Re: 5 year old with possible adhesions again

From: Jo Eslick (wallamara@hotmail.com)
Tue Oct 30 02:46:26 2001




Dear Evelyn,

It hurt so much to read your letter about your very young son.  As a mother I understand the anguish and pain that you and your family would be experiencing.  It is so hard to watch your own child suffering, and I know that feeling of haplessness that comes with it.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is to research, read, ask questions and seek as many opinions as possible.  As you have probably gathered from what you have read on the board, quite often the more surgery one has, the greater the chances of an increase in pain and complications.  Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that there is no hope, BUT you need to consider everything very carefully before agreeing to a surgical solution for your son.

You asked a very important and interesting question :  "I would love to get some feed back from you all and wondered if anyone knows what happens to the size of the adhesions as the bowel grows larger with age?"   Unfortunately I can not answer it for you, I would hope that any information on that point would be posted by Helen Dynda, who has an uncanny ability to research and find information on questions such as yours.

Many posts have been devoted to the subject of bowel motions, and how we deal with this problem.  I know that many people who post here use sometimes quite a substantial amount of laxatives to give them any kind of "regularity" to this problem.  I have always been weary of this remedy, as it can actually cause the bowel to become "lazy" and reliant on the stimulus of the laxatives.  I would recommend a reasonably varied diet that includes several servings per day of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as a generous amount of liquids, including at the least several glasses of water per day.  If you find he is a bit "fussy" about his food try to make it interesting by freezing oranges cut into quarters, a mashed banana in a little milk with a touch of honey, or fruit juice or weak cordial ice blocks...either using an ice cube tray or the popsicle makers you find in the supermarkets.  As you are in New Zealand, I know that you are also experiencing the warmer weather at the moment, and ice blocks will be a welcome treat.  Exercise has a lot to do with healthy bowel movement too, and if he isn't suffering with too much pain, walking, swimming etc will be a help.  Dried fruit I find works too, and if you were to buy a small tub of plain vanilla icecream, allow it to melt to a thick sloppy mess, you can mix in the dried fruit (including finely chopped up prunes) and refreeze until it begins to firm, take it out of the freezer again & give it another good mix & return to the freezer.  Cut into slices, it makes a great summer time "Christmas cake".  Limit his intake of cheese, as it can be constipating, fruit flavoured yogurts are good too.

Evelyn, my advice comes purely from my personal experience in dealing with adhesions, and from the experiences I have had through my husbands bowel problems, I am not a medical person, simply a fellow adhesions sufferer trying to help others

Please visit our board again, and tell us how your son is progressing, let him know that he has people around the world thinking about him and praying for his release from pain.

Yours in friendship

Jo (Australia)


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