Scarless Appendix Removal Surgery: Through Your Mouth!

Erm… isn’t there a much greater chance of something going wrong if a Doctor snakes down your esophagus and cuts through your stomach rather than if he simply cuts your side open and deals with your appendix directly?

Wouldn’t going through the other end be a lot less distance? Colonoscopies are pretty common and simple, you’d think they could adapt that for an appendectomy. Seems like you’d have a lot more chance of something going wrong in about 25 feet of “super twisty” small intestine compared to about 5 feet of large intestine with three “straightaways.”

I had two sub-acute attacks of appendicitis, both times they did an CAT scan and discoverd that it was inflamed, but not bad enough that they needed to operate. And both times they gave me an enema for the CAT scan, and within a cuople of days the pain went away. i am now convinced that the enema was responsible for, um, washing the appendix near the end of the bowel, and helping to eliminate the minor infection that had taken place. Next time I’m just going to get a home enema kit.

ps. I’m not kidding.

@ Jacques

I also had two sub-acute appendicitis attacks! I went to see three different doctors and all of them said to have surgery but I didn’t think I wanted to do that (because I was overseas). What my family doctor prescribed wasn’t harsh medicines or…enemas…but to eat more yogurt and take a course of Probiotic Supplements and it really did the trick!

He told me in cases of sub-acute appendicitis it’s usually because the intestinal wall has lost some of the Probiotic balance. So, eat yogurt every day that has some good bacteria culture!

Amusing. I would want the scar to add to my collection.

Another take on this is that a friend went in for an appendectomy recently and they ‘keyholed’ him to save on ugly scars etc but they couldn’t find the appendix. 4 keyhole punches later and then a 4cm slice they found out he is one of the 3% (ish) who have their appendix on the other side of their body. So add in the second 4 cm slice.

He was FURIOUS when he woke up and found out. He looked look he had been a knife fight! We all thought it was very funny.