pain after pain

[tinytina519]

Hello, I just had a lower back surgery 5 weeks ago. A week later I started having severe abdominal pain with nausea and vomiting. I was admitted at a local hospital then did laporascopy to find an extensive amount of intestinal adhesions. The surgeon wants to operate right a way! I was not ready  because I wasn't fully recovered from my lumbar dynamic fusion surgery yet. I asked my Dr. if there is another solution to push back the surgery until I feel ready, he said not really you are just wasting your time and you may get sicker.
Does anyone have suggestions for me?


This discussion is related to Intestinal Adhesions from surgery.

[tinytina519]

When I spoke with my surgeon last time, he told me to do the surgery ASAP. He also said that 2 more Docs will be in the OR, my GYN and my urologist because the adhesions are all over my lower abdominal organs, including small intestines, colon, bladder, and overies. The CT scan shows some moderate amount (7cm) of free fluid accumulation near the colon. He said its going to be a big open surgery, l asked to see a GI doctor first, to see if I can delay this surgery a bit, then the GI Doc asked for many more tests, like; UGI xray series, stool test, lower and upper GI. These tests will take time and I know I am going to be turtured! I am having a constant nasea and abdominal pain. Do you think I should follow up with the GI Doc or listen to my surgeon and my GYN and schedule time to do the adhesion surgery?

[Jaybay]

Glad I could help.  :-)  It can be so difficult to even know what questions to ask the doc when they give you news that takes some time to digest.  I try to give docs the benefit of the doubt.  They have to give their patients enough understandable information to make an informed decision, but sometimes it's too much information for the patient to process.  I imagine it's difficult after many years of learning and speaking medicaleze to change gears to understandable layperson speech.  

Can't say that I blame you for wanting to crawfish out of another surgery so soon after your last one, but in this case you dont' have much choice.  Hopefully it will all go smoothly and you'll feel a whole lot better when it's done.  Best of luck!  :-)

[tinytina519]

Thank you for explaining. This is exactly what I want to know, the risks of waiting from an experienced patient. The doctors are too shallow sometimes!

[tinytina519]

Thank you for explaining. This is exactly what I want to know, the risks of waiting from an experienced patient. The doctors are too shallow sometimes!

[Jaybay]

Listen to your doctor.  I've been battling abdominal adhesions for 10 years.  Wait long enough and you risk a full bowel obstruction, meaning you may end up with a bunch of dead intestines due to loss of blood circulation.  Throwing up feces isn't any fun either.  Then you get the joy of bowel resection along with lysis of adhesions.  Adheliolysis surgery is not a major surgery.  A bowel resection is.  There is every reason to have the adhesions dealt with sooner rather than later.