What is Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction?

C.I.P.S. is a disorder of the digestive system (also known as a motility disorder) that effects the movement of contents through the intestinal tract. Although it usually affects the small intestine and large bowel, some people experience difficulties linked to their oesophagus and/or stomach. The expression ‘pseudo-obstruction’ is used to describe the disorder because patients have symptoms usually associated with an obstruction somewhere in the digestive tract and yet no physical obstruction is present.

Although it is rare, it can be life threatening and can often affect infants. Children/Adults with intestinal pseudo-obstruction are not able to eat normally because of symptoms that may include pain, abdominal distension, nausea, high volume vomiting, diarrhoea or severe constipation. This can result in becoming under nourished because the body is unable to absorb sufficient nutrients, or because eating is restricted to avoid unpleasant symptoms after food. Pseudo-Obstruction causes severe pain requiring opioid analgesics often on a daily basis.

In many cases extra nutrition is needed and this can take the form of nutritional supplements or taking nutritional ‘feeds’ directly in the stomach, or into a vein. As a last resort Total Parental Nutrition – TPN (the slow infusion of a solution of nutrients into a vein through a surgically implanted catheter) is considered, although complications associated with the long term use of TPN include infection and liver failure, which can be difficult and life threatening sometimes necessitating small bowel and liver transplantation