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Posted 11/29/2015 8:54 PM (GMT -5)
Hi, I've been on the Prostate Cancer board for about a year now, on my own behalf. My mother (86 yrs young) developed Sjogren's a few years ago, and is gradually progressing down that road. I'm just wondering what might be coming next. She's loosing her teeth, her opthamologist is telling her that eventually she'll loose one eye.

What I'm curious about is whether a health crisis earlier this year might be Sjogren's related. This spring, she developed a bowel blockage and had an emergency colostomy. This was in early May. A few weeks after that surgery, a second blockage developed above the colostomy, that required a lot of irrigation to clear. Now, this fall, they put her colostomy back to normal....which surprised me that it was even possible.

Anyway, any thoughts or insight about this, and what we're looking towards?
Posted 11/29/2015 10:02 PM (GMT -5)
I haven't heard of Sjogren's being involved in anything like a bowel blockage -- but I do know it can effect internal organs. Most of the people who've come to this board have only mentioned issues with eyes, nose, mouth & ears. And one or two with vaginal dryness.

Was your mother's Sjogren's diagnosed by a rheumatologist? Since it's an auto-immune disease, that is who is best qualified to tell you if the bowel issues are Sjogren's related.

I really haven't heard of Sjogren's causing people to loose teeth or eyes, although I could understand that happening after a long period of time if left untreated.

(And yes, a colostomy is often used to give the large intestine and/or bowels a "rest", or chance to heal, and then later reversed. My mother had a bad bout of colitis and had a colostomy for about 8 months before they reversed hers -- way back in the 70's!)

Please keep us posted when you find out more about this -- would like to have more information to share with people down the road. Sorry I can't be of more help.
Posted 11/30/2015 4:10 PM (GMT -5)
Thanks. She's been going to a rheumatologist for years, and yes, that's where the diagnosis was made. Onset was odd, seems to be connected to anesthesia when she had cataract surgery. She's had allergy issues with some anesthesia drugs for 50+years. She hasn't found a combination of drugs/drops/etc that alleviate the dry mouth/dry eyes, so they're connecting both the tooth loss and the possible eye loss to the Sjogren's.

She's getting through it, just frustrated because of how it's all playing out. She's getting good care from everyone, it's just hard with so many issues at the same time. By the way, she has 2 prosthetic knees, 1 prosthetic hip, and a frozen shoulder...that she's not going to get fixed.
Posted 11/30/2015 9:21 PM (GMT -5)
Onset connected to anesthesia from cataract surgery???

Sjogren's is an auto-immune disease, so couldn't be caused by anything like that although often stress (like from surgery) can trigger a hiding auto-immune problem.

I've heard of people loosing teeth due to not getting dry mouth treated and getting gum disease, but the eye situation is a shocker to me.

Let us know if we can help at all.
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