laser treatment AVMs colon

[irish]

As I mentioned earlier I have arteriovascular malformations on my colon. I do have one small one in my stomach and one small one in my small intestine and a bunch of different sized ones on the inside of the cecum which is the right side of the large intestine. This is the ascending colon that then goes across the top of the abdomen and down on the left side to the rectum. The cecum area is also the appendix area. I had mine removed years ago.

Thee AVMS are small vessels of veins and arteries that are very fine and literally look like lace laid across the inside of the colon. They are fed by smaller arteries and most of the time they don't bleed. They are also are more common in people over 50 years of age. I had been told about 10 years or so ago that I had them and to be sure and get attention if I ever had rectal bleeding... They showed up again on the next colonoscopy and then in August they were there again and my Gi thought there were more of them.

She had me do a capsule swallow that was preceded by a colon prep (I have now had 3 colon preps in 2 months) and I spend 9 hours shopping with my capsule and killing time til it was 4PM so I could get rid of the electronic hardware. The capsule is a camera that goes through the whole intestine taking pictures at the rate of one image every 4 seconds. That is a lot of film for my GI to go through.

It turned out I had a bunch of these AVMS and thry show up good on pictures. The reason for the concern is that I have been anemic a lot the past 15 years sort of in spurts but more so the past 3 years. I was 10.0 on July 30 and 8.9 mid Sept and had started on iron infusions and had 2 infusions of the 4 ordered. I had seen my GI the end of Sept and I had to spend 4 days at my sons getting my IVIG infusion and 2 other doc appts the first week of Oct. Got home Thursday afternoon exhausted and was to get my iron infusion the next day. Woke up the next day and got progressively weaker, short of breath and heart pounding terrible. Drove to my iron infusion and ended up in urgent care and then ER. They thought I was having heart attack due to chest, arm and jaw pain and they were also testing for blood clot in the lung. I told them I was more anemic...that my gb had dropped.


My hgb was 6.9 and I ended up getting one unit of packed cells and more tests and scans and all was well except anemia worse. When laying on the table having blood started I called my GI and told her what was going on....she said time to have AVMS lasered. I had it done yesterday with sedation....6 of them lasered and 9 stainless steel clamps in areas. The walls of the cecum are the thinnest in the large intestine and subject to rupture so have to be careful. She instilled those little lacey blood vessels with saline and it lefts them up off the colon wall and then she zaps with laser. I even feel better today. Very little discomfort.


Now, this long discertation was sort of an inservice on these AVMs so that you know what they are and pretty much what the scoop is. You can google AVMs colon images and you will get some good pictures to look at. Be aware that AVMs can be anywhere in the body and this includes the brain. Well, that was a long one wasn't it. I told my great doc......all those darn autoimmune diseases and then this which is not related at all to AID. Take care. Irish


P.S. I never saw any blood of any kind and doc think I was dripping blood earlier years and then these past months more or less oozing rather steadily.....but never saw any and specs were neg. Thees AVMs are tricky little buggers...and they are genetic it seems. W@hich makes me wonder....... I have had a Carcinoid tumor back in 1990 which was not called a cancer but is now classified as a cancer. They caught it before it had spread. These are weird cancers and secrete hormones and can spread to almost anyplace in the body. They need a very specialized chemo treatment. You will see in the paper where the cause of death will be neuroendocrine cancer. So, the AVMs and carcinoids probably are because of my weakened immune system. I wanted to add the carcinoid info to the list also. Generally the symptoms of the carcinoid tumors are agitation, rapid heart rate, profuse sweating and people will get really, really red in the face with the flushing. There are more symptoms than that but these are generally what the patient notices first.It is diagnosed by doing a 24 hour urine test and measuring the hormone amount ini the urine. The hormones include serotonin and epinephrine.