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Pain/soreness

Sat, December 19, 2015 9:31 AM

Hello everyone, quick backstory on myself. I was diagnosed with Crohn's at ten, have had 7 perianal fistulas, 3 lymph nodes (side effect from remicade) and 1 ileocolic resection from Crohn's. I had my resection on October 14th this year after losing 30 pounds, discovering a had an infection closing my intestines and 2 months of medicine and the attempt of using a catheter drain. I had 6 inches of my small intestine and 2 inches of my colon removed but the surgery and healing has gone well until this past week. I have returned back to work in a paper mill, which is extreme physical activity and I have started to experience soreness and pain where my intestines were reattached. At first I thought it was just sore from starting to work it out and getting back to normal but I wanted to see if anyone else has experienced anything similar. Thank you, Todd.

tconkinjr
Joined Dec 19, 2015

Sat, January 09, 2016 2:48 PM

Hi Todd,

I had a total colectomy in 2013. I experience adhesion pain, specifically from the area where my temporary ileostomy was and my small intestine was "scored". It is really uncomfortable and certain movements make it worse.

My pain eased up for a while when I started on Cimzia, but has started to come back.

I am going to a pain clinic to see what they can do. My GI said that they can do things like ultrasound massage to break up the scar tissue.

How far out from surgery are you? When I had the colectomy, they told me that the swelling can take up to 6 weeks to go down and I can say that is absolutely true. When you get an ostomy, you have to measure the diameter of the intestin to know how wide of a circle to cut in the wafer. They give you a card with different sized circles to measure against that you can then use as a stencil for the wafer. Over the first 6 weeks, I got to watch the size of my intestine shrink down as the inflammation eased up.

I would certainly check in with the doctor about it, especially since you have included physical work recently. Your doctor may put you on temporary limitations at work....I would recommend following them no matter what. You don't want to cause damage by moving to fast through recovery.

Good luck. I hope you feel better soon!

laura4164
Joined Jul 31, 2008

Mon, January 04, 2016 3:12 PM

Reply posted for tconkinjr.

I'm sorry to here you're still sore this far out from surgery. I had 2 resections this year (2/9/15 and 11/19/15). Throughout the entire recovery I have had random pain at the incision sites or where i *think* the anastomosis is. My docs have told me that it is likely everything resettling into a new place and will take about a year before it's finally recovered. If it's really persistent or super painful I'd bring it up at your next appointment, it could be that you're just not ready to go back to such a physical job. I hope that helps!

akr008
Joined Sep 2, 2014

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