B
Belein
Guest
Hi Everyone,
I'm new to this forum.
This is a WONDERFUL resource and I will be coming back often!
I live in Houston, TX, and I just had anorectal surgery 16 days ago. My doctor has strong suspicions that I have Chrons. The surgery was to debride and clean scar tissue for 2 fissures, (one large chronic posterior one that I have had since 2004), and a newer smaller fissure located right next to a fistula, and also to place a loose seton around the fistula.
The doctor told me I could be back at work 3 days post surgery. Ha! I ended up needing to take 7 days off of work, and my first day back at work was Tuesday March 18th, and then only for 3 hours. My current pain level is still about a 5.5 on a 10 point scale (which I know is nothing compared to some of the long term sufferers on this forum), and some of that is due to the doctor burning off some scar tissue yesterday during my first post-operative appointment.
The healing process and pain associated with the deeper more chronic fissure will likely take several more weeks at the least. Right now even with my current pain levels, I am about 65% back to "normal". The pain increases of course for about an hour post BM, but that is an improvement over the previous 5 hour spike in pain. I still have bleeding and am still on the extra fiber and stool softeners to prevent more problems during BM for the healing fissures.
The pain medications the doctor put me on were not explained to me at all, and the first one (Keterol, unsure of the spelling) did an adequate job for about the first 5 days, reducing the pain from about 9 to maybe 7.5 or so, but due to it possibly causing renal failure, I was not allowed to take them past 5 days, and was put on Darvocet which was awful (constant nausea, ears ringing, hands shaking, slurring speech, dizzy,etc)-needless to say I was only able to stay on that for 48 hours before I was back to nothing more than Tylenol, and prayer to flight the pain. I of course missed a lot more work than I expected due to the pain (and bathroom troubles), and ended up dealing with a very insensitive member of senior management who berated me upon my return last week telling me "you better fax the doctor letter to the HR Director pronto"Anyway, the joys of surgery and the American healthcare system and workplace.
By the way, I was also diagnosed with Celiac in 2002, Silent GERD (chronic cough which I have had for 2+ years is my only symptom) in 2007, and "intestinal" endometriosis in 2005.
In the next few months, the colorectal surgeon has me scheduled for a colonoscopy and barium swallow/enema (not sure which one, swallow or enema-but she wants to see the small intestine-which one would that be?), and IF the results do not definitively/conclusively show Chrons, then she told me that she wants to do a endorectal flap/anorectal flap surgery to close the fistula mechanically.
The "flap" surgery to close the fistula is about 85% effective according to my research and because of all the cutting, cauterizing, suturing,etc, the recovery pain is significant and lengthy because of the invasive nature of the surgery.
SO, In my online research I came across the AFP-Anal Fistula Plug which is used for so called "non Chrons" fistulas and while it is more expensive than the flap surgery, it is also MUCH less invasive and the recovery time is MUCH shorter, in short- no cutting, suturing,etc and all the other nasty things involved in the flap surgery.
The doctor said she doesnt feel comfortable doing the cutting muscle traditional surgery for Stage 2 fistula surgery(forget the name of that) because of incontinence in female patients, ( I already have a loose seton in place now for my complex fistula) nor does she like the results of the fibrine (spelling) glue option which is injected into the fistula because it tends to come out soon after the procedure.
I have a long list of questions the next time I see the doctor, but the first one will be "Am I a candidate for AFP-collagen plug, and if yes, why did you not mention it to me?"
The doctor seems to want to do an invasive surgery that she may be more comfortable with but which will cause ME more pain and recovery.
I have been to about 15 doctors just in the past 2 years to diagnose some of the above conditions.
In fact for 2 months before I was finally referred to the anorectal surgeon (only I didn't know it at the time), I was "treated" by 2 OBGYNs who could not figure out that what I had was an abcess, and they even put me under the knife twice since late 2007 under local anesthesia without knowing what I had, which ended up (I think at least) contributing to the abcess developing into a complex fistula for which I ended up needing surgery. (The abscess flares/sepsis kept continuing after the attempts at surgery by the other doctors forced everything inside under the skin, with no visible external "door" to the fistula)...
Has anyone had the AFP plug placement for fistula?
What was your experience with this?
Does anyone who has had the collagen plug/AFP surgery know whether there are certain fistulas that are NOT suited for that surgery?
Thanks in advance!!
I'm new to this forum.
This is a WONDERFUL resource and I will be coming back often!
I live in Houston, TX, and I just had anorectal surgery 16 days ago. My doctor has strong suspicions that I have Chrons. The surgery was to debride and clean scar tissue for 2 fissures, (one large chronic posterior one that I have had since 2004), and a newer smaller fissure located right next to a fistula, and also to place a loose seton around the fistula.
The doctor told me I could be back at work 3 days post surgery. Ha! I ended up needing to take 7 days off of work, and my first day back at work was Tuesday March 18th, and then only for 3 hours. My current pain level is still about a 5.5 on a 10 point scale (which I know is nothing compared to some of the long term sufferers on this forum), and some of that is due to the doctor burning off some scar tissue yesterday during my first post-operative appointment.
The healing process and pain associated with the deeper more chronic fissure will likely take several more weeks at the least. Right now even with my current pain levels, I am about 65% back to "normal". The pain increases of course for about an hour post BM, but that is an improvement over the previous 5 hour spike in pain. I still have bleeding and am still on the extra fiber and stool softeners to prevent more problems during BM for the healing fissures.
The pain medications the doctor put me on were not explained to me at all, and the first one (Keterol, unsure of the spelling) did an adequate job for about the first 5 days, reducing the pain from about 9 to maybe 7.5 or so, but due to it possibly causing renal failure, I was not allowed to take them past 5 days, and was put on Darvocet which was awful (constant nausea, ears ringing, hands shaking, slurring speech, dizzy,etc)-needless to say I was only able to stay on that for 48 hours before I was back to nothing more than Tylenol, and prayer to flight the pain. I of course missed a lot more work than I expected due to the pain (and bathroom troubles), and ended up dealing with a very insensitive member of senior management who berated me upon my return last week telling me "you better fax the doctor letter to the HR Director pronto"Anyway, the joys of surgery and the American healthcare system and workplace.
By the way, I was also diagnosed with Celiac in 2002, Silent GERD (chronic cough which I have had for 2+ years is my only symptom) in 2007, and "intestinal" endometriosis in 2005.
In the next few months, the colorectal surgeon has me scheduled for a colonoscopy and barium swallow/enema (not sure which one, swallow or enema-but she wants to see the small intestine-which one would that be?), and IF the results do not definitively/conclusively show Chrons, then she told me that she wants to do a endorectal flap/anorectal flap surgery to close the fistula mechanically.
The "flap" surgery to close the fistula is about 85% effective according to my research and because of all the cutting, cauterizing, suturing,etc, the recovery pain is significant and lengthy because of the invasive nature of the surgery.
SO, In my online research I came across the AFP-Anal Fistula Plug which is used for so called "non Chrons" fistulas and while it is more expensive than the flap surgery, it is also MUCH less invasive and the recovery time is MUCH shorter, in short- no cutting, suturing,etc and all the other nasty things involved in the flap surgery.
The doctor said she doesnt feel comfortable doing the cutting muscle traditional surgery for Stage 2 fistula surgery(forget the name of that) because of incontinence in female patients, ( I already have a loose seton in place now for my complex fistula) nor does she like the results of the fibrine (spelling) glue option which is injected into the fistula because it tends to come out soon after the procedure.
I have a long list of questions the next time I see the doctor, but the first one will be "Am I a candidate for AFP-collagen plug, and if yes, why did you not mention it to me?"
The doctor seems to want to do an invasive surgery that she may be more comfortable with but which will cause ME more pain and recovery.
I have been to about 15 doctors just in the past 2 years to diagnose some of the above conditions.
In fact for 2 months before I was finally referred to the anorectal surgeon (only I didn't know it at the time), I was "treated" by 2 OBGYNs who could not figure out that what I had was an abcess, and they even put me under the knife twice since late 2007 under local anesthesia without knowing what I had, which ended up (I think at least) contributing to the abcess developing into a complex fistula for which I ended up needing surgery. (The abscess flares/sepsis kept continuing after the attempts at surgery by the other doctors forced everything inside under the skin, with no visible external "door" to the fistula)...
Has anyone had the AFP plug placement for fistula?
What was your experience with this?
Does anyone who has had the collagen plug/AFP surgery know whether there are certain fistulas that are NOT suited for that surgery?
Thanks in advance!!