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Suggest Treatment For Chronic Diarrhea Post A Partial Colectomy

Posted on Wed, 22 Mar 2017

Question: My mother had a partial colectomy. She has been having chronic diarrhea since her surgery. She is not holding down any of her foods. Everything is going in the colectomy bag when she eats. She has lost over 20 pounds since her surgery which was a month ago. She continues to lose weight, always feeling nauseous and weak. Can you suggest what she can do to stop the diarrhea and get her weight back up.

Answered by Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (27 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Please give some more details.

Detailed Answer:
Hello.

Thank you for the query.

Does she have ileostomy or colostomy? Is the stomy created due to bowels obstruction? Is it temporal or permanent? Did she have colon cancer? If so in what stage? Has she tried loperamide treatment?

Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad

Follow up: Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (1 hour later)

She had an ileostomy due to rectal cancer. The stoma is temporary. She is suppose to have the procedure reversed on March 13th. However she is losing to much weight. She was prescribed cholestyramine which I got her yesterday. She is going to take her first dose today.

Answered by Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (27 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
This is a typical ileostomy symptom.

Detailed Answer:
Well, as she has ileostomy, it is going to be very hard to control the stool liquidity. She may try any available diarrhea medicines including Cholestyramine, Loperamide, Lomotil etc. But the effects can be not satisfactory. And for sure she wont be able to gain any weight back, until the ileostomy wont be closed back.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar