Is this appendicitis or more adhesions?

If you are vomiting from it, meaning the vomiting is regular for more than 24 hours, you need to see a doctor.

Did they give you lots of antibiotics after the surgery.

Infection could be causing your scarring, previously and now.

Did a general surgeon do your surgery?

Do you have any gynocological symptoms? Unusual discharge? Vaginal or vulvar pain?

Well it’s kind of like on and off vomiting, I’ve puked about 3 or 4 times within the past two days.

They just gave me percocet

It was like a gynecological surgeon.

No I don’t have any gynecological symptoms.

3 or 4 over two days is odd, that isn’t some sort of stomach flu most likely. I think you need to follow up with the surgeon maybe. It probably isn’t your appendix, it probably is related to what happen to you previously.

Did they give you antibiotics for a couple weeks after the surgery?

They gave me no antibiotics. I’m on the third day of this consistent pain that is getting increasingly worse. I had one follow up with the surgeon, but she wasn’t much help at all because she was gynecological.

I’d say it’d be best to discuss your symptoms with your doctor. I think if it was your appendix, you’d know about it by now. I had my appendix removed a couple of years ago, but during the surgery they discovered the pain was being caused by ruptured cysts. Of course, I’m not suggesting this is the case with you, but it could be a number of things

@College_girl A gynocological surgeon would have likely been able to guess if the adhesions looked related to infection. Mine did when I had surgery, and they still did not give me antibiotcs. Mine is a long story, but let’s just say in the end, after always getting pregnant easily, after surgery I never got pregnant again. I think I readhered in a very messed up way. Doctors were not acknowledging my infection symptoms, and I was very symptomatic, but all my cultures were clear. You say you don’t have any symptoms, but I still think maybe you have new adhesions possible from the surgery. A neighbor of mine who was a pharm rep told me her drug was recommended for patients post GYN surgeries, and it just happened that drug, Unasyn, which is IV, is one of the drugs that relieves my symtpoms. I wish at minimum they would have sent me home with a week of antibiotic pills to err on the side of caution. I’m not a doctor, so don’t take my information as though your doctor did something wrong, just relaying what happened to me, and what I think about it.

So if this is just more adhesions, am I going to have to live with this pain forever? I’ve tried so many things to try to control it but nothing works. any suggestions?

@College_girl I think they need to make some educated guesses on what is causing the adhesions and try to treat it.

@College_girl You are having internal abdominal problems. You should not be seeing s gynecological surgeon, but you should be seeing an internal medicine specialist.

Get thee to another doctor right away.

Maybe go back to your surgeon, and in addition get a second opinion before making a decision what to do next. In my experience doctors who did GYN surgeries were much more help, and more knowledgeable. My gastroenterologist never suggested I might have adhesions, it was my Reproductive Endocrinologist who guessed perfectly that my colon might be adhered to my reproductive organs, but he still did not medicate properly in my opinion after surgery. My gastro guy had just done a colonoscopy, and did not help the digestive problems I was having at all. My regular GP had zero answers and my OBGYN had zero answers.

But, having said all of that, I do think it is worth consulting a couple different doctors and specialities.

After my surgery I no longer got pregnant, but my digestive problems improved greatly, almost 100%.

If they have to open you up again they should just take out the appendix while they’re in there. I don’t get why they didn’t do that the first time. That’ll eliminate all this confusion. Good luck, hon.

They used to remove an appendix when they were in there for other reasons, but some sort of red tape or laws are in place now to prevent that. Now if they’re in there for some other reason, they won’t remove an appendix unless it’s obviously bad, and needs to come out. Otherwise it stays put.

Wow, so this is exactly the kind of health question that someone shouldn’t ask on a place like Fluther, nor should anybody answer. I’m a trained surgeon, and have taken out hundreds of appendixes and I wouldn’t even TRY to try to diagnose this over the internet.

Go see a doctor.

@Rarebear Pretty much all the jellies said the OP needs to see a doctor. Sometimes patients need encouragement to go when they have had chronic illnesses that seem to not be getting cured or diagnosed correctly. It’s difficult to go again when you feel it will result in nothing. But, sometimes it is the 2nd or 15th doctor who finally provides great help.

Yes, unfortunately, there are times when there isn’t a doctor alive who will or can properly diagnose and treat an illness. For 20 years my mother went through that nonsense before they diagnosed her. In the meantime, they all told her to see a psychiatrist!

My next door neighbor is still going through it, although she has a diagnosis. Sometimes you have to do your own diagnosis and your own treatment, as my neighbor is doing now. Oh, she still goes to doctors, and they are happy to charge her big bucks for their trouble. But the truth is, SHE knows more about her condition than her doctors do, and it is rare to find someone with the expertise to do what is required.

