Diverticulitis Support Group

Diverticulitis is a common disease of the bowel, in particular the large intestine. Diverticulitis develops from diverticulosis, which involves the formation of pouches on the outside of the colon. Diverticulitis results if one of these diverticula becomes inflamed. Diverticulitis most often affects middle-aged and elderly persons, though it can strike younger patients as...

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waynejohnmunro 04/27/2016

I was diagnosed with Diverticulosis 10 years ago. I have had on average 6-8 flare ups a year in my first 2 years. For those of you who have only recently been diagnosed with the disease you have my full sympathy. Some of you may only have a flare up once a year. For that i say be grateful. My only tip is that you should be very careful with the advice that you receive on forums like these. They can be very detrimental to your health. Make sure you have been diagnosed by your GP and have undergone a colonoscopy at least 2 x before concluding that you actually have it. The reason i say this is that there are other reasons you may be getting the symptoms of diverticulosis but it does not necessarily mean the pain you are having is as a direct result of the disease. Let me also state that just because a certain product or treatment and diet plan works for one person it doesnt mean it will work for you. For example do you know that fibre can actually worsen your condition ? Do you know there is a difference between soluble fibre and insoluble fibre ? Which one are you taking and when do you take it ? Did you know you shouldnt have any fibre when you are experiencing a flare up ? I learnt the hard way. I have so much to share but cant do it all on these forums so if you want to receive some solid advice please feel free to email me at waynemunro3@gmail.com

belindac 05/01/2016

I think that forums are valuable places to find information. Sending emails privately goes against what we are here for. If you have information which you obviously think is solid and valuable advice, it would be appreciated if you would share it here (as that is why we are here). I don't know about the majority of the members here, but I would not recommend contacting anyone privately on a public forum.

gem111 05/01/2016

I absolutely agree with belindac.

lilyisabelle 05/04/2016

Hello all,
I also agree with belindac's opinion we all should share our knowledge about these. Apart from that, I think you should try some home based natural remedies like "Aloe Vera", which proves as the helpful remedy for getting control over diverticulosis. If you have any trouble on finding Aloe Vera then you may check it through online stores like "Lean N Clean". Hope its helps.

zoopamela 07/01/2016

Also agree - you say to be careful about advice on these forums, but invite people to email you privately for "solid" advice. Whatever you have to share, it would be much more efficient to do so in this forum rather than each separate email.

Any "advice" offered here is in the form of sharing our individual experiences, and what works for us. Anyone reading takes it in that spirit, and chooses to try the offered remedies (home or prescribed) or not.

My experience with posts like yours is that they usually have something to sell, can't do it openly in a forum like this, and so try to get direct connections. We have someone like that on one of our neighborhood networks.

Hopefully that isn't the case, and if so I'd like to hear your experiences, what you've tried and learned, and how it has helped.

rst2 07/01/2016

You are correct. As a victim of this "unsung" digestive disease (the only one without TV commercials, fancy named drugs, etc.) for almost 30 years I have only done well when I followed the advice of my Gastroenterologist. Luckily he is with a major medical center and is the acknowledge expert on this disease within the Department of Medicine Division of Gastroenterology. Anyway I have been following his basic dietary advice (high fiber; no hard seeds) and his medication advice (carry Cipro or some other antibiotic at all times; I use Cephalexin) all this time. Periodic colonoscopies and CT scans continue to show increasing diverticulosis as the years go by (I am 71). Since all my male ancestors died at age 43 of peritonitis caused by diverticulitis (except my father who was struck at 43 but saved by a nasty resection then lived to be 90) I am very careful. I have had 1 or 2 attacks each year but they have increased this year so I went for a CT a month ago which indicated "extensive diverticulosis", and yesterday, a colonosocpy which failed because my sigmoid area was so damaged by scar tissue from healing. Since I was all prepped, I went for a barium enema xray (not pleasant!) to see what was what above where he could get with the colonoscope (a pediatric one, at that). He was amazed; there were a series of narrowings and clusters of, as he described it, "hundreds of diverticulosis pockets". So, it seems that the surgery hammer is upon me. Since I am not infected, I am going to schedule a resection hopefully to be done laproscopically. Again luckily, he is referring me to a GI surgeon who developed many of the laproscopic techniques so if it can be done that way, he will. Has anyone had the laproscopic surgery done and what was the outcome and recovery?

ralphjresta 07/26/2016

I had surgery for diverticulitis in 2007. My story didn't go well. I had 2 colon resections done, (the first stoma died), 6 months later I had the resection done then I developed a surgical hernia. 9 years later my stomach has never been the same and I was just diagnosed with another hernia. No surgery this time because the surgeon was afraid that opening me up to repair it could tear the meshing I had put in from the previous hernia. Life has changed as will my diet. Could be worse, I'm alive :)

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