First let me say thank you to the great people at Mouth Shut for adding this topic as quickly as they did. I asked for it last night and this morning.well, here it is!
I want to tell you all about my weekend.my weekend from hell.
At about 2 AM, Saturday, after about 4 hours writhing in pain, I decided to awaken my boyfriend and cry out for help.’Take me to the emergency room, NOW!’ He jumped up, questioning me while he dressed and we were at the emergency room in 10 minutes.
For the past 4 hours, I had been experiencing severe stomach and back pain. it got to a point where I could not stand another second of it. It was like nothing I ever experienced before.
At the emergency room, I ws examined, blood was taken, x-rays were taken and a CAT scan done. Within an hour, the Dr. came to me with a diagnosis. I had Diverticulitis. And to make matters worse, I also had a kidney stone.
Pain medication was administered. A nice cocktail of morphine, demerol, thorazine and zantac. The pain eased as I drifted into a drug induced sleep.
I awakened in a hospital room, surrounded by machines, IV’s dripped into my arms and a faint, beep beep beep came from a machine monitoring my heart and blood pressure.
The following is taken from The National Digestive Disease Information Clearinghouse
Diverticulosis occurs when a small pouch, called a diverticula bulges through weak spots in the large intestine.
The pouches form when pressure inside the intestine builds(sometimes due to constipation)
The main cause is a diet too low in fiber. It occurs mostly in people from the US and UK, with lowest instances in the Eastern and Asian countries.
When these pouches become inflamed it becomes Diverticulitis which can lead to peritonitis(blood poisoning). If not treated, surgery will have to be performed. Removal of the blocked or infected part of the intestine and a reattachment of the uninfected intestine is the simple surgery. If you prolong treatment, a colostomy will have to be performed.This is the removal of most of the intestine, an opening is cut into you stomach(stoma) and the uninfected intestine is attached and waste matter leaves you body through this opening into a plastic pouch. Neither one of these sounded too good to me!
The doctors than explained that I must make drastic changes to my diet and stay on antibiotics for 10 days.
The first week after the attack a liquid/semi- liquid diet is followed. Lots of water, broth, jello, etc. This is to allow your intestine to heal and relax.
Then the real diet starts. Extremely low fat and extremely high fiber. Lots of fluids without caffeine!
Whole grains, fruits and veggies seem to be the route to regain my health. And about 8-10 glasses of water a day.
I will follow this to a tee! I never again want to experience the intense pain that I was in.
Oh, by the way, I did pass the kidney stone in the middle of all this.
I am home now, thankfully. No pain, luckily and sticking to the diet faithfully!
Stay healthy.Don’t go through this like I did!
Just a little P.S. All this is going on while I’m trying to pack for the move into my new townhouse next week. Not the greatest of luck, huh?