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Elizabeth Price85 said:Hi there,
I was active on this thread about three years ago when I had the DG HAL RAR procedure done. Since then, I’ve dealt with massive complications that were never really explained to me.
I see that Leslie is still around.🙂
In the meantime, my hemorrhoid situation has been about as okay as it can be. Then, late 2011, I found out I have epilepsy. I'm on a lot of meds now, which unfortunately mess with my digestion. My gut health has always been pretty terrible to begin with.
Now I'm pregnant, and since this is a high-risk pregnancy, I have to add even more medications to the mix. All of this combined makes having a normal bowel movement nearly impossible, so I'm dealing with constant constipation. It actually hurt so much today that I started panicking about whether they'll come back—most women deal with constipation during pregnancy and end up with hemorrhoids, but I'm only in my first trimester.
I'm taking Donat mg, eating dried prunes, and using magnesium effervescents, but clearly, it's just not cutting it.
After the surgery, the doctor told me the hemorrhoids wouldn't return.
Basically, I want to know if anyone else who had the HAL RAR procedure experienced a recurrence.
I guess I'll answer this for myself and anyone else wondering (I'm Linea exclusive; the forum disabled my profile at some point last year, though I have no idea why): yes, I had a recurrence after the DG HAL+RAR surgery.
I obviously fall into that 4-5% where the procedure just doesn't work out.🙄
They came back while I was pregnant back in 2014. They've been there ever since—a few external ones, and obviously some internal ones too. They don't hurt and there's no bleeding, so that's that.
I'm thinking about repeating the surgery once I'm finished with my planned pregnancies and births. Only this time, I won't go private, so I don't have to deal with the same misery I went through in 2011.
Maybe by then, there will be some newer methods available.
I could really use some help here.
A close family member (64 years old, former smoker until about 15-20 years ago) underwent surgery five days ago at a hospital in a small town near the mountains: a mitral valve replacement (mechanical valve) plus two bypasses. This was probably his first or second time under general anesthesia in his life, and the whole thing lasted about eight hours.
He still hasn’t properly woken up; after the initial waking from anesthesia, he was extremely agitated, so they have him sedated now. At first, we were told patients need five to seven days to fully come to themselves, so we just wait. Fine. I guess.
In the meantime, he ran a fever of 100.4, so they started him on preventative antibiotics. His bilirubin levels were elevated, and yesterday they mentioned something about leakage in the lungs. Now they're treating it as diffuse brain injury—which, if I understand correctly, is a pretty broad term? I don't know.
Every day they attempt to wake him and check if he can breathe on his own so they can extubate him, but clearly, that isn't happening; he’s still intubated. We were told that if there’s no improvement, he’ll undergo a tracheotomy tomorrow or Thursday to remove the tube.
Two days after the surgery, they said that if things didn't improve, they would proceed with neurological diagnostics (a brain CT), but apparently, they've given up on that, partly because of the surgical drains (I have no idea what the connection is between drains and a CT scan, honestly). They also mentioned that the trip to get a CT—since they'd have to transport him to a major city like Chicago or maybe even New York—might carry more risk than any potential benefit.
When I asked if it was possible he suffered a stroke during the operation, the doctor gave some sort of dismissive answer, saying something like, "Don't go making up strokes; it's like tiny crumbs on a filter."🙄 "It's what you might call an induced coma." Then, when a different anesthesiologist was asked yesterday if the patient was in an induced coma, he said no.
One anesthesiologist said this complication happens in one out of a hundred cases, while another called it a fairly common occurrence. One says he'll definitely wake up, you'll see; the other mentions there's a rehab center right across the street so they can start training and exercises (swallowing, breathing, etc.) if needed. So, yeah, we are getting completely contradictory information.
From what I can gather, the doctors believe there is actual brain damage involved, rather than it just being a slow awakening from general anesthesia. I don't know what to think. I don't doubt he'll wake up, but I wonder... in what condition? I actually know people in the medical field, so I know nothing is ever certain, especially regarding recovery from surgeries this massive. I’m not asking for the full surgical protocol or to be briefed on every single diagnostic step, but I do think it would be decent to keep the family informed about the planned next steps.
We can't even get to him (he's in the ICU, obviously), and updates are only given over the phone twice a day. The main mantra from the anesthesiologists on duty is just, "Have patience, give it time, everything will be okay."
I'd really appreciate any comments or insights based on your experiences.