IVF, Anesthesia, and My Bowels

During the last several years, I’ve written about my life with Crohn’s disease. I’ve written in-depth about how it’s impacted my mental health, my physical health, my identity, my relationships, and my journey to motherhood.

I’ve shared articles on the parallel of IBD and infertility when it comes to stigmas and emotions, I’ve written about how growing my family, for me, meant pursuing fertility treatments, how those medications affected my body (and my IBD symptoms), about my IBD pregnancy, breastfeeding on Remicade, and most recently, on experiencing a miscarriage.

My husband and I were so lucky to have success through IVF in 2018 after a long road of trying to conceive, failed medications, and failed treatments. However, we knew after the birth of our daughter that our family was not complete.

IVF's effect on my bowels and urgency

This past year, we tried twice to transfer our remaining frozen embryos, but both ended in early miscarriages. We were devastated. With no embryos left, to have a chance at another biological child, we were required to start the process of IVF over again.

The first portion, or the stimming, is a lot of what you might see on social media. There are daily early morning monitoring visits to the doctors office, and there are two or three hormone injections each day.

During this process, my ovaries were stimulated to produce multiple follicles, which would mature into eggs. Each day, the increase in hormones is pretty significant, and the growth of my ovaries becomes noticeably uncomfortable. In turn, they press against my bladder and my bowels, increasing my trips to the bathroom and sometimes my feelings of urgency as well.

Undergoing egg retrieval surgery

These injections go on for anywhere from 8-14 days, and then once there are enough follicles of the right size, there is a special injection given to "trigger" the release of said follicles, and 36 hours later is the egg retrieval surgery.

As a Crohn’s patient, I am all too familiar with procedures and surgeries and undergoing anesthesia. However, because this specific procedure didn’t have to do with my bowels specifically, I wasn’t overly worried (or focused) on preparing myself for challenges with surgery recovery.

Spoiler alert: I should've been!

Anesthesia's effects on bowels with Crohn's

The days after my procedure were extremely uncomfortable. The anesthesia was preventing me from pooping – a challenge I literally am never faced with, and I was so bloated and swollen from the surgery and the remaining fluid in my ovaries.

I was encouraged by my doctor to push hydration and eat a lot of salt in the days leading up to and following my procedure to prevent a condition called Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS), but none of those were helping with the discomfort in my bowels.

To compound the situation, I had my Remicade infusion the day after my egg retrieval surgery. I don't usually poop on Remicade day (which is often a nice relief!) but the combination had me stopped up for almost 3 full days. Once my bowels started up again, they were urgent, frequent, and unrelenting. I was supposed to spend the weekend resting, but instead I spent it running to the bathroom.

In the quiet, I found my anxiety skyrocketing. What if this somehow put my Crohn's into a flare? It was a high dose of hormones, a 2-week buildup, and an immediate crash. What if it was too much for my body?

Returning to normal

It was almost a week after my surgery before I felt like my bowels settled down and I found myself back at my usual baseline. I honestly felt like I'd never been so grateful for my regular poops before!

In retrospect, I should've been more cautious going into a procedure that used anesthesia, and I might've talked to my doctors about using something like Miralax or magnesium citrate after surgery to prevent the discomfort and constipation I struggled with.

Does surgery, for IBD reasons or otherwise, affect your bowels? I would be grateful to read your experiences below.