Laparoscopy
During the typical abdominal surgery, a long incision is made down the center of the stomach, from just below the waistline and traveling around the navel, ending just above it. The incision can be anywhere from 3 to 5 inches long, and involves cutting completely through the muscles of the stomach.
Conventional surgeries are extremely intrusive and can result in a lengthy healing period for the patient, which may be an especially trying period of time for someone already living with crohns disease. In abdominal surgeries such as the ones used to treat Crohn’s complications it can take 6 to 8 weeks before the stomach muscles are able to fuse back together with enough strength to allow lifting of heavy objects.
Laparoscopy is a type of surgery that involves making a few smaller incisions - usually an inch or less - around the area to be operated on. A fiber optic camera is inserted through one of the incisions, and the doctor’s surgical tools go in through the others. In this way, the operation is done while the bowel remains inside the patient.
While it has limited use, and not all surgeries can be effectively accomplished this way, a laparoscopic procedure can greatly reduce post-surgical pain and healing time as well.