Hi all,
I am struggling with conflicting medical advice and really need your wisdom. I have a 7yr diverted pouch, with ongoing pelvic pain, and inflammatory arthritis that appears to flare when my pouch is irritated.
My bowel surgeon surprised me yesterday with a novel idea to try removing the last section of rectal cuff and re-anasomise the pouch to the bottom - ie just try pulling the pouch down, and removing the inflammatory tissue still affected by UC and cuffitis. This would be a much smaller surgery than total pouch removal (abdominal incision)., and may remove the trigger for arthritis (no guarantees of course).
Alternately my rheumatologist suggest I try combination ant TNF (Humira) and methotrexate. I am really not well across the risks with these drugs yet. What are your thoughts...??
I made a hasty decision when I was with surgeon to book in for this in 4 weeks, he thinks will be a simple procedure maybe 3 days max in hospital. But I can still cancel if I am not comfortable with the idea.