OKay Boys, here's another for ya'll, Diverticulitis

Damm 67 years of hard living is catching up fast. Had a little tummy drama , ended up in the ER Sunday morning, thought I was crapping blood. Ran a scan, it wasn't blood but did find I have slight Diverticulitis.

So now I'm on heavy antibiotics and a liquid diet with boiled white rice and oatmeal with nothing on them

Who's got this, how do you manage it?

I know you dont want it blowing up .

all my years of too much crappy (good) food, got me, no BBQ, no fried food, no Mexican food, oh yes I will be able to eat flour tortillas...PLAIN....

CRAPPPPP

Give it some time, once the flare up goes away you can be back to your regular foods. A slight diverticulitis isn’t going to sideline anything, you just need to up the fiber in your diet.

I lived with it for 10 years. I had colon resection surgery this summer. Best thing I ever did, I wish I had done it 10 years ago. If it flares up again go ahead and get the surgery, it will save you a lot of down time and you won’t regret it.

Dang Buzz you can’t catch a break. I was misdiagnosed with it for almost a year. Unbelievable pain after I would drink a lot of liquid (usually beer back then). I turned into a fiber eating son of a gun and it didn’t help. Turned out to be two big kidney stones that hadn’t started to make their way down the ureter yet. Ended up being the worst pain I’ve ever had. Lithotripsy helped break them up and then I had to pass the little sand burs and catch them in a strainer. Just awful.

Mom has/had it. Took her a long time to have the surgery but she is much better now. Still can't eat certain things - mainly anything with seeds - sesame seed buns, tomatos, etc.

I’ve had it. Easy to manage. Called...roughage/fiber, but you have to be very conscious of it.

If it gets to bad they just cut a few feet of gut out, an elderly friend of mine had it done. He was back driving three days later

I was diagnosed when I was 29. I had a colon resection when I was 33 (I'm 55 now). Due to complications of surgery I was out of work for eight months. However, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It has allowed me to live a good life.

Eat what doesn't make you sick. No doctor in the world knows exactly what causes this. I can eat seeds all the time. Popcorn, no so much, even now.

Fiber is your friend. Green leafy fiber, leave off the white salad dressings and use lemon juice instead. Limit nuts for a while. In a mere week or two you'll notice a difference.

no popcorn!

coffee ?????

so far i'm surviving on

white rice
cream of wheat
applesauce
apple juice
sugar free pudding cups
diet juices
beef bone broth
chicken broth

Stay off the coffee. Caffeine dehydrates you. One of the main things that caused flair ups for me was not drinking enough water. Stay hydrated. Too much whiskey or beer is not good for diverticulitis. I quit drinking anything with caffeine in it, and drank water excessively after a beer or whiskey night.

When an infection occurred I didn’t ingest anything but water for a week, until the pain stopped. That would heal it up with the Cippro, and Flagyl antibiotic cocktail.

Did he by chance tell you to not take Metamucil? I know a man that had a gut problem a couple of years ago that required surgery. The doc at Baylor told him absolutely no more Metamucil. It just hit me that he also had Diverticulitis a long time as well. I've never heard to not take it and know a lot of folks that do. Now I'm wondering if the recommendation was due to the Diverticulitis.

I was put in the hospital back in August with a severe pain in my lower abdomen that what was originally thought to be Diverticulitis. After a whole series of scans and test it was discovered that I had an abdominal abscess on the outside of my colon that had ruptured and went septic. The infection was causing my kidneys and liver to shut down to a point that was life threatening. I spent 5 days in ICU fighting the infection with all sorts of IV's hooked to me. They finally had to go in and drain the abscess and put in a drain tube to keep it draining. 5 days later I finally got to go home. They still told me to avoid most anything that was good to eat. After a week or so I started to eat a more normal diet. So far the only thing that has bothered me any has been sesame seed buns.
I knew exactly when the abscess ruptured as it felt like I had just been run through with a spear, but being a hard headed old coot I thought it would pass. If I hadn't of waited 6 days to finally go to the doctor it most likely wouldn't have gotten so bad. Doctors said if I had waited another day or 2 I would have probably died.
Learned a lesson on trying to tough things out.

