurse went frantic, for two days she kept at my surgeon told him , judging by the symptoms she does not think he stitched up all the holes, he told her he did , and she insisted he did not and demanded he do x-rays.  Well nurse was right , and by time the stupid incompetent doctor came around to realizing it it was too late.  Two days after my first surgery doctor took me in to an emergency surgery, i had fecal matter all over my body, he forgot to stitch up a few more holes he created.  The two day delay destroyed my entire large colon and left me with an iliostomy bag. I went to new hospital and they said  my large colon  is completely destroyed leaving only 34 centimeters of it .  I am scheduled to go back to hospital to do a re sectioning of my iliostomy.  Any advise?

[ng1031]

I had a laparoscopic colectomy with ileorectal anastomosis surgery at the Mayo Clinic on January 18th for slow transit constipation. I was suppose to be in the hospital for 1 week and ended up there for 3 weeks. I formed an ileus.. the most pain I have ever felt in my entire life. I was on decompression tubes.. one in my nose/throat to my stomach and the other inserted in my rectum through the small intestine until my body could do things on it's own. Before the tubes I was vomiting bile. I was on morphine drip and it still was not enough for the pain. It has been aweful. Now I am home and no more narcotics.. just tylenol which to me does nothing but I understand that the narcotics are not good on the stomach. Did anyone else form an ileus? The surgeon told me that it happens to 10% of people and that the type I had was very rare. He also scared me when he said there was no guarantee it would not come back later on.

I also formed a blood clot in my liver so now I am giving myself Lovenox shots in the stomac every morning. I go to a doctor on March 9th to start coumadin pills. Because of this I had to stop my birth control. They believe it could have contributed to why I got the blood clot during surgery.

I am going more frequently (which is great from never going at all or feeling like your being ripped apart when you go) but because I am still on the liquid diet the bm's are also liquid. From hearing other people's stories I am surprised I do not got a million times a day. How much I go is pretty tolerable. I am behind as far as food.. I should be on week 4 introducing foods etc but instead I am only a week into things. The doctor sortof started me over after the ileus cleared so I am still on liquid/soft food.

Now its a matter of trying to deal with the aches and pains and these cramps whenever my bowls decide to move. Did anyone else experience these cramps? They are aweful. The doctors say its the small intestine trying to figure out what to do and that if it's making noises and moving that is a good sign that they are still working. It might be a good sign but its painful and keeps me up at night. I also getting a shooting pain whenever I pass anything that is not liquidy.. like if my bowl has any bit of substance to it I get this shooting pain in my lower right abdomen. Anyone experience this? Doctors say its because my body is healing. It just makes me nervous as I really am scared of the ileus returning. They told me as long as I am not vomiting again, passing gas/bm and do not have a fever that I am ok.

Just curious if anyone else experienced anything similiar?

[happywithapouch2005]

Hello:

I had UC for 12 years that was not responsive to treatment.  I ended up on 80mg or prednisone, 15 pound weight loss [was already "skinny"] and could not keep anything down except a few sips of water.  I had bloody stools, emesis, cramping, and was in pain 24/7.  I ended up having surgery with Dr Bruce Harms in Madison.  Two surgeons performed a total colectomy with a J-pouch, which took 5 hours.  I had a temporary colostomy for 3 months, and then had the colostomy take down surgery.  This was in 2005.

Since then I have had several hospitalizations for bowel obstructions and another surgery in 2009 for a hernia repair and bowel obstruction.  Even though I periodically end up in pain and hospitalized (every 2-3 years), I have not a single regret.

I have about 6 BMs per day, rarely are in pain, can eat almost anything, have rare incontinence, and essentially have my life back.  

If you are an Ulcerative Colitis patient who is being advised to consider this surgical procedure, it is my opinion that it is worth it.  Yes it is more than one surgery, expensive and takes months to recover...but for me it meant being able to live my life and immensely improve my quality of life. I believe I might have died without this procedure since I was so ill and malnourished by the time I had to the first surgery with the total colectomy.

---Former UC patient in chronic pain and not responding to treatment  but now happy and carefree

[raju250]

I had previous left-colectomy for severe constipation. My left colon was always loaded and bloated causing discomfort. All tests i.e. colonoscopy, Barium enema, rectal biopsy etc were normal. However no transit study, rectal manometry were conducted before left-hemicolectomy. A repeat barium enema reported 'grossly dilated and redundant sigmoid and descending colon but normal transverse and ascending colon'. Operating surgeon made a mistake and he did not take out whole of sigmoid colon.

My condition improved but I had to strain to defecate for an average 20-25 minutes. I always felt that my rectum was empty.
I went through more tests like rectal manometry, nuclear transit study which showed held up in recto-sigmoid colon. I planned a high-anterior resection with a surgeon in India for removal of 3 inches of remaining segment of sigmoid colon. but this mis-guided doctor out of his wild imagination did a J-pouch rectal anastomosis. He took out part of my healthy rectum and on top of it made a J pouch (15 cm long). Now I am experiencing that my rectum has become redundant (except when stool is watery) and stool is primarily stored in illeal pouch.This gives me a feeling of being constipated and I feel I have to strain to push stool from pouch to rectum.
Can anyone advise me, would it be a wise decision to get rid of this un-necessary  pouch and have an illeo-rectal anastomosis done? I have 14 cm of rectum left.