@JLeslie I realize that most people told her to get a doctor, but then some were also trying to give medical advice. I’m making the point that Fluther (or any online anonymous site) is not the place to get medical advice for potentially serious problems. I’m probably the best person on here to actually give her advice, and I wouldn’t even attempt it in this case.

@Rarebear I would not call it medical advice, I would call it information, and other people’s experiences. Sometimes patients learn about medications their doctors never knew about from a friend, relative or jelly. Sometimes patients learn about new medical procedure that way. Sometimes a patient is never told of a specialty that might help them because the doctor treating them thinks they have it under control. But, sometimes patients don’t follow up with their prescribing doctor that the treatment isn’t helping, I guess maybe that is the patients fault, and then the patient suffers for weeks, months, or years without knowing where to turn next. Sometimes it is the lay person that gives a patient the energy to try the next thing.

I think doctors possibly have a difficult time really understanding how a patient, especially a chronically ill patient, thinks. The doctor has the advantage of knowing how doctors think and look at things even when he is the patient himself. He also knows how to navigate the system. Plus, doctors are probably treated differently as patients than us non doctors. Many of us patients have to worry about sounding too knowledgeable, because then we are dismissed as annoying; or, having too many drug allergies, because then we aren’t taken seriously; or, bringing records with us, because then we might seem obsessive compulsive about our history; or, requesting tests or medications, because then the doctor might be put off by our pushiness. I can’t tell you how jealous I am that diabetics can test their own blood, and the doctor actually wants the patient to be knowledgeable about test results. I have a few doctors who are great, who treat me like a partner in my healthcare, but I have had many who are very dissappointing.

Coming to the internet should not be relied upon as solid medical advice, but I think the OP probably needed to vent her thoughts. She is ruminating about what to do next, and women tend to ruminate out loud.

@JLeslie Yep, I totally agree. I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about what makes me so angry about this whole thing (watching people you love go through this for a lifetime can make you angry.) Another thing that gets me steamed is the smug arrogance of ANYONE, especially doctors, who never check the backstory and just says, “Why are you asking people you don’t know? Go to a doctor!”

@snowberry I have a friend who is a doctor, and when he tells me his frustrations and perceptions of how patients act, I realize how different our perspectives are. Many times the very thing he does not understand about a patient, or complains about, is something I would do. He was once complaining to me he didn’t get feedback from patients. Well, there is only one doctor I ever cared about giving feedback to. He specifically told me to call his office every day during treatment and tell me how I was doing. It did not cost me a penny for another appointment. And, this was a doctor who I paid out of my pocket, and I did continue to make appointments with him. He also responded to my emails, and came to the phone if I wanted to talk to him. My friend was saying, “I want the patient to come back to me so I can change something if what I did or recommended did not help them sufficiently.” He does not realize that for the patient they are thinking, the doctor did not help me, maybe I should look for some other doctor, or maybe I have to live with this ailment.

I also think doctors are better at accepting how the healthcare system works (I am not talking about insurance per se, I think insurance companies piss doctors off too, but how things operate) while patients feel mishandled all the time. Many times the doctors staff creates a lot of the frustration.

So it was appendicitis. I went to the ER and the lady that did my ultrasound and another doctor said that my appendix looked suspicious so they called in the surgeon to examine me. They operated and apparently my appendix was indeed inflamed.

To me that’s kind of good news, because now that it’s gone I don’t have to worry about it being appendicitis ever again.

@College_girl Such a bizarre coincidence since you had that scare that turned out not to be appendicitis so recently. I’m glad you got taken care of!

@College_girl I’m betting probably it always was your appendix. I think last time you were having trouble I told you about a girlfriend of mine who went to the doctor or hospital 4 or 5 times over several months or years (my memory fails how long it went on for) each time she said she thought it was her appendix, and the doctors always disagreed until the last attack that she had out of town, and that hospital doctor took out her appendix which was inflammed. She never had an attack again.

Yeah I could have had it all along or it was slowly getting more inflamed after my first surgery and the first surgeon didn’t realize it (it could be possible considering she wasn’t a general surgeon). I don’t know. All I DO know is that it’s out and I don’t have to worry about it again! :D

@College_girl Good point, I wonder if a general surgeon would have removed it the first time? The other stuff they untangled in the first surgery might have not been causing you any discomfort at all.

Well I did have a general surgeon that was going to operate on me, then he sent in the gyno one. And I’m sure the adhesions were at least a small part of the problem considering my intestines were stuck to my stomach lining and my cecum was in the wrong place.