Might peritonitis cause constipation?
Answer Peritonitis is not confused with constipation. constipation is the infrequent defectation of hard stool. Peritonitis is a life threatening, severe, intra abdominal infection usually associated with a perforation of the bowel. These patients are critically ill and often die. What you describe about your dialysis patient hardly fits that description. A laparotomy is uncommonly used to treat a bowel obstruction secondary to the large intestine being plugged with rock hard stool in a constipated patient. I cannot comment on the blockage being due to calcification/sclerosing because “something” has to be calcified or sclerosed. It is possible that the blood vessels (arteries) of the intestine are hard and severely narrowed from calcification and have resulted in the bowel not receiving enough blood. This is called “ischemic bowel” and sometimes can be confused with a bowel obstruction. It is clear from your query that this is a very complicated problem in this patient and you do not
