My Adhesion Experience

From: Max Brown (maxbrown@fuse.net)
Fri Sep 17 10:28:39 2004


Each adhesion is different so my experience may be unique but I hope a few people find it helpful. My adhesion appears to be on my small intestine (judging from symptoms)so what helped me probably would not help those with adhesions elsewhere or oriented differently.

I had part of my large intestine removed in 1973 after an attack of peritonitis infection. Over the years I began having abdominal pain which went undiognosed. By 1996 I was having occasional intestinal (1-3 months apart)blockages which lasted 36-48 hours, with severe pain, constant(hourly) diarrhea, and sometimes vomitting and fainting. In between blockages I had varing degrees of abdominal pain about 80% of the time. Fortunately, I had sufficient time in my job and was able to retire in July 1996 (62 yo).

In 1997 my daughter-in-law gave me a diet from the Cleveland Clinic (I later found a similar diet from the Mayo Clinic) for people who have occasional intestinal blockages. Very abbreviated, it said no raw fruits or vegatables (except bananas), nothing with peels (cooked corn, beans, apples etc)and no nuts or other things that might reach the lower part of the small intestine in chunks ( my summary is incomplete and somewhat different from the Clinic diets). For me, Metamucil seems OK and makes up some lost fiber. Within a few days of starting the diet my pain was cut in half both in time and severity. I have only had one blocked intestine since then and the severity was reduced.

With an engineering background I decided to experiment other things which might help my situation. (continued)

--
Max Brown

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