Colorectal Surgeon for Tummy Ache

There are some surgical conditions that may result in a tummy ache, but we will be focusing on these 4 conditions: Gallstones, Gastritis and Gastric ulcer, Swollen Piles and Painful Hernia.

It’s perfectly possible to even go swimming with a stoma. What you do need to do is to cover up the stoma with gauze and put a waterproof dressing on top of it. And then you can go swimming. The intestines will fuse to the skin, we actually stitch it down. So once that is fused, we get essentially a waterproof joint. And unfortunately, you can’t control how the motion comes out which is why you do need to put a dressing over it to prevent the faeces from coming out during the duration that you’re swimming. But by large, yes you can go swimming.

Yes. The tumour stage does impact on the conduct of surgery. A more advanced tumour may require radiotherapy and maybe chemotherapy before surgery. A more advanced tumour may also need to be performed as an open rather than a keyhole surgery due to the tumour invading into neighbouring organs. A more advanced tumour is also more likely to end up with 'unclean' margins with residual tumour left behind in the abdomen.

Big question. Colon surgeries nowadays are almost always performed as keyhole surgeries, so you get about 3-4 small incisions anywhere between 1 to 1. 5cm on the abdomen. Usually accompanying that is another incision about 7 to 8cm which is much shorter than if you were to do a conventional operation. And through this we take out the colon -- the segment of the colon with cancer together with a margin, you can’t cut right beside the tumour, you need to leave a margin usually about 5cm on both ends of the tumour. We take that out and then join both ends of the colon back together.

The scopes undergo thorough cleaning in a scope cleaning machine with a pre-programmed cleaning protocol.

There are multiple causes of 'stomach' pain that are not related to the stools.

I think rather than jumping the gun, whether they should go for investigation, the very least you should do is to seek a consultation with preferably a specialist. The reason for that is IBS is not a condition you have to live with forever. Or rather I should say you have to potentially live with it forever, but it’s something that there are medications that can potentially treat it. I think first and foremost when you come and see a doctor, we take a detailed history and decide whether it sounds like IBS in the first place.

Yes. In particular, irregular bowel movements are very suspicious signs of colonic growth, particularly if the symptoms have only occurred for a few weeks to a few months.

The truth of the matter is the recovery period is fairly short. You get it done in the day, you go home on the same day, on that day you might feel a little bit bloated because you blow a lot of gas inside during the colonoscopy to distend out the colon so we can see it well. You’ll find yourself farting a lot on that particular day. Usually, by the evening, your tummy will be fine, and you’d have recovered from the sedation. During a colonoscopy, we usually give some sedation, that makes you a little bit sleepy.

A CT scan. But the problem is that it cuts both ways. Maybe I should introduce a little bit more about what we call a CT colonoscopy. A CT colonoscopy is a special CT scan protocol, designed to look at the colon. By doing so, what this means is that you do need to get a full bowel preparation done. For those of us who were hoping that the CT colonoscopy avoids having to go through the horrible process of running to the toilet, unfortunately, that’s unavoidable. And you’re absolutely right to say that a CT scan poses a much lower risk of perforation than a colonoscopy.