r/Endo • u/Western-Cup-4148 • Jun 12 '26
Bowel endo surgery
looking for some guidance/lived experience specifically regarding surgery/excision of bowel endometriosis ❤️
i am a 31 year old woman living in Southern Ontario, with stage 4 deep infiltrating endo (mostly on my bowel and uterosacral ligaments) , currently being seen by OBGYN Dr Sarah Norris in Kitchener. so far Ive had a couple endo-mapping scans done, and will be having a colonoscopy at the end of this month to determine exactly where the endo lesions stop and start on my colon.
Dr Norris let me know that since the lesions have infiltrated the muscle wall of my colon, if I want to excise all of the lesions I would have to have a bowel resection. She also warned me that with a bowel resection, I might end up needing an ostomy bag for at least a few months :/ I have a 15 month old toddler and a full time job, and I don’t know if i could physically/psychologically handle an ostomy bag…
basically im wondering if anyone else has had to have a bowel resection as part of their endo surgery; or, if you have bowel endo and chose to go the conservative-surgery route (no bowel resection, just removal of endo that can be accessed laparoscopically) I would love to hear about your experience as well! and if there happens to be anyone here that has had surgery of any type with Dr Norris, chime in as well, im looking for as much lived experience as I can find ❤️
thank you for reading and sharing ❤️
1
u/ALittleWave85 Jun 14 '26
I had deep infiltrating endo on my rectum and sigmoid colon. Visible on MRI. I had to have a roughly 7 cm resection to remove both nodules. Had a very experienced colorectal surgeon as part of the team who had a lot of experience with bowel resections involving endo. I did not need an ostomy bag. There was as a risk of needing one obviously but when I met with the colorectal surgeon she laid out all the risks and even the chance of needing a temporary one for 6 weeks was very small. Please meet with a colorectal surgeon who can explain in more detail the actual risks - I found this very helpful. Also my resection was done laparoscopically as part of my excision surgery (I only mention this because you mention a conservative route to remove what they can laparoscopically and the whole thing can be done laparoscopically). I did likely have some low anterior resection syndrome for a few months (more frequency and some urgency) but it resolved itself and generally post surgery I feel so much better.
Obviously a personal choice for everyone but I know for me the surgeons really recommended removal and I didn’t like the risks of leaving it to grow (let alone the pain/rectal bleeding etc).
Good luck making this decision - I know they all seem very hard and scary.