Fw: Intestinal Blockages

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Re: Intestinal Blockages

> Bowel Obstructions! They are real nasty; they hurt, they can kill

> you; they are sometimes hard to detect; and they are living proof that

> shit happens when you fool around with Mother Nature. Don't get them!!

>

> I hope that the information below is helpful to someone. The bottom

> line on bowel obstructions is that they can be extremely serious, but

> they are very rare. They must, however, be considered by the doctor

> to be at the top of the list of possibilities for RNY patients

> experiencing pain. You need to very insitent with the doctor becasue

> most doctors consider them too rare to be near the top list of

> possibilities and most don't truly appreciate how different the

> innards are for RNY patients. I had one that nearly killed me--and at

> times the pain was so bad that death might have been a viable

> solution--but I was blessed and made it through. At that time I was a

> hospital inspector and health care investigator (since retired) so I

> did a lot of research in the medical literature and here are

> demonstrated facts from that research:

>

> **BOs are hernias (sections of intestine that push through tissues or

> otherwise infiltrate a space where they don't belong) that get caught,

> twisted, kinked or otherwise " incarcerated. " There is a lot of spaces

> in muscle layers where we used to have fatty deposits that are now

> empty and that provides little paths for your innards to work through.

> Most times the intestinal section can slide back through the place it

> infiltrated. When it is incarcerated (caught so it can't slide back)

> it can get twisted or pinched so food doesn't move through and the

> blood supply might get cut off. That is when there is " big trouble in

> River City. " If the blood is cut off the tissue becomes necrotic

> (dies) and rots (develops gangrene) and bursts like an overcooked

> sausage. With the massive amount of bad stuff--infectious fecal

> matter--that gets released you can have a hard time surviving the

> consequent infection, even if it happens right in front the surgeon in

> the hospital. That is why it is imperative to have them attended to

> as quickly as possible.

>

> **BOs can also happen as the result of ANY abdominal surgery.

> Adhesions (string-like scar tissue) develop as a response to the

> " invasion " of your body by the surgeon. The level of the response is

> ideopathic--strictly an individual response that varies from person to

> person. Those adhesions stretching here and there internally can make

> a site for your intestines to get hung up on, so they kink or get

> caught and twisted. The normal maturation and stretching or

> shortening of the adhesions can also pull your intestines out of

> alignment and cause a kink or a twist.

>

> **Most of us RNY patients have used up a lot of internal fat

> deposits so our intestines are not as slippery on the outside as they

> used to be. Consequently they can get caught up on something (an

> adhesion for instance) that they used to slide over before.

>

> **Our intestines are now much smaller in diameter than they used be.

> The space that the surgeon originally packed nice and tightly in

> previously now has a lot of room for stuff to slide around in and get

> in trouble. Being smaller they fit into spaces that they wouldn't go

> before. I am now all shrink-wrapped with mesh that should keep me

> inside where my innards belong, but it is no guarantee.

>

> **This is all soft tissues we are talking about so the BO won't

> necessarily show up on X-rays. They can be hard to detect. My

> surgeon, s familiar as he was with RNY patients, was able to

> definitively find it (and it was a large one) only after an

> exploratory surgery. So the best rule for us is to have them at the

> top of the list for the doctor to rule out in the case of abdominal

> pain and not at the bottom as is usually the case. They are relatively

> rare in general. What I saw in the literature said around 1 to 2%

> have BOs, and 1 to 2% of that number are the life-threatening kind.

> (That is not the way in which I want to be special.) Docs don't have

> them at the top of their list for most people. For us they have to be

> at the top of the " rule out " list.

>

> **They can occur at any time and with no warning so they can be a

> big surprise. I was fine for a year and half after my BPD. I woke one

> morning and began to feel like I had a stomach flu, by noon I was at

> the ER in more pain than was possible for a human to feel. Other

> folks have only a " nagging pain " in the gut. It can vary. Pain is

> not normal in anybody so you need to pay attention to it.

>

> **The consequences of the BO vary. For some, it is life as ususual

> afterwards. For me it had some consequences. I had a RNY bypass that

> was 4 1/2 feet long after my original BPD surgery, but they took away

> 1 1/2 feet (33%) of that. Now I have to watch out to keep my weight

> up instead worrying about keeping my weight down. I have also

> experienced symptoms like post traumatic stress disorder. I have had

> nightmares, anxiety. Sometimes a small pain in my gut will make me

> flashback to the episode. I am rationalizing my way through it all so

> I hope that time is healing things. There is an increasing body of

> literature that indicates that surgical trauma --occuring unexpectedly

> in life threatening situations accompanied by a lot of pain-- can

> cause PTSD. That is kind of ironic after all my years of working

> combat veterans.

>

> Rick S---The Nortalian Stallion

>

>

>

>

> >

> > Kinks seem to develop more frequently in

> > tall people because there is more room for the intestine to move

> > around. It can usually be discovered with an Upper GI series.

> >

> > ** I will totally dispute this one - every single person I know who

> has had

> > intestinal blockages were short - were the intestine is jammed up

> inside us.

> > sue

>

>