Re: Do Men Get Adhesions? an informative look by Dr. David Wiseman

From: Gary (gpresto@comcast.net)
Sat Oct 27 19:03:02 2007


Hi all, this is so true that men can suffer much from adhesion problems, too. I know. I'm having a bad night with the symptoms tonight, too.

I've had IBS-C for 20 years. On top of that, I was diagnosed with diverticulosis in 2003. When IBS was less understood than it is even still today, my docs desired me to submit in 1992 to a voluntary, exploratory surgical procedure to check out what might be causing my frequent small bowel obstruction attacks. They say that they found some adhesions holding together some portions of intestine, and removed them. They sewed up my gut with a long scar vertically running through my navel. I look like the side of a football.

Slowly but surely, the bowel obstructions returned in the late '90s. To date, I've been hospitalized over 15 times for weeklong stays with NG tubes down me without liquids or solids. Then right after my dad died, I got a killer of an attack that got me rushed to the hospital again. Irreversible, large adhesion obstructing my small bowel -- they say it was ready to burst. They performed emergency surgery and discovered 15 adhesions throughout my gut. Same hospital ward and doctors that surrounded my dying father just weeks before. Too horribly surreal. Another 2 months out of work recuperating from that.

Now I never know if my sometime-bouts with the severe intestinal pain are always just colitis, Irritable Bowel, or adhesion attacks. Even my primary care doc says that I seem to have not been dealt the best of cards health-wise. It's a vicious cycle. You can do all the healing meditation, correct diet, exercise, drinking of fluids, fiber intake, and supplements you want -- when they're there, they're there. And people look at you at work and out socially like, "Oh, poor guy, poor baby...he has a tummy ache. Stop complainin'!"

I'd like them to live with the pain for just 2 hours and experience its validity. I believe all doctors should be licensed not until they can document that they actually have the illnesses that they want to practice in administering. I DO believe in prayer and faith...or I wouldn't be here now. You need the faith, too, above and in addition to all the physical and emotional treatments.

I hope that we all have a restful, pain-free night! ;-)

Thanks for listening from Boston, Gary

At Sun, 7 Oct 2007, IAS Admin wrote: >
>Readers,
>Please take a moment to learn more about men & adhesions from this article
>by Dr. Wiseman. You can download the full report by going to:
>
>http://www.adhesions.org/whatsnew.htm or,

http://www.adhesions.org/downloads.htm >We have also posted this in our Men's section.
>
>Thank you.
>Tracy
>IAS Admin
>
>_____________________________
>
>_____________________________
>Do Men Get Adhesions? an informative look by David Wiseman PhD, MRPharmS,
>
>--
>_____________________________
>Founder, International Adhesions Society
>_____________________________
>
>It is a common myth that only women are prone to adhesions. While it is
>certainly true that women have more "internal parts" that require surgery,
>which inevitably leads to adhesions, men are not excluded from the problem
>of adhesions. A simple look at the national statistics collected from
>hospital discharges (ICD9 codes) from the most recent data available
>(2001-2005) reveals the following:
>
>* Over 50,000 men were discharged from hospital in 2005 with a diagnosis
>of peritoneal adhesions (568.0), accounting for 28% of such diagnoses,
>compared with 72% for women.
>
>*Over 37,000 men were discharged in 2005 with a diagnosis that included
>the specific diagnosis of intestinal adhesions with (ie causing) bowel
>obstruction (560.81). This number accounts for 38% of cases, compared
>with 62% for women.
>
>*Men also accounted for 37% of discharges with a principal diagnosis
>(as opposed to an incidental diagnosis) was intestinal adhesions with
>obstruction (560.81). Their length of stay was slightly higher than that
>of women in 3 of the five years studied and their hospital charges exceeded
>those of women in every year by as much as $2500.
>
>*Over 2000 men and women died every year with a diagnosis of intestinal
>adhesions with obstruction, representing about 3% of the total discharges
>with that diagnosis. The contribution of males to this death rate was in
>every year slightly higher than that of women in proportion to their
>discharges, by 10-15% in the years 2002-2005, and about 2% in 2001.
>

--
Gary
Revere, Massachusetts
gpresto@comcast.net

Enter keywords:
Returns per screen: Require all keywords: