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Less Invasive Treatment for Diverticulitis

It usually starts out as stomach pain and ends up sending more than 800,000 people to the hospital each year. “Diverticular disease is very common in our country. We don’t drink enough water, we don’t eat enough fiber, we get these pockets called diverticulum,” says Dr. Kiet Doan, who is a general surgeon with Lee Memorial Health System. These pockets form in the wall of the colon and can become painful during digestion. Diverticulitis occurs when the pockets become inflamed or infected. Symptoms include: stomach pain, usually in the lower left side of the abdomen, nausea and vomiting, fever, constipation or diarrhea. Mild diverticulitis can be treated with rest, changes in your diet and antibiotics. Severe or recurring diverticulitis may require surgery. New, less invasive techniques using tiny cameras are making the surgery easier for patients to stomach. “We’re able to go in there with a camera and two or three additional instruments, cut a section of the colon out, able to put everything back and remove the specimen through a small incision,” says Dr. Doan. The traditional surgery was bowel resection, which required an incision from chest to pubic bone and meant a 7-10 day hospital stay to recover; not so with the new technique. “They recover a lot quicker. You didn’t have to cut through a lot of muscle to get to the abdomen,” says Dr. Doan. The decision to have surgery is an individual one, and is often based on the frequency of flare-ups and whether there are any complications. View More Health Matters video segments at leememorial.org/healthmatters/ Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Visit leememorial.org