Hi, AllyKat. We never got a clear answer! I had the same surgery as you, cutting away of adhesions, and untwisting my intestines, and a longer uglier scar than my j pouch scar. The third time I turned up in the emergency room the same group of doctors and interns were truly puzzled and could not come up with a definitive reason or cause. Every time, they sent me for MRI, CT scan, x ray and every machine they could shove me into. Sometimes they woke me at 3:30am to wheel me to the imaging department. Twice, they injected two litres of contrast dye into my stomach VIA THE NG TUBE! Then wheeled me for more images. So they tried!
They wanted answers too. Images showed obstruction and swelling, but there was nothing they could pin down as the reason my gut kept coming to a full stop every few days. So they said it was my bowels being slow to “wake up” after the emergency surgery. I think of it this way: first my gut had food swallowed by me getting stuck, twisting over and knotting like a nice bow, causing 16 hours of pain, then strange hands reaching in and pulling and unravelling miles of gut, then popped back in, sewn up, given morphine, then starved. What wouldn’t go into shock! So I think the surgery was a success, but the recovery was a fail.
The third time I appeared I think they had a room ready, hahaha, because I was given a bed within 3 hours, while some poor souls had been waiting in the ER for 16 hours. But a blocked bowel trumps a twisted ankle or sciatica pain every time. Luckily, the rocking and massaging that I did (thanks to poster Sharon’s good advice about jumping up and down) while waiting somehow freed the third blockage and I was only kept overnight for observation, no NG tube. They also took a sample of my stool to study and see if they could figure it out. I didn’t hear from them so I guess the stool was free of any virus or special bug. My last visit to the ER was mid October. After that I ate very little food, being very fearful. I walked a lot every morning, and I marched in place after dinner. I hardly ate breakfast or lunch.
I now watch carefully what I eat, I chew my food, and never over-eat. No nuts or seeds, not even multi grain bread. No raw vegetables; fruit but not the skin. They gave me very specific instructions and lists. I govern my food intake this way: If I think a five year old child cannot digest it, I’m not eating it either. The odd thing is I dreaded the NG tube, hearing all sorts of horror stories, but I did not gag or wretch and it did not hurt going into my nose and down into my stomach. The nurse was confident and efficient and I felt it, and it transferred to me and I didn’t fight it. Yes, it’s a strange sensation, but don’t fight it and it’s done after 8 seconds. I know because for 5 of those 8 seconds I said the F word five times. I hope this helps anyone else out there who might need an NG tube. I hope it helps you, AllyKat, but sometimes there is no concrete answer.
