John Slater, a former railway worker who lives in Boston, Lincolnshire, was 40 when he first went to the doctor with gut problems. Along with “colossal” lower abdominal cramps, he had started passing blood from his rectum. His doctor thought he had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and then, when the bleeding worsened, an ulcer was suspected. It wasn’t until Slater ended up in A&E, after 12 years of debilitating symptoms, that a colonoscopy revealed adhesions in his bowel lining. “The walls were fused together,” is how Slater puts it.
The cause turned out to be a rare and extreme form of diverticulosis – a complication arising from the formation of pouches in the bowel lining known as diverticulitis. The presence of such pouches usually affects westerners over 50, with the incidence increasing with age.
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