Small Bowel resection post surgery advice

[Tombowers2]

Hi forum members,

Im posting this on behalf of my father who came out of surgery for Crohn's disease just under two weeks ago. He is now at home and was discharged from hospital after progressing well.

He had 40cm of the small intestine removed after 22 years previously, having the whole of his large intestine removed. He is left with 3.5ft of small intestine. Currently he has a stoma but this is due to be reversed after 2/3 months.

The surgeon undertook some serious work as the small intestine had attached itself to some of the surrounding organs (liver, kidneys, pancreas) and had to intricately clean and scrape the intestine away from these other organs.

As mentioned, when he was released from hospital he had started eating solids and the bowel motion was seemingly okay, albeit everything was a bit tender but he was not having any major problems.

2 days after him being at home he started to feel sick and there was rapid discharge into the stoma which lasted a good few hours and then he had constant diahorrea (which lasted 36 hours) and was sick once. we were told that this could be down to an electrolyte imbalance, and did happen to him when he had the first surgery in 1990 but I have a feeling that this may have been a bug.

it has been 7 days since this occoured.

The current sitiuation is that he will get up in the morning and feel not to bad, he will eat something small - maybe a slice of toast or a small bowl of cereal, which he will feel okay eating, he may then have a banana or something small at lunch, but by 2/3pm he feels that the food is sitting on his chest creating a sicky feeling which leads him to having to lie down, and his intestine is gurgling creating lots of wind.

The food is passing through eventually but it seems that it is very very sluggish. taking double time time to exit the body.

The stoma bag is now being changed 4/5 times a day which we have been told is normal.

Can anyone on here relate to the sluggish bowel even up to 2 weeks after surgery?

One of the things that is confusing me is that when he was discharged his gut seemed to be working okay but maybe this bug has caused the healing time to be extended.

Really looking for some reassurance that is quite normal and things will improve.

FYI he is not taking any codine, so that is not causing any of the issues.

His diet we are monitoring also and he is not eating fruit/veg/sugars/things with skins on.

Hope you can help, any reassurance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

 

[2thFairy]

bump

 

[GrantC]

Hi Tombowers. My two cents is that it took me 14 days in hospital for my output to slow and thicken. I did have a different procedure so probably not relevant in the physical sense. My consultant was adamant that this was because of long term stress on the gut. He said and it did slow down and become more normal in the porridge sense.
Sorry but hope this helps. Let us know how your dad gets on.

 

[Terriernut]

I do think things will regulate for him. I note you said he was eating a banana, this will slow things down in the bowel. It's a trick us ostomates use when we need to thicken our output.

Can you get him some powerade to drink as well for electrolytes? It should help.

He's been through alot and it will take time for the bowel to regulate itself. Dont hesitate to ring his stoma nurse either, as well as the GI and IBD nurse to keep them updated. They may be able to give suggestions as well as reassurance.