small bowel obstruction and ibs

[Timeout444]

I am a 33yr female, who has been having "abdominal pain attacks" for a little over a year now.   I've had only one abominal surgery prior to my abdominal attacks  for cysts on my fallopian tubes when I was 14. I did have my gallbladder removed 9 months ago because we thought that was the culprit. Sadly it wasn't.  I usually get an attack once a month.  They start out as a distinct mild abdominal pain that grows into such severe pain that I can't stand it.  It's a crampy colicky kind of pain that has waves of worsening degrees.  My abdomen becomes very enlarged and hard.  At first I may have a little diarrhea and gas, but as the pain worsens nothing comes out. It also sounds like a war is going on in there. When the pain gets bad enough I become very nauseated and feel like I'm going to pass out if I try to walk.  It definitely hurts more if I'm laying down.   After about 10-12hrs of this I finally have some diarrhea and the severe pain lessens. My abdomen is tender to touch and I have intermittent cramps for about a week after one of these episodes.   I have been tracking them to see if they are related to my cycle and it is diffucult to say at this point. Sometimes they look like there is a relation and other times not. I started taking Metamucil because I noticed it has become more difficult to pass stool, not that I couldn't, but it seemed harder. I usually went 1-2 times per day.  With the metamucil it is still that way, but softer. I had a CT scan with my last episode and it showed I had an early small bowel obstruction.  Is it possible for ibs to cause this?

[Lynn2948]

What you described is exactly what I went through about 10 days ago.....after the CT scan showed an SBO, the surgeon consulted with me, took a complete history and it was decided that the CT scan was wrong and what I had was a gallbladder attack.....the pain was in no way descriptive of any gallbladder attack that I have had in the bast.....my blood pressure bottomed out and I was given IV fluids to bring it up enough to be administered pain medication through IV.....after I was relieved of the pain in about 2 hours, I started to pass gas and seemed so much better.......the surgeon who took the gallbladder out looked around and said I didn't have an SBO.  What I want to know is if the problem had corrected itself, would it have shown up in any way while the doctor was doing a laparoscopy?  Good luck to you Timeout444.  I hope you get your answers......I still believe that I had an SBO and it subsided after 6 hours of pain and then pain medication....I think these surgeons wanted to chalk it up to the old gallbladder....

[April2]

You need to keep an eye on this. You already know you have a small bowel obstruction. I think that's why you're having the on again, off again pain and nausea. This sounds exactly like what went on with me for several months before the pain got so bad I wound up in the emergency room. They knew I had a small bowel obstruction that we were keeping an eye on but since it was only a partial obstruction we were just watching it. When they looked at it again after my last CT scan, they saw it had grown slightly and felt it was best to cut it out and see what it was.
I had the mass removed and a colon resection almost 4 years ago and the mass sent to pathology. It was determinded that because of the granulomas there was a high probability of it being Crohns. I was put on medication to calm down the inflamation in my colon and after healing from the surgery and being on the medication for awhile, I can tell you I feel much better than I did before the surgery.
I still have IBS symptoms, etc., but it's much, much better than it was before.

Please don't just brush this off. Keep a close eye on this and watch to make sure the obstruction hasn't grown or is contricting things more than it already is. If it winds up completely blocking things it could become life threatening very fast.
At some point you will probably need to have this obstruction removed, depending on if it grows any more or how quickly it grows.

Please come back and let us know how you are doing. I wish you all the best! Take care,
April