doc told me no fiber

I'm supposed to get set up to be scoped on both ends (endoscopy and colonoscopy) because I have some digestive tract bleeding. I've previously been diagnosed with a small amount of diverticulitis I've learned to manage that by avoiding cucumber size seeds. My sister also had diverticulitis, which she didn't take care of, which ruptured that led to resection surgery.

the diarrhea kills me. when it comes ,there is not much warning

OK, good news/bad news:

GOOD news: Doc says I can now eat whatever I can tolerate.

BAD News: I have to have Arthroscopic surgery to repair my perforation Late January

I'm scheduled for both an endoscopy and colonoscopy at the end of January to diagnose some digestive track bleeding. I may be in the same boat as you because I was previously diagnosed with minor diverticulitis. I also had a benign polyp removed, so that's also a possibility, we'll just have to wait and see.

maybe we can share a room and pop Vicodin's

It would be a bit of a stretch seeing as I'm in MN. I'm actually hoping for bleeding polyps which can be dealt with during the colonoscopy as long as cancer isn't involved. My sister had a perforation so family history is pointing towards that.

Had colonoscopy today, glad it’s over. I hate the prep, it was drug out over several days. Good news no polyps. But Doc said there was minor diverticulitis. Also said it was nothing to worry about, just eat more fiber. I hope he was right.

Doctors apt Thursday, will schedule my surgery to fix my perforation

Good luck I'll find out what's going on on the 30th.

Monday I do the good old bowel prep for Tuesday's surgery to repair my perforation (Colon). My surgeon will do it laparoscopy using the big robot machine. Cut the bad part out then staple it back together. PLEASE, NO LEAKS or I'm F'ed

Have to be at hospital at 5:30am. You really find out who your friends are when you want a ride at 5:00am. Its $10 for Uber

Surgery starts at 7:30 and should be done at 10:00am. Few nights in the hospital then rest . they are even sending a home healthcare nurse from Encompass to my house to check on me.

If all goes as planned there will be no need for an Ostomy bag GOD, please NO.

Stay tuned guys and gal

Good luck.

Good luck Buzz. Hoping for the best outcome here.

OIK, home after two nights in the hospital. Surgeon too a small section of colon and some small intestine which were stuck to it. I'll see pictures on my follow up. Meat is at Pathology prayin for NO CANCER.

Diet for 4 weeks

No nuts
No seeds
No popcorn
No Fruits or vegetables unless pureed to mush
NO carbonation, yes beer is carbonated

After his okay, fish, fish, chicken, fish, cream of wheat, eggs, cheese (hard), little red meat, apple juice, grits blah, blah, blah

wine aint carbonated.................but you got to quit being fat Buzz. Quit shoving chit in your piehole man. It aint hard.

Only way you are going to lose weight is to eat like a bird and crap like a horse.

Hang in there Buzz, I start my prep on Monday with the low fiber diet, procedure is on Thursday.

was healing up great, did something, sneezed, or something but now have a small hernia under the main incision. CRAP. I have a abdominal restrainer coming tomorrow. Its a big stretch band with a cushion that goes over the hernia.

My Doc's out of town but I BET he sends me for a scan then surgery to fix the hernia

CRAP !!!

stay tuned.

Best of luck Buzz!

Mike, how did yours turn out?

Both tests came back negative they are starting to think that it was a false positive. I do need to have my blood monitored to make sure my hemoglobin is stable. I can get by just fine, if my hemoglobin is low, as long as it's stable. The day of the procedure, I was noticing that all the nurses were young and average at best, until I got into the procedure room, the Nurse Anesthetist was really attractive and in her 40's; she promptly put me to sleep.

Thats great Mike !! my pulmonologist came in to set up my CPAP, she was HOT, how embarrassing...

I got my abdominal binder today, really works.