Finally some good news
Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:02 pm
Husband had his colostomy take down in March. The surgeon decided with all the scar tissue in there to give him a temp illeo and see how the connection went. Glad he went that way. We found out at the first procedure June 20 that the connection opening was only 1mm a normal colon is 30 mm. So we thought we would never get there. GI Dr said go ahead with hip replacement first so my husband could walk without a walker. He's now been going in for a Stigmoid Colon thing every 2 weeks since July 25. After a couple times of the GI Dr stretching the opening he finally decided the staples and such were causing the scar tissue (which means the opening would shrink between stretching) so took those out took a suture out. Finally looked better but still had minimal shrinking, for the size of his colon. Once he opened it enough he could get the scope to the other side and he found my husband colon is only 15mm. Except the last time 3 weeks ago he injected steroids into the scar tissue to keep it from growing. Finally it worked. It didn't shrink back, the scar tissue behaved. They didnt have to insert a stint for 6 weeks to try and keep it open longer. He's calling the surgeon to tell him they can schedule his illeo reversal. He does have to go back to the GI in 3 months to make sure everything looks ok and of course call the minute he thinks he might be getting a blockage (which would be shrinking/scar tissue). GI said hubby will pretty much need to be on a low fiber diet forever because of the size of his colon.
I'm glad it helped him! I had the stretching done once after my colon resection surgery. It really helped.