J Pouch Sugery Dehydration

Daughter, 12, just had second surgery of a three stage process. She did great, and was released from hospital a day early. We ended up back in there, though, several days later as she was weak, listless and had no appetite. Dehydration. Her stoma output is incredibly high...no thickening to it at all.  Her surgeon says it should get better but the next (and last) surgery isn't until end of March. During the day she's drinking a ton of electrolytes and actually eating salt packets to keep sodium up.  Her food intake is small meals. Trying to thicken the stool with rice, potatoes, bread....nothing is working thus far and her surgery was 30 days ago. With 26 days until the next surgery, do you think I should try Immodium? The surgeon didn't suggest it and I've been reading that once you start it your small intestine will not want to begin working like a large intestine.  However, we are to the point where we need an i.v. with fluids during the night. Anyone had any experience with this? Do we "stick it out" for the next 26 days and hope that once the ileostomy takedown is complete things will improve? They should, right?

I had extremely high output from my ostomy for about 3 weeks after my surgery. Then around the 4 week mark is slowed down a lot and it thickened up a bit too. They kept me in the hospital a little longer than usual because my output was so high. It will slow down for her but she's young too so you have to keep on top of it so she doesn't get dehydrated again. She has to drink a ton of fluids and salt is her friend right now so make sure she has some salty snacks. Only use Imodium with the OK from her surgeon.

The difference between the ileo output and her output after takedown when her j pouch is connected is like night and day. There is no comparison. She will be going a lot immediately after takedown but it quickly slows down. Within 3 weeks I was only using the bathroom 4 to 6x a day which for a j poucher is typical. Good luck with everything!