Rare surgery performed on woman who hadn't moved bowels for 45 days

A 28-year-old housewife from Mumbai, India, got a new lease of life after doctors surgically removed faecal matter that had choked her intestines following 45 days of constipation. The "football-sized" faecal mass had become life threatening and was on the verge of ripping off her large and small intestines when the doctors performed an emergency, two-hour surgery.

Last week, Anusha (name changed) approached doctors at the Nova Specialty Surgery Centre in Chembur with constipation and vomiting complaints. The doctors were dumbfounded when she said the last time she had passed stools was towards the end of February. No references were found in medical literature about such a case; the longest documented duration of constipation was 10 days.



Called faecal impaction, the condition is usually seen in obese people or those bed-ridden for long. Anusha had a lean build, and her condition left her malnourished. "Her intake had gone down, though she was not going empty stomach," said Dr Amit Thadhani, consulting general and laparoscopic surgeon at the Nova centre. "Her abdomen was bloated and was exerting pressure on other organs."

Thadhani said an endoscopic procedure called sigmoid colostomy was used to remove the blockage. "We could not use instruments to break the rock-hard faecal matter as that could have damaged the intestine," Thadhani said. "As it is, she was lucky that her intestines were not perforated already." Anusha was discharged on Thursday. Suspecting a psychological element to her inability to move her bowels for so long, Thadhani referred her to a psychiatrist.