Hey everyone,
I have Crohn's Disease and I had a bowel re-section in 2012 (my terminal ileum and part of my colon was removed). I had complications including a pulmonary embolism and the incision didn't heal correctly so they had to reopen it. About a year later, I was having very bad pain in the same area. Doctors couldn't find active Crohn's so they were confused. However, I developed an abdominal hernia shortly after and when they did the surgery to fix it, they found two large adhesions and removed them.
After that, I was doing pretty well. I was put on Humira to keep things under control. Well, about two months ago, I had horrible pain in the same area as before and I went to the ER. They said I had a partial obstruction, but there were no signs of inflammation or active Crohn's. I was admitted and the partial obstruction went away with several days of bowel rest and they managed my pain. I just followed up with my GI and he believes I have multiple adhesions once again, which is why I'm having the pain without active Crohn's.
Now, here's where I'm kind of confused. He told me that there's nothing we can really do. If we do surgery to remove the adhesions, it could just cause more adhesions and scar tissue. And he said there's no other treatment for adhesions. So basically, he told me try to tough out the pain, take pain medicine from a pain management dr if necessary and just go on a liquid diet when things get bad. But I'm 25 years old and what I'm hearing is that this is something that could cause me pain for the rest of my life and that there's no good solution. I'm also not crazy about the idea of just taking pain meds long-term, as addiction terrifies me.
Before, I always felt optimistic about managing Crohn's since there were other medicines I hadn't tried and because steroids could fix flares. Now, hearing there's no real way to fix adhesions without doing more damage has me feeling pretty upset and somewhat hopeless.
Can anyone who has dealt with similar issues explain what they did? Are there options I'm missing? I'd really appreciate your help.
I have Crohn's Disease and I had a bowel re-section in 2012 (my terminal ileum and part of my colon was removed). I had complications including a pulmonary embolism and the incision didn't heal correctly so they had to reopen it. About a year later, I was having very bad pain in the same area. Doctors couldn't find active Crohn's so they were confused. However, I developed an abdominal hernia shortly after and when they did the surgery to fix it, they found two large adhesions and removed them.
After that, I was doing pretty well. I was put on Humira to keep things under control. Well, about two months ago, I had horrible pain in the same area as before and I went to the ER. They said I had a partial obstruction, but there were no signs of inflammation or active Crohn's. I was admitted and the partial obstruction went away with several days of bowel rest and they managed my pain. I just followed up with my GI and he believes I have multiple adhesions once again, which is why I'm having the pain without active Crohn's.
Now, here's where I'm kind of confused. He told me that there's nothing we can really do. If we do surgery to remove the adhesions, it could just cause more adhesions and scar tissue. And he said there's no other treatment for adhesions. So basically, he told me try to tough out the pain, take pain medicine from a pain management dr if necessary and just go on a liquid diet when things get bad. But I'm 25 years old and what I'm hearing is that this is something that could cause me pain for the rest of my life and that there's no good solution. I'm also not crazy about the idea of just taking pain meds long-term, as addiction terrifies me.
Before, I always felt optimistic about managing Crohn's since there were other medicines I hadn't tried and because steroids could fix flares. Now, hearing there's no real way to fix adhesions without doing more damage has me feeling pretty upset and somewhat hopeless.
Can anyone who has dealt with similar issues explain what they did? Are there options I'm missing? I'd really appreciate your help.
