I'd like to say this is easily reversible, but the ileum has limited stretch abilities to begin with. If you have chronic inflammation, it causes fibrosis of the bowel walls. This equals a stiff pouch, or loss of elasticity. Chronic pouchitis can also lead to dysplasia (which can be a precursor to cancer), so it really should be treated. The tough thing is knowing if you have pouchitis or just a finicky system (IPS), but IPS does not cause physical damage.

Dr. Shen has treated more sick pouches than any other doctor, I think. So, if anyone has a non surgical option for you, he will. You probably can't go back to a perfect pouch, but with treatment, maybe you can be functional enough to avoid a pouch redo.

Jan

Hi, I've also had a very high number of BMs per day and night due to the pouch not emptying well. Don't know whether that was due to loss of elasticity or not, but anyhow my life-saving solution to this problem has been to use a catheter to empty the pouch much easier and better. Hopefully it will do the trick for you too !

Look for the thread "irrigation tube ... anyone ?" for details.

Good luck, A