I am looking for possible insight as to my son s medical problems. At age 12(2 yrs ago) he had appendectomy for perforated appendix. Adhesions noted in surgeons report. After surgery he had upper left abdominal pain . 3 weeks later (surgeon ignoring pain post op) he was hospitalized with bowel obstuction. After 2 weeks in hospital he was released still having the same pain. He has been seen since by Gastro . Symptoms continued with constipation. Now-3 doses daily Miralax. Having daily bm. He is on a high fiber, lots of fresh foods diet with plenty of water and exercise. Chronic pain is affecting daily life. Testing has never shown a root cause :endoscopy, colonoscopy, xrays, gastrograff in enema. Even when bowels totaly empty after gastrograff, pain in left abd. remains. When the pain is the worst he hunches over, not able to stand straight. Recently tried anti-spasmotic bentyl, did not help pain at all. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. They have said IBS-C could be cause. My concern is that all syptoms started post-op. Seems like there is a correlation.
Hello! Thank you for the query. It looks like your son is suffering from partial bowel obstruction. And it seems he has been diagnosed but not treated. This condition is very probable due to abdominal adhesions. As this can be partial only, there are times when stools flow freely and times when it gets blocked. Such blocked stool keeps accumulating and causes increased pressure what will sooner or later cause its passage. Such condition is very hard to visualize with tests. In my opinion, when no other explanation has been found, you should contact a surgeon and ask him about laparoscopy. Laparoscopy is a kind of surgery where the camera and tools are inserted into abdominal cavity through small holes. Laparoscopy will tell if there are any adhesions (probably there is a lot of them) and if so, surgeons will be able to remove these adhesions. Hope this will help. Regards.