adhesions after aurgery

lklus

My husband had colorectal surery last July, they removed part of the small bowel, large bowel, rectum...lots of stuff..anyway his perrinial wound has still not healed and we are not getting much medical help, just packing and cleaning several times a day. It is about 9 cm deep by 1 cm wide...just trying to see if anyone else had a non-healing wound and if they were able to ever get it to heal, and if so how...
His 6 month checkup showed no growth and a nearly non-existent CEA level...so we think the cancer has been nipped, but now...his has been having severe intestinal pains and noise and they found that he has a partial bowel obstruction...they said he is not a canadate for any more surgery's. THey have him trying a low fiber/residue diet to see if this keeps the flareups down, but its not working, the only other option they offered was TPN (intravaneous feeding) for life!! Has anyone had this problem with scar tissue? what did you do?? any input is welcome, The Dr's are not very helpful...

Tessyann

Hi Iklus,
My husband third surgery he had a time healing the insision too. It was like a softball size whole... it took time... cleaning and dressing it over and over again but it did slowly heal.. does he also have diabetes ? I want to tell you alittle story... the Onco doc never thought to check Ben sugar levels was only worried about his cancer counts.. Wasnt till Ben vision was going bad and the eye doctor said something that I called the Onco doc asking since they took weekly and bi-weekly blood test what Ben sugar was... Well it was 379 and had been running that for months... bingo reason why is insision wasnt healing right.
And about the scarring... that another tuff one cause to remove it will only cause more..Tho you think with all this new laposcopic ( bad spelling forgive me) they may beable to go in and clear some of it away to give him some relief... I suggest you go to someone else for a second opinion
Teresa

jsabol

Hi, Sorry to hear about the difficulty your husband is having. Is your onc group part of a larger medical center? If so, they should be abe to do a referral to a wound clinic, where the staff specializes in finding ways for wounds of all sorts to heal. just an idea.
Does the doc think that TPN would help give his bowel a chance to heal better? Sometimes the rest from digestion is helpful to irritated bowels.
If you find your onc is not being very responsive, you may want to get a second opinion, poss from a GI specialist.
Good luck to you both, and hang in there. Judy

neon356

I went for four years with intestinal blockages. I was put on low fiber diet, TPN, balloons filled with mercury to hopefully clear the blockage and nothing worked. My surgeon was very
reluctant to open me up again, saying that the radiation damaged tissue was difficult to work with, and that more
surgery would probably just lead to more adhesions. It got to the point where I was in the hospital more than I was out.
Finally, the surgeon agreed that my quality of life at that point was so bad that surgery was an option. He went in, found a few
sections of intestine that was damaged by the radiation to the point that there was little or no peristalsis in those sections. He
removed the damaged intestine, and I've had zero problems since that time (4 years ago). Your husband's surgery was less
than a year ago, and his body might hopefully heal itself, but if not I'd reccommend seeing another surgeon. Personally, I don't
see TPN for the rest of my life as a viable option.
Carl

aspaysia

After an abdominal perineal resection my radiated skin would not heal. My treatment was handled by a plastic surgeon at the Wound Management Clinic in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Duke University Hospital. My wounds were packed with saline gauze for months by my sister with the help of a visiting nurse. Then we tried the wound vac. And even did two weeks in the hyperbaric chamber to push oxygen into the tissues.
The surgeon lost patience and decided to do a muscle graft to close the bloody thing. It worked! I stopped wearing diapers. Those guys always have something up their sleeve.
I also had a bowel obstruction and they took a wait and see approach but had to unzip me again to straighten it out. That worked and I had a TPN supplement while tried to gain some weight. That worked too well.
Aspaysia, who plumped up good.

lklus

aspaysia said:

After an abdominal perineal resection my radiated skin would not heal. My treatment was handled by a plastic surgeon at the Wound Management Clinic in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Duke University Hospital. My wounds were packed with saline gauze for months by my sister with the help of a visiting nurse. Then we tried the wound vac. And even did two weeks in the hyperbaric chamber to push oxygen into the tissues.
The surgeon lost patience and decided to do a muscle graft to close the bloody thing. It worked! I stopped wearing diapers. Those guys always have something up their sleeve.
I also had a bowel obstruction and they took a wait and see approach but had to unzip me again to straighten it out. That worked and I had a TPN supplement while tried to gain some weight. That worked too well.
Aspaysia, who plumped up good.

thanks for everyone sharing, it at least gives us hope. We have just visited so many different Dr's but still seem to get no where, its nice to know you are not alone.