Couple gets life back after procedure to help with bowel incontinence
Don and Joyce Davis of Carmichaels struggled with bowel incontinence until they both had Medtronic Bowel Control Therapy. The couple said the device has changed their lives.
Rachel Basinger
Don Davis of Carmichaels shows the device he uses to control the electrical impulses for the implant he received to help with bowel incontinence. Davis received the Medtronic Bowel Control Therapy in February and said it has dramatically changed his life.
Joyce Davis had been dealing with fibromyalgia for years and her husband Don Davis had his own struggles with diabetes.
The Carmichaels couple thought their episodes of bowel incontinence were side effects of their other maladies and were resigned to the fact that their popping Immodium and knowing where all the bathrooms were between Uniontown and Carmichaels was just their new normal.
About six or seven years ago, Joyce was referred to Southwestern Gastrointestinal Specialists in Uniontown for her Irritable Bowel Syndrome symptoms and had a colonoscopy performed.
“We tried a couple of medicines and changed up my diet a little bit,” she said. “It would help some, but I was still having accidents.
When Gastroenterologist Dr. Marc Happe first talked with her about Medtronic Bowel Control Therapy to manage her symptoms of bowel incontinence, Joyce’s insurance would not cover it.
“But I got a different insurance carrier in 2016 that did cover the therapy,” she said. “I did have some reservations about whether I wanted to do something permanent like this, but I just got to the point that I had to do something. I was sick of staying home all the time.”
Medtronic’s therapy is a sacral neuromodulation delivered through an InterStim System that targets the communication problem between the brain and the sacral nerves, which help control the muscles related to bowel function.
To begin the process, the patient is actually fitted with a temporary device on their waistband for several days.
Joyce said she had to fill out a diary for two weeks prior to having the temporary device placed. When that step was done, she had the temporary device planted for five days and had to keep a diary during those five days as well.
“I experienced so much relief just in those five days that they said I was definitely a candidate for the permanent device,” she said.
The permanent device was placed in December of last year.
“I’m coming up on a year here, and it has definitely made a huge difference in my life,” Joyce said. “It’s not a cure-all. I can still have one of those days, but they are fewer and further apart.
“I can actually go out to the store and not worry that I’m going to have an accident or take Immodium before I go out with friends and pray that I don’t ruin the day for everyone else,” she added.
Her husband Don had never heard of this procedure until Joyce got her procedure done.
“I was dealing with my issues for 12 to 14 years,” he said. “I took pills and tried other methods but honestly I thought it would just be the way I had to live.”
Don said his condition resulted in an embarrassing moment that ultimately forced him to quit his job.
“I was at work and the feeling of having to go to the bathroom came upon me so suddenly that before I got across the work floor, I had messed myself,” he said. “Unfortunately I had shorts on, so I left a trail. I couldn’t go back after that.”
He began carrying a change of clothes with him when he went to his new job and going on vacation somewhere far away was pretty much out of the question for either of them.
“The thought of having an accident on a plane and having to sit in it until we got to the next airport was too scary” Don said. “We just became too timid to go out in public for fear of embarrassing ourselves. It really just throws a real damper on your life.”
After he saw that his wife had such success with the Medtronic Bowel Control Therapy unit, he asked his primary care physician about it, and they agreed that he should look into it.
“My insurance gave me no issues,” he said.
At the beginning of this year, Don got his temporary unit and had no accidents the entire time.
His permanent unit was installed at the end of February.
“I did have a little bit of leakage, but I called Medtronic, and they said I should turn up the impulse, which I did, and I haven’t had any emergencies or accidents since,” Don said.
“This has pretty much changed my life,” he said. “I can now walk my dog without having to worry about doing the walk of shame through my apartment building afterwards.”
Joyce said the thing that makes bowel incontinence so awful is that as an adult, you feel as though you should be able to control it.
“But we are willing to tell our story because we want people to know that this is something that can be fixed,” she said.
“I recommend anybody who has this issue to go to the doctor and don’t be ashamed to talk about it,” Don said.
Both said Dr. Happe and the staff at Southwestern Gastrointestinal Specialists, as well as the representative with Medtronic, have been nothing but supportive, even going as far as to give out personal cell phone numbers to make sure the couple could contact them easily if they were having an issue.
“I used to not talk about it at all because I was embarrassed, but now I talk about it all the time to anyone because I want everyone who has this problem to feel as good as I do now,” Don said.
Joyce added, “If it doesn’t work for you, then there’s nothing lost, but if it does, then it’s life-changing.”