Welcome to our group. You've come to the right place for all the information you can handle. :-)) Right now we are running with a smaller group of participants because many of our group are currently in Germany getting ready for surgery. Several others went along to help out. As you read more of the posts you'll hear a lot of Dr. Korell in Germany and Drs. Reich and Redan in Scranton, PA. All of whom are adhesion specialists.
Your symptoms sound very similiar to mine. I've been dealing with adhesions for years and have had several surgeries because of it. My pain is also on the left side. The symptoms you describe are very common for adhesive disease.
I have had colonoscopies, barium enema xrays and CT Scans.....all of which came back negative. The colon scope does create pain as they reach areas of your intestine that are possibly kinked or twisted due to adhesions. Barium xrays can also "sometimes" show kinks but as far as I know CT Scans do NOT show adhesions at all. I would definitely wait to talk to your internist before doing that test. If your internist doesn't have lots of experience in dealing with adhesions maybe he can point you in the direction of a specialist.
Making some changes in your diet can also help. I follow a low residue diet which includes very little food type fiber (I do take Citrucel and stoof softeners daily). Low residue diet means no nuts, limited beef unless soft, not a lot of ruffage like salad, no popcorn, seeds etc. There is more information about that at the Mayo Clinic website....maybe someone else can send that link.....if not I'll try to find it for you.
The most important thing you will learn from this group/website is that you shouldn't rush into surgery as a means of finding quick relief. It is important that you deal with a surgeon who is very up to date on ins and outs of adhesion surgery. Where are you located? If surgeons do not use the best techniques and proper procedures adhesions can and mostly likely will come back with a vengeance. (that is what happened to me)
So I suggest you spend some time reading the discussions within the forum. You can get lots of good information that way. We are all here to help and support you. This group is absolutely terrific and it truly helps to talk to others who understand what you are going through.
In Friendship, Verna Cohen