Hi everyone sorry I haven't been around (been really busy) but I have a question about how impacted bowel gets treated. A good friend of mine who has UC just texted me saying he was in the ER with impacted bowel. Unfortunately I saw this coming. He had 2 level cervical fusion surgery on November 21 and because he was grounded from driving for 2 weeks, I took him out for Thanksgiving dinner on November 24. At that time he was high as a kite on painkillers. At that time I warned him not to not overdo the pain killers or he will get constipated. His response: "I have UC it's impossible for me to get constipated."
A few days ago he got constipated and they gave him some high powered laxatives. Apparently they didn't work, or he kept taking lots of pain pills or both, but today he texted me he was in the ER with impacted bowel.
When I had my own colectomy in 1992 at Mount Sinai in NYC, my roommate who was dying of leukemia got an impacted bowel from his disease. I personally witnessed the treatment which was a manual stool removal. It was quite horrifying for me to be in the same room while this was happening, but I was.
My question to you (Jan hope you are around): will they do the dreaded manual stool removal or now that we are in 2016 (and soon 2017) is there a more sophisticated and humane treatment? Whatever they are doing they are doing as I write this?
