Working in the emergency room for a long time, I often encounter patients with intestinal obstruction, and I often encounter familiar faces, and I often have conversations like “Dr. Huang, I’m here again!” “Another obstruction?” . After managing many cases, I have repeatedly explained the condition like Mrs. Xianglin’s wife and given precautions, and have formed some of my own opinions and popularized the knowledge to the majority of patients who suffer from intestinal obstruction. If you do not agree, you can contact me and share your experience.
1.What is intestinal obstruction?
The so-called obstruction, is not pass it. The digestive tract can be simply treated as a home sewer pipe, something is not smoothly down, blocked in a place. After the blockage, more food and digestive juices will accumulate in the upstream of the blocked place, and the intestinal canal will keep expanding, thus causing strong peristalsis, resulting in abdominal pain and bloating; at the same time, it also starts the body’s protection mechanism, inducing nausea and vomiting, and minimizing the contents of the upstream of the blockage.
2.What are the causes of intestinal obstruction?
There are three major causes of intestinal obstruction commonly seen in the emergency department, fecal stone accumulation, intestinal adhesions, and occupancy of the gastrointestinal tract or adjacent organ sources. Intestinal obstruction caused by fecal stone accumulation is mostly seen in the elderly and people with chronic constipation. (This shows what a blessing it is to eat, drink and shit normally!!!) The accumulation of stool in the intestinal canal for a long time, the water is reabsorbed, the stool is dry, defecation is laborious, and fear of defecation leads to further dryness of the stool and the formation of fecal stones, which block this important channel and cause obstruction.
Most of the intestinal obstruction caused by intestinal adhesions is due to previous abdominal surgery. (A common postoperative complication of abdominal surgery, especially gastrointestinal surgery, is intestinal adhesions. The cause is easily understood: a growth in the abdomen that interferes with the passage of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract. It can be a polyp or certain malignant tumors.
3.What symptoms are present to diagnose intestinal obstruction?
Repeated abdominal pain, bloating, especially paroxysmal unbearable kind of pain, there is nausea and vomiting, there has been no bowel movement for some time, or there is no anal exhaustion. Of course, these symptoms vary from person to person, some people just have abdominal pain, and some people have been tested and diagnosed with intestinal obstruction, but he/she has just passed a small amount of stool. Generally, when these symptoms appear, you need to come to the hospital for consultation.
4.Why should I fast for intestinal obstruction? Why should a gastric tube be inserted?
From the above points it is not easy to see how intestinal obstruction is the case. If intestinal obstruction is already considered, eating again will only make the contents of the upper reaches of the obstruction accumulate more and more, and the symptoms of abdominal pain will be more obvious. It is also for this reason that a gastric tube is left in place to try to draw out the contents of the upper part of the obstruction or the accumulated gas, so as to promote intestinal recanalization.
5.Why do we need so much fluid intravenously for intestinal obstruction?
Our body needs to take in a lot of water, intake of meat, eggs, rice, vegetables, etc. in a day. When there is intestinal obstruction, all these things need to be changed in a little form – infused in from our veins. As for the amount of rehydration, you do not have to worry about it, the doctor will calculate the amount of rehydration according to the amount needed by the body.
6.Is the intestinal obstruction serious? Does it need surgery?
Most of the intestinal obstruction is not serious and can be relieved by fasting, gastrointestinal decompression and rehydration, but we cannot exclude that a certain percentage of patients have progressive aggravation. When the symptoms are not relieved after observation in hospital or hospitalization for the above treatments, surgery has to be performed after medical evaluation. Especially in patients with combined diseases of other organs, the mortality rate in this population is relatively higher.
In addition, surgical treatment is more aggressive in cases where the relevant tests have been completed and it is clear that the occupancy is caused by an occupancy of the gastrointestinal tract or an adjacent organ origin.