ADHESIONS!!!

So I've been MIA on here for quite a while but I've been very good. Still doing my exercise and behaving for the most part (damned cookies) as far as the dieting :) I'm 16 mo post surgery and below my goal, but disaster struck last week.  Actually it started the end of July. On July 16th, right before a planned trip with my girlfriends, I was at work when I just suddenly doubled over in the most excruciating pain all over my abdomen. I couldn't target where exactly the pain was localizing. It just hurt EVERYWHERE. I went the the ER where my surgeon met me and they gave me pain meds (dilaudid should be a 5th food group by the way. AMAZING!) performed a CT and Xray, and observed me overnight. The only thing they could see from everything was raised bilirubin levels. So they ultrasounded my gall bladder and nothing. They sent me home and that was it. I hadn't gone to the bathroom in a week by then and took some dulcolax and felt MUCH better.

The pain stayed away for over a month then suddenly last week it came back with a vengeance! I left work and debated on going to the hospital or not. I thought they'd just do the same thing, send me home and charge another $20K. So I went home and writhed in agony for over 24 hrs. No sleep because I couldn't lie down. I was doubled over in a chair all that time between trying to go to bathroom and vomiting. NOTHING, not even pills would stay down. I tried laxatives thinking I was constipated like the last time this happened.. Nothing worked. Finally I was just in tears, screaming and my husband said "Enough" and carried me to the car. By this time the pain was blinding. LITERALLY. I had black spots in my vision. My hands and feet had contorted and twisted inward and I'd lost all uses of them. I was terrified. My husband carried me into the ER and I was immediately inoculated with pain medicine. Again they did the standard CT and Xray- NOTHING.

My surgeon then decided to exploratory surgery. Once inside he found that an adhesion had grown into a thick band and was pinching off my intestine causing and obstruction that the scans and xrays had missed. I woke up in recovery feeling like crap as we all do, but instantly felt like that sharp knife that had been stuck in my belly had been removed and now replaced with the aches, pains, and nausea that comes from waking after surgery. As awful as that is I cannot express how much relief I felt.

It's been a week since I left the hospital and I'm still eating soft foods. Lots of soups, puddings, chili, tuna salad, mashed potatoes...stuff like that. And I still have a lot of discomfort in my abdomen at night. Like all the food is just sitting there waiting in a queue for digestion. At my follow up yesterday the Dr. says this is most likely residual inflammation from the surgery and it should improve soon. I hope he's right :( My RNY has been so uneventful! Why now? More than a year later?! Anyone else go through this?

Also I'd like to add that in my stoned state in the hospital while on the mend, I caught and episode of Dr. G: Medical Examiner. In the episode she was performing an autopsy on a woman who DIED....DIED...of the same thing I had. She too had gastric bypass. So I just wanted to let you all know, if you get pains like I did. DO NOT IGNORE THEM! I was stupid to wait so long the second time around and I quite possibly could have died if I'd waited longer.

Glad you are okay, I worry about that too. I keep having inermittent pains in the same spot and someone mentioned to me the other day that I have had them awhile. I didn't even realize it.  Thanks for the heads up!

You're freaking me out! I guess I will know if I get one.  Did they say what caused it (other than the RNY)?  How to prevent/Can you provent them? Can they come up at any time?   

You will definitely KNOW. The pain was the most horrible thing I've ever experienced and I had a five day labor with my son. It's excruciating.

I asked my Dr. the same thing "What am I doing wrong?" "Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening again" and he said that there isn't. That there is no rhyme or reason for their occurence. They just happen.

I just had my four week appointment post op check up. The physician assistent told me that for some reason people with darker complections are less likely to have adhesions.. Not sure if she was blowing smoke up my ass or what.

That's very interesting! I am I guess what you'd consider bi-racial. My mother is white and my father is Cuban and Hawaiian and while I am "ethnic" I'm not very dark skinned. Perhaps it would have been worse if I favored my mother more!?

Great....I feel all warm and fuzzy about that!   

Basically any abdominal surgery can result in adhesions, even something as routine as Gall Bladder removal.

I have a pain on and off - and mostly - not as severy as you did.  But it comes and goes - 1 year now. So I am having exploratory surgery next week - to see what is going on there.
My cat scans did not show anything either - so now - I am not even getting one  (I got enought of them).  Good luck.

Best of luck to you! Good on you for not being a dummy like me and waiting! hahaha.