ILEOSTOMY REVERSAL; HELP NEEDED!

[Mrs Jones]

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First of all, to everyone on this board thank you so much for all of your help this year; this has been a great resource for information that we couldn't get anywhere else.
Here's my story: In Jan 2006, my 22 year old daughter had emergency surgery for a perforated colon in which her sigmoid colon was removed and she was left with a colostomy which her doctor planned to reverse in 2-3 months. She's had life-long problems with constipation which she had most recently been managing very successfully with Miralax, but something went terribly wrong in January leading to the ER surgery. Her doc wanted to find the reason for her problems so he did a biopsy of her rectum/colon which showed Hirschsprung's disease. A colo-rectal surgeon was then consulted and on June 7 in a 7-hour surgery he removed the mucosal lining of her rectum, removed some more of her colon, reattached the colon to the rectum, and left her with an ileostomy in order to let this heal up before stool started moving through again, with reversal of the ileostomy planned in 12 weeks or so. Well, last week she had reversal of the loop ileostomy and her doc told her to gradually advance her diet as tolerated. We expected very loose stools, diarrhea, urgency, gas, however she has the feeling of constipation once again! When she eats anything, almost as soon as it hits her stomach she has to run to the bathroom and sometimes soils her clothes with liquid stool, but she feels the need to push as if she has constipation. She passes some very small "worm-like" bits of stool but never feels like she completely empties her bowel. Her doctor told her that it would be a "straight shot" from colon to rectum and she should expect bowel control to be an issue for a while until her sphincter muscles got back in working order again. Has anyone else had these issues with ileostomy reversal? Are we expecting too much improvement too soon (after all, it's only been a week)? She saw her surgeon Tuesday, he did a rectal exam and said he didn't feel any blockages or strictures, however she still has this feeling of fullness in her bowel that she's unable to empty with lots of straining. Any words of advice would be appreciated. She is getting so frustrated with being house-bound and wants to get her normal life back after this long miserable year.
worried mom...

[SugaAngel4u]

to strengthen her sphincter muscles she can do kegel exercises after inserting a catheter into the rectum and filling the catheter balloon with water. also for diarrhea immodium, lomotil, or sandostatin help. if she feels like she can't empty her bowel completely, it may be due to gas. sometimes, i feel as if im constipated but i can't have an actual b.m. until i eat something so that may help too. hope that helps some