Very frustrated: low albumin, waiting for surgery

[greenbay]

very frustrated: low albumin, waiting for surgery

My husband has crohn's and has been waiting to have surgery for about 3 months now. his GI doc put him on TPN about 3 months ago to raise his albumin levels for surgery. His albumin levels were 1.9 when we began and they want a min. of 3 for surgery.

This past 3 months has been a total rollercoaster. He went up at first to 2.6, but then it dropped back down to 1.6 and then it went back up again, but never to 3. The surgeon kept postponing the surgery every month and said the albumin levels just weren't high enough.

The TPN people have maxed out the amount of calories and protein in each bag and have changed his cycle from 12 hours to 14 hours to now 20 hours. But today we got bad news and his albumin dropped to 1.6 after all of that extra tweaking. My husband has even stopped working to stay at home and rest, so its not like he is exercising or burning tons of calories.

At this point we are extremely frustrated and feeling angry because it seems like the TPN just isn't working to get the albumin high enough for surgery. We now have surgery scheduled for the first week in January but are very scared that the surgeon is going to postpone surgery again.

Does anyone have any experience with low albumin levels pre-surgery? Is there a better way to get albumin levels up? We are at a loss with how to get this to happen.

Thanks in advance

 

[tishbite]

this sounds like exactly what i have been going through for the past couple weeks. when i was admitted my albumin was at 2.7 and they were trying to get it up a week before my surgery. well after being in the hospital for a couple days it dropped to 2.1 so they had to postpone my surgery for another week or so. now i am back up to 2.5 and they decided they are just going to do the surgery tomorrow even though my albumin in kind of low. i am sorry to hear your husband is having so much trouble keeping his nutrition up. it's really hard when yr body just doesn't want to absorb anything. they decided they would proceed with my surgery because i'm almost fully obstructed and haven't been able to eat anything without throwing up for the past few days. also the pain just sucks. i sure you are able to get the surgery soon. i know the wait and see game is no fun! i'm also pretty sure that tpn is the only way his body will be able to get the proper nutrition in.

 

[greenbay]

thanks tishbite, i'm glad to hear they are going ahead with your surgery even though your albumin is low. will they do any kind of pure albumin infusion or blood transfusion beforehand to get your levels up temporarily? it is so hard to wait and wait when you are feeling bad. my husband is also almost fully obstructed from a stricture and also can't eat without throwing up.

i hope your surgery goes well!!!

 

[Sailorluna]

I had a TPN in the hospital to get my protein up for surgery in 2010 - I had been pretty malnourished. After 9 days or so they decided to go ahead and do the surgery and gave me both a bag of blood and pure albumin that morning. The blood took FOREVER to go in. They never actually talked to me about the numbers just that they were still too low and that I needed the blood and albumin infusion.

Good luck with the surgery. I hope they are able to do it soon!