Thursday, May 4, 2017

Belated A&E Visit Report

Two weeks ago, and following seeing my GP, I ended up going to the Royal London A&E. I could have gone to a nearer A&E, but my GP had suggested I went there because all my other doctors are based there. In the end, what prompted me to go was that my bowel had become completely distended, and I looked about 7 months pregnant. My breath was tasting of faeces, and despite starting antibiotics for suspected small intestine overgrowth, I had become worse. It was perhaps unfortunate I went to A&E in the evening, but had my stomach not suddenly 'exploded' - I would have waited until the next day. I got there about 9pm and it was quite busy - not that A&E isn't ever not really busy. I was sent to Majors/A&E and given blood tests which showed no infection, but a plain abdominal x-ray showed my colon was completely loaded, even though my GP had said it was fine the day before. The doctors couldn't understand why my breath was so bad - although I could - if my colon was backed up, I was loaded with toxins and poison, and literally 'full of poo.' The A&E doctor had a surgeon look at my hernia as it was painful. He did some moves on it and popped it back in, which helped with pain. The next thing was to decide how to get my bowels moving again. They were suggesting Enemas, but they haven't been helpful in the past. Neither has Movicol or Fibrogel. In the end, I suggested Picolax, which is a very aggressive laxative used to cleanse the bowel pre-surgery. This was a rather unorthodox treatment, but given the complexity of my case and the underlying rectal intussusception they agreed, and since they weren't going to admit me for any reason, discharged me with Picolax and I finally got home at 4am,

I took the first sachet of Picolax at 8am, and the second one at 2pm. I spent a long day on the toilet - the drug kicks in within 90 minutes of taking it, but the clear-out continued into the night and next day. Within two days my breath finally started to improve again, but I had to increase my laxatives ever since, finally restarting Prucalopride last week.

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