Become your own best Dr!!!

From: Helen Dynda (olddad66@runestone.net)
Tue Oct 3 14:03:07 2000


This is the 3rd time I have tried posting this message!!!!!!!!!

Become your own best Dr.!!! Learn as much as you can about your adhesions-related disease! You will discover that the more knowledge you have about ARD the less you will fear it. BEST OF ALL, you will begin to learn how to make better choices as to what your next step will be. This knowledge about adhesions will eventually give you peace of mind; and you will find that the time, which you spent learning about adhesions and adhesion related concerns, will be worth its weight in gold.

Once you learn what the causes of adhesions and/or endometrial implants ( scar tissue from endometriosis ) are, you will begin to understand why adhesions are such a problem for both the patient and the surgeon. You will also begin to understand why you need to seek help from a surgeon, who specializes in adhesiolysis procedures. The most important fact you will learn is that surgery after surgery is NOT the answer!!! Each surgery will only cause MORE adhesions to form; and as a result you will experience MORE pain.

At some point your doctor may tell you: "Adhesions don't cause pain. You need to have a mental health evaluation." Or: "There is nothing more I can do for you. You are going to have to learn to live with it." Or: "You need to seek pain management." Or: "I will not do another surgery for you unless you are having a bowel obstruction." We all know that a bowel obstruction can be an emergency situation!! Since it is an emergency situation, we are smart enough to figure out that we would NOT be able to choose our surgeon!! Who among you wants to be in that kind of situation? Not me, that's for sure!!

Another very possible comment your doctor may make is: "This is not within my specialty. I will refer you to a gastroenterologist." Then this is the beginning of a pattern of doctors juggling you from one medical specialty to another - with each medical specialty not accepting the responsibility of really trying to help you. This kind of treatment creates confusion for you. Eventually, after seeing sooooo many doctors, you don't know who to believe or what to do! By now you have lost your faith and trust in all doctors!! It is at this point that you finally start thinking, "Maybe it is all in my head. Maybe I do need a mental health evaluation."

At some point - before you have reached the stage where you are questioning your own saniety - you will notice that you start having family and relationship problems. People, who have been your friends for many years, eventually are seldom or no longer in your life. You have been told so many times that your test results have been negative or normal!! If this causes confusion for you, it's possible that your family and friends may be just as confused as you are! In fact, they may no longer believe that you are suffering at all...that you are making it up!! And if doctors and your friends don't believe you, how is your immediate family going to believe you?

You begin to notice that your relationships within your immediate family have changed. Your spouse is drawn into doing tasks, which you are unable to do; and as a result you no longer feel that special intimate bond with your spouse. Your children? You eventually find them doing for you, what you as their mother should be doing for them!! Your life begins to become very dysfunctional as a result of your inability to find relief for your pain! BUT YOU DO HAVE CHOICES!! You can either become consumed by this dysfunctionality...or you can make a decision to do something about it.

What choices do you have? Instead of wasting money and precious time by having "surgery after surgery" with just any surgeon - who happens to be handy - you will learn that there are a couple of surgeons in the world, who are dedicating their surgical skill and experience to trying to help victims of adhesions. The MOST IMPORTANT step you can take is to seek the help of these adhesions specialists!!!!

Very few surgeons want to do surgery for a patient, who has adhesions!! Very few surgeons have the patience, which is soooo necessary, in order to complete a difficult, time-consuming adhesiolysis procedure!! Very few surgeons have the skill and experience so necessary for adhesiolysis procedures!! WHY? Because adhesion surgeries are very difficult and risky for the surgeon to perform...risky for both the surgeon and the patient!! No surgeon intentionally wants to cause harm to his/her patient; but this is an ever-present possibility as the surgeon tries to very carefully and cautiously lyse ( cut ) adhesions...in places where at times what lies ahead in the surgical field is uncertain to the surgeon. This special care on the part of the surgeon is what can consume so much time in an adhesiolysis procedure.

Adhesion surgeries require great skill on the part of the adhesion specialist; and probably most important of all, adhesion surgeries require unlimited patience on the part of the surgeon. I have actually viewed a video of a 10 hour adhesion surgery, which Dr. Harry Reich performed for Deb in April 1999. As I viewed her video, it was absolutely impossible for me to see the outline of individual organs!! Her abdominal/pelvic cavity looked like someone had sprayed her abdominal/pelvic caity with Crazy Glue - completely covering all of her organs!!! One year later Deb is adhesion-free and pain-free!!

What surgeon wants to spend up to as many as 10 hours doing surgery for the complex situations that adhesions cause??? What insurance company wants to reimburse a surgeon for a procedure, which can take as many as 10 hours to complete??? What hospital wants to provide time in the operating room for such a long surgical procedure...especially when we know that some doctors don't even acknowledge that adhesions cause pain??? How many surgeons will agree to do surgery for a partial bowel obstruction??? It has been my experience that doctors expect their adhesions patients to have an emergency bowel obstruction - before they will do surgery!!!

You have a choice! That choice is yours alone to make!! You are the one who is suffering!! I encourage you to seek help from a surgeon, who specializes in helping people who have severe adhesion problems!! An adhesion specialist has had advanced training in laparoscopic microsurgical techniques. He has logged thousands of hours in doing laparoscopic surgical procedures!! From this extensive experience an adhesion specialist has learned to master the techniques and skills, which are required in order to give their patients the best possible chance to become as free from adhesions as possible. It is true, however, that NO surgeon can guarantee that their patient will become completely adhesion-free!! But with the skill and experience of an adhesion specialist, you have the BEST possible chance to get your life back !!!

To increase the benefit of adhesiolysis, sometimes a second look laparoscopy is very helpful in further significant reduction of adhesions and pain - as was true in Mary Pomroy's (Canada) case. This procedure is generally done within 10 days of the first surgical procedure. This procedure is an additional way that adhesion specialists are able to help their adhesion patient.

Seeking the help of an adhesion specialist may sound like an expensive step to take; but when you add up all the unsuccessful surgeries, which many of you have already had, you will find the adhesion specialist to be a real bargain!! Think of all the pain you have had to live with over the years as a result of all of the failed surgeries you have gone through!! Think about the effect that ARD is having on your relationships...your spouse's life...your children's lives. And think about how ARD has been affecting your own life!!

I am aware of several surgeons who qualify as adhesion specialists; because they have been experiencing success with adhesiolysis procedures. In the United States Dr. Harry Reich and Dr. Jay Redan do adhesiolysis procedures at the NEW Adhesions Unit at Community Medical Center at Scranton, PA. Both surgeons also do these difficult surgeries at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. Dr. Matthias Korell from Duisburg, Germany has worked in the field of adhesions for 20 years - both experimentally and clinically.

There is alot of information about these three adhesion specialists in the Archives of the International Adhesions Society. To access this information:

1.) Enter: http://www.adhesions.org/forums/

2.) Scroll down to: Search the Adhesion Archives

3.) Type in one of the following search keywords: Dr. Harry Reich, Dr. Jay Redan, or Dr. Matthias Korell

4.) Scroll down and click: Search Adhesions


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