By Jackie

Small bowel obstructions are no matter to take lightly. In addition to causing devastating pain, an obstruction can prevent waste from leaving the body and nutrients from being absorbed by the body.

If a patient suspects s/he has a bowel obstruction, s/he needs medical attention immediately. A visit to do the doctor is vital because s/he can ascertain if the bowel is actually blocked (obstruction) or isn’t functioning properly. If the doctor suspects an obstruction, s/he will normally monitor the patient over a period of time to see if the obstruction goes away on its own.

Why be so cautious before moving forward with treatment? Because doctors know that surgery is a serious matter – especially surgery to the delicate tissue of the intestines. Patients who undergo surgery for obstructions risk developing more obstructions as a direct result of the scarring (adhesions) produced by the surgery to remove an obstruction.

If your doctor currently suspects you have a bowel obstruction, it is important you know that the number one cause of obstructions is adhesions. Adhesions are what form scar tissue. They form after the body heals from any sort of trauma – such as an infection, inflammation, surgery, car accident, etc. Although they help an injury heal, adhesions can also bind nearby structures. If they form in the intestines, they can cinch the small bowel closed or pull on the intestine. The constant pull can create inflammation and thus more adhesions.

How can you know if adhesions are the likely culprit for your obstruction?

• First, you need to visit the doctor to rule-out serious conditions such as Crohn’s disease.
• Second, examine your medical history. Have you had any recent illnesses that cause inflammation or infection? Were any of them in your abdomen or pelvis? For example, diverticulitis causes infection and inflammation in protrusions from the colon. Even if the doctor has treated this condition, you may still have adhesions in your body that developed because of the infection and inflammation. Other infections or inflammation to keep in mind are hernias, gallstones, Crohn’s disease, etc. Another important question to ask yourself: Have you been in a car accident? Although the only physical effects you may have felt were whiplash, the internal organs often absorb the shock of such sudden trauma. This could have caused internal damage, which then caused adhesions to form in the healing process. Examine your life for any serious injuries, falls, accidents, or surgeries.

• Third, have your symptoms subsided? Obstructions caused by adhesions generally do not subside because the body has no natural way of dissolving the collagen that forms adhesions.

If you or your doctor suspect adhesions are the cause of your obstruction, our trained therapists can help. Through hundreds of manual physical therapy techniques, our therapists can identify areas of restriction and adhesion formation, then work to loosen the area. Gradually, over a 20 hour program, the adhesions are detached and deformed, allowing the bowels to function properly. Most patients who come to Clear Passage Therapies for bowel obstructions choose to complete therapy in an intensive week of treatment due to extreme health risk of a bowel obstruction. Clear Passage Therapies can resolve adhesions that create an obstruction, but if the bowel is completely obstructed, it is a life-threatening condition that requires emergency surgery.

To learn more about our treatment for bowel obstruction, please visit our bowel obstruction page.

Tags: adhesions, bowel obstruction, small bowel obstruction

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Bowel Obstruction, Recent Posts . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.