- Joined
- Jun 28, 2009
- Messages
- 142
post-surgery pain/diarrhea
Rather than search a bunch of message boards trying to find an answer to my question, I figured I'd be better off just registering at one and asking it outright. Last Friday I had a bowel resection. The initial goal was to do the surgery laparoscopically and take about 5-6 inches, but when they got in there they found a fistula connecting two sections of intestine that had previously gone undetected, so they elected to butterfly me the rest of the way open and take 15 inches instead. Aside from the basic pain associated with getting some surgeon-instigated West Side Story action, I'm doing well. I'm not complaining about the meds either.
Tonight, however, I had a little bit of pain that I would have in the past attributed entirely to Crohn's disease. There are a lot of mitigating factors at play here though, so tell me what you think.
1. This was the largest meal I've had post-surgery. I've been eating solids for four days now.
2. There was a little bit of cream-based sauce on part of this meal. I've always been suspicious that I might be a tad lactose intolerant, but with Crohn's it's hard to tell what's what.
3. The meal was rich overall. Lots of olive oil, lots of garlic, and a little bit of spicy sausage.
Now I expected the diarrhea, and I'm aware that I'm more or less stuck with that. My bowel has done a crappy job (pun intended) of absorbing bile salts for years now, and I can't imagine taking a foot of it away is going to magically make that better. I've heard of people actually experiencing a recovery from this, i.e. the bowel actually relearns to absorb them once it stops spending all of its time fighting the disease, but in those cases it usually takes a year or longer.
What I did not expect was pain. The pain was far from crippling and it was fairly brief, but it was definitely in my intestine. Any thoughts as to what's going on with me?
Rather than search a bunch of message boards trying to find an answer to my question, I figured I'd be better off just registering at one and asking it outright. Last Friday I had a bowel resection. The initial goal was to do the surgery laparoscopically and take about 5-6 inches, but when they got in there they found a fistula connecting two sections of intestine that had previously gone undetected, so they elected to butterfly me the rest of the way open and take 15 inches instead. Aside from the basic pain associated with getting some surgeon-instigated West Side Story action, I'm doing well. I'm not complaining about the meds either.
Tonight, however, I had a little bit of pain that I would have in the past attributed entirely to Crohn's disease. There are a lot of mitigating factors at play here though, so tell me what you think.
1. This was the largest meal I've had post-surgery. I've been eating solids for four days now.
2. There was a little bit of cream-based sauce on part of this meal. I've always been suspicious that I might be a tad lactose intolerant, but with Crohn's it's hard to tell what's what.
3. The meal was rich overall. Lots of olive oil, lots of garlic, and a little bit of spicy sausage.
Now I expected the diarrhea, and I'm aware that I'm more or less stuck with that. My bowel has done a crappy job (pun intended) of absorbing bile salts for years now, and I can't imagine taking a foot of it away is going to magically make that better. I've heard of people actually experiencing a recovery from this, i.e. the bowel actually relearns to absorb them once it stops spending all of its time fighting the disease, but in those cases it usually takes a year or longer.
What I did not expect was pain. The pain was far from crippling and it was fairly brief, but it was definitely in my intestine. Any thoughts as to what's going on with me?
