“Diverticulosis or endometriosis cause of bowel adhesions?”
I recently had lap surgery to have endometriosis excised, the doctor also found my colon had significant amounts of scar tissue on both sides attaching it to my abdominal wall. I'd never had abdominal surgery before this, so the gynecologist thought the scar tissue could be from diverticulosis. She recommended I get a colonoscopy, but that doctor has not yet scheduled it. I'm only 39, eat a high fiber diet, don't have issues with constipation, have a very active lifestyle, exercise regularly and every doctor I've been to says I am very healthy. I'm not sure why the gynecologist thinks the scar tissue was from diverticulosis and not from the endometriosis, given the one endometriosis lesion she found and removed was near to, but not on, my colon?
3 Answers
The gynecologist might be right. As a general surgeon, I would see you in consultation, ideally with the pictures of the laparoscopy. The only issue is that you might not actually need a colonoscopy for this (in the right clinical context).
It is hard for me to form an opinion without having inspected the area intraoperatively. Having said that, both diverticular disease and endometrial implants could affect the sigmoid colon and make it look the way you described it. Endometriosis could certainly cause an inflammatory reaction in the areas close to the implants, not necessarily only where the implants are. At the same time, diverticular disease (chronic thickening of the colonic wall related to diverticulosis) can also cause that type of inflammatory reaction in completely asymptomatic patients. You are definitely quite young to have diverticular disease, but it could still happen and I routinely see young patients with acute and chronic diverticulitis, not too unusual. I think that a colonoscopy is a very reasonable option to achieve a better idea of the status of the colon and I would recommend that too. I would also consider to have a a colorectal surgeon doing it, as a colorectal surgeon might be able to correlate colonoscopy findings and "feeling" during the instrumentation with possible symptoms and potential need for surgery in the future. Hope this helps. Good luck.
Your doctor is clueless and doesn't understand endometriosis, unfortunately.
