Hi Jenners.
In my experience, it’s only a matter of time when crap hits the fan and all hell breaks loose if treatment doesn’t go well. I suffered about 3 years with trying to deal with the ulcertions in my pouch until last year when my inflammation exploded and landed me in the hospital for 5 months.
Stelara is a biologic. When on any biologic with a stricture, even with dialation, the stricture will close back up.
My surgeon here was adamant that they couldn’t save my pouch because of poor blood flow if they only cut out the stricture. It was for the better because it just ends any complications. I’m pretty sure down the road I would have needed to have the pouch excised anyways. It jist saves me the pain of worrying about future complations down the road. Even when the pouch did come out, I still had ulcerations throughout my pouch even though I had already diverted with a loop ileo for about 4 months.
I honestly would go into the surgery healthy because I now have other complications that arose after my surgeries. Though, this underlying complication might have been there all along and just reared its big head after my surgeries. To be honest, I think the surgeon waited too long to do the surgery for diverting my pouch, but that was because of a long wait list. I hope that doesn’t happen to you.
The surgery of only taking out the stricture seems like a very risky surgery, so I would ask for a second opinion. If you think it’s worth a try to save the pouch, go for it. However, just know that a lot of surgeons don’t know what they are dealing with until they open you up.
I wish you the best of luck.
-Rina