You lose weight unintentionally. No wonder, because you recently stopped eating regular meals.
Always shortly after eating, you have severe abdominal pain that lasts for an hour or two. Your doctor examined you thoroughly.
Among other things, he took an ultrasound scan to take a closer look at the blood vessels in your abdomen.
Undersupply of the intestines with blood
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Mesenteric ischemia is arterial fat deposits and the resulting undersupply of oxygen in the intestinal tract.
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In his opinion, your symptoms are due to the fact that the body does not supply the intestines with sufficient oxygen-rich blood.
The technical term for his diagnosis is chronic mesenteric ischemia.
Fatty deposits formed in the arteries that supply blood to the digestive tract. Your doctor calls this atherosclerosis.
The deposits hinder normal bowel function and cause pain.
It is basically the same cause as angina pectoris. The only exception: here the digestive system and not the heart is undersupplied.
3 arteries supply blood to the digestive tract
The aorta is the large artery that supplies your blood vessels with oxygenated blood from the heart.
The part of the aorta that extends below the heart to the abdomen is called the abdominal aorta.
Three arteries branch off from it and provide the entire blood supply to the digestive tract:
- Celiac trunk
- Upper mesenteric artery
- Lower mesenteric artery
Like any other artery in your body, those are naturally also arteries atherosclerosis, which supply the digestive tract, has been impaired in their function.
Chronic mesenteric artery ischemia results from arteriosclerotic deposits that increasingly reduce blood flow to the small and large intestines.
Affected people feel pain after eating
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The mesenteric ischemia can lead to increased symptoms if the underlying disease of the cardiovascular system is present. © Adobe Stock – SENTELLO
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The symptoms increase if the patient also has certain cardiovascular diseases that reduce blood flow: abnormal heart rhythm, heart valve problems or chronic heart failure.
There are also acute forms of this disease in which a sudden new pain occurs.
They arise when blood flow is generally decreased.
This occurs, for example, after a heart attack or occluding mesenteric ischemia.
In some cases, blood flow to the digestive tract is completely cut off. The reason for this is a clot of blood that migrated into the abdominal arteries.
The same thing happens when a clot of blood re-forms in an artery that has narrowed due to atherosclerosis.
Both cases are medical emergencies that require immediate treatment.
Mesenteric ischemia: diagnosis
If your doctor suspects you have chronic mesenteric ischemia, they will likely want to confirm the diagnosis.
Because the symptoms of this disease can be similar to those of ulcers, gastric or pancreatic cancer.
In order to rule out these possibilities, various diagnostic methods are available to the doctor, for example X-rays or computed tomography, ultrasound examinations and endoscopy.
With the help of a special ultrasound examination of the celiac trunk, the superior mesenteric artery and the inferior mesenteric artery, he can determine whether the blood flow is really reduced.
Because then the probability is high that it is really a chronic mesenteric insufficient blood flow.
Angiography can be performed to get an even better picture of which of the three abdominal arteries the problem is in.
A thin catheter is pushed through the inguinal artery into the aorta and an X-ray contrast medium is injected, with the help of which the three arteries are made visible.
Risk factors in mesenteric ischemia
Risk factors for chronic mesenteric ischemia are:
Your personal risk increases if you suffer from vascular diseases that impair the flow of blood to other parts of the body: for example, the heart (coronary artery disease), the legs (peripheral arterial disease) or the brain (carotid stenosis).
In the long run, keep track of your overall health
While surgery or angioplasty can relieve you of the pain caused by mesenteric ischemia, the risk of atherosclerosis elsewhere in the body remains.
Like chest pain (in angina pectoris), chronic mesenteric ischemia is a warning sign of arteriosclerosis.
You should therefore work with your doctor to try to reduce your risk of other related health problems.
So if you suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure or high blood fat levels (cholesterol, triglycerides), you should treat these diseases and have them checked regularly.
This may mean changing your diet and getting more physical activity.
You may also need to lose weight and take medication.
And most importantly, if you are a smoker, you have to quit.
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