Hi,
Has anyone been diagnosed with an overstretched pouch?
Does anyone know the symptoms?
I have been told that my pouch is larger than it should be.
I am not incontinent; in fact it is quite the opposite - I have a lot of difficulty with bowel movement.
I have nausea (no vomiting) which at times is severe, pain (mild ache and at time spasms) behind my left hip (or perhaps on lower back on left side, and periodic cramps (mild) between belly button and rib cage.
I have difficulty starting the process to have a bowel movement. My body does not respond until I try 3 or 4 times. I would say muscles, but surgeon explained that it is not muscles that cause a BM.
I do get a lot of gas, for which I can only release if I lay down on my stomach.
I find that it is getting more and more difficult to have a BM. Each day it is harder. My surgeon is quite useless as he over prescribes me narcotics (which have had a negative effect on my personality as one of the many side effects). He tells me I probably need physical therapy to learn how to have a BM. This is crap because I can go (although with great difficulty to get process started). Once BM process started, I can actually go with little straining (although with "solid" stool I am "constipated").
I have also been diagnosed with a herniated disc and a pinched nerve. Perhaps this is causing problems with BM's, but it seems unlikely.
Does anyone know when surgery in this situation becomes an emergency or how long a person can survive before it needs to be done (as an emergency)?
I might need to be more proactive with my surgeon as living like this is hell. My current surgeon has explained to me that surgery is the only option remaining (we have tried a lot of things) if I want to change my situation, but he himself will not perform the surgery because he has never done it before. Neither has anyone on his staff. So I am out of luck here.
One of the issues is that I do not have a surgeon who is qualified to do a pouch redo (in Quebec). I am currently in the process of finding a local surgeon qualified for pouch reconstruction. Hopefully something will turn up.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I just want to find something that makes sense that I can tell a doctor so maybe they can help improve quality of life until I actually get operated on.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Solomin
Original Post