Gastroschisis

Hi there,

My name is Nicole and Im 22 years old. I was born in 1986 with Gastroschisis, the defect was unknown to my parents or there physcians untill I was born. I had kinda a ruff childhood with being sick alot but not alot related to gastric functions untill about the age of 17, about then is when I started having problems with digestion,pain, bloating,constipation, all these really awefull, painfull, and uncomfortable things.  I felt like it would take my gut days and days to process anything properly, and that it was never doing a good job of it.   Soooo I saw a couple of physcians about my concerns and obtained the medical records and operative report from the day I was born as sort of a guide to what really “went down” on the day.  Come to find out that I had a defect with the stomach, pancreas, duodenum, colon, and the small and large bowel, all outside the abdominal cavity.  I gave this information to my physcian and they did some tests like a barium swollow to make sure the malroation of the bowel had been corected properly and there were no other internal concerns. the study showed that everything did indeed work “satifactory” was the word they used, but that it just took forever. They did say they belived there were some fair amount of abdominal adheasions that could be causing all these types of symptoms to come and go, and recomended plastic surgery to revise the scar and to take a look at the adheasions.  So I had that done when I was 18 and I felt a little relief after the surgery but not much. So now I’m 22 and still dont feel just right, I believe Ive done what I can and wonder if there is anyone else out there like me who has experienced these same types of issues with this defect later on in there life.  I feel strange not knowing whats going on inside of me it dosent feel like I think it should, and Im sick of being obbsessed about it !?!? I do watch what I eat and excersize regularly but nothing seems to help, ive seen at least 5 doctors  and they tell me that everything should be fine.. but it dosent feel fine !!

Is there anyone out there like me ??

read comments (3)

Finding out your expecting twins is a big shock in its self but finding out one of them has Gastroschisis was a lot to take in on my first scan.

I had my amazing girls at 36 weeks chloe was fine but amber was taken straight away to be operated on my partner and mum got to meet amber b4 the operation but i was too ill.

That night amber was left with 36 cm of bowel and had to survive on her PN it was two weeks b4 she could try milk this was 1ml every 2 hours it took along time for her to tolerate this but she never gave up. Unfortunately she developed liver disease and the only way to correct it in time was to get her to tolerate more milk she suprised us all and to this day her liver is fine

Amber spent 4 months in hospital b4 she could come home on her PN since then she has been back and forward to hospital with infections and experiments to get her off her PN but she is not ready just yet.

Amber and chloe are now 21 months their is a big difference in their height and weight but Amber makes up for that with her cheeky little ways Amber is going for tests next week to see if their is any more the medical team can do for her. we have been told so many times she wouldn’t make it, it just goes to show no matter how ill your child is if you don’t give up they will do their best.

I would love to hear from anyone who has had Gastroschisis in their family.

read comments (1)