Talk:Hirschsprung's disease

Who
I changed my edit. That was my research paper! you dont know what you are talking about anyway You are writing for a collaborative encyclopedia, and even if your research is accurate beyond our wildest dreams, it will need to be published elsewhere first before we can quote it.
 * You style is also rather narrative, which is not necessarily ideal for an encylcopedia. I think a list of the symptoms and therapies is more important than its historical context. JFW | T@lk  21:36, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that this is an encyclopedia that ANYONE can edit. Also, this stuff is not original, but it's not plagurized either...it's an accurate essay that does not have any "new ideas". It works. Leave it alone.


 * Yes, ANYONE can edit Wikipedia, but we are trying to make an encyclopedia, not a suspense novel on the history of aganglionosis of the rectum. Wikipedia, in the end, is for the purpose of the reader and not for a contributor who decides that his work should be in there.
 * Please have a look at any other medical article (such as Crohn's disease) and adopt a different style. Your contributions are welcomed, but every other editor of Wikipedia reserves the right to edit it mercilessly. This may hurt your ego, but that's how a Wiki works. JFW | T@lk  09:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok, good compromise, I like what you did with the paper.

Has anyone thought of adding a portion pertaining to the effects of Hirschsprung's disease on an individual if no surgical actions are taken? Like if diet changes solve the problem until the child matures physically to the point where they can have voluntary bowel movements only? Vancar 08:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If no surgical actions are taken after diagnosis, that individual will most likely die due to enterocolitis. The only treatment is surgery, and there is no diet changes you can make to solve the problem. The affected part of the intestine has no peristalsis due to the absence of the nerves needed to perform peristalsis. You have to have peristalsis in your intestines in order to have a bowel movement, and the only way to do that is to remove the non-funcitonal part of the colon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.186.67.181 (talk) 00:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * "that individual will most likely die due to enterocolitis" Yeah, "most likely." I have hirschsprung's disease and luckily didn't require surgery to continue living a pretty normal life. Needless to say, I still have health problems concerning it, but not all cases REQUIRE surgery. There can be severe and not so severe cases of hirschprung's disease depending on how much of the intestine is affected. Of course, my personal experiences can't be included in the article, so I was wondering if anyone's seen any published research on people with hirschsprung's disease who opt not to have surgery? 210.253.243.157 (talk) 08:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay whatever... i was looking at this for a report that i have to do for science trying to get someinfo. i thought it was quite useful! i had no idea a student had written it! so uh, thanks and great job!

How could you come to Wikipedia and NOT know that it's written by everyone? That's the entire point of Wikipedia. Also, you shouldn't use Wikipedia for reports, as you are generally NOT allowed to cite Wikipedia, as it is not a credible source for most professors, as anyone can edit it. ~ Vancar not logged in, at work. wtf WP:OWN Matzerath1 (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Diagnosis section?
Related to diagnosis (and I don't see how to launch a new section of "talk"): the lead sentence of "Signs and Symptoms" appears to have had someone(s) add a couple of qualifying remarks without looking at their impact on the sense of the sentence, and it's now a train wreck:

"Typically, Hirschsprung's disease is diagnosed shortly after birth, although it may develop well into adulthood, because of the presence of megacolon, or because the baby fails to pass the first stool (meconium)[5] within 48 hours of delivery."

Can someone who knows enough (e.g., who knows where the megacolon remark should tie in) please fix this sentence? And is "develop" actually the right word there? You could be born with a full set of bowel nerves and then have some disappear after you grow up? Is the sentence supposed to mean the following?

"Typically, Hirschsprung's disease is diagnosed shortly after birth, or because the baby fails to pass the first stool (meconium)[5] within 48 hours of delivery, although it may develop well into adulthood as a result of megacolon, " 71.241.221.91 (talk) 12:00, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

The treatment information in the article is helpful. Would those with knowledge of the subject care to tackle creating a section about symptons & diagnosis? It's really not my area of expertise. --Pesco (talk) 03:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

My daughter had Hirschsprung's in 1985, which I had never heard of before. It started off with her being admitted as an infant with Gastro-enteritis. I now do believed that she would have died if she didn't have surgery. Firstly, she had a colostomy for about a year and thanks to a surgeon from Britain called DR.Whore, my daughter is still alive today. She is very petite in size, but to tell you the truth I would rather have half of her than none at all. (Concern mother).

I was born with this disease in 1981 and I believe it was diagnosed due to (as it says in the main article) me not passing meconium within 48 hours of delivery. I've also been told by my mother that I seemed to be in quite a lot of pain, had a bloated stomach / bowel and couldn't keep any of my food down - which stands to reason, if I couldn't pass anything then it had to find another way out! I had the colostomy procedure when I was about 5 days old (if not before) and spent about a year / 18 months with a colostomy bag fitted. After that a reversal was performed and everything put back inside where it came from and stapled together again (I saw the surgical staples later in an x-ray when I was about 16). As far as health is concerned, I'm not aware of any long term adverse effects of first of all having had the disease and secondly having been treated in the way mentioned above. I'm now 28 and physically fit (granted a little over weight and a tad short in stature but that's down to my parents both being a bit on the short side as well and my affinity for food) and apart from a pretty hefty scar across my abdomen you wouldn't know what I'd been through. Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.176.148.45 (talk) 16:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Would there be any reason why you would not want the surgery performed if it corrects the disease? Anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8071quick (talk • contribs) 23:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

New Treatment?
In the article it says "There used to be two steps typically used to achieve this goal." do they do it in one now? Does anybody know what has changed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bongo Whack (talk • contribs) 16:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This article also does not describe alternative treatments post-pull through such as a bowel management program. In addition, it is up to the surgeon to determine if the initial surgery will be one step or two. 192.122.250.250 (talk) 14:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Strange reference
Someone put in a plug for a surgical ostomy book, Unwanted Baggage. There is nothing wrong with that in the context of this article, but it should be referenced with a citation at the end (with page numbers), rather than a statement like "Details of ostomical sugery and its results can be found in the book Unwanted Baggage by P. and E. Prosser."Druep (talk) 02:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Removal of "citations needed" and "too technical" tags
I removed the citations needed tag, because it looks like the article is now fairly well referenced. Also, I removed the tag describing the article as being too technical for most readers to understand, after working on it considerably. I think the article is much more accessible now, but if anyone objects, let me know! Rytyho usa (talk) 08:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Possessive or not?
whether disease names should be rendered in the possessive or not remains a source of considerable controversy. i have my own feelings on the subject, but i'm not going into that debate here. all i'm going to say is that within an article, we should be consistent. alternating between hirschsprung disease and hirschsprung's disease just looks sloppy. Toyokuni3 (talk) 15:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

"So-called" abbreviation "HD"
This is untrue. The abbreviation of Hirschsprung's disease is NOT HD. You could abbreviate every disease this way. HD is an abbreviation for Huntington's disease. Nobody would guess you're referring to Hirschsprung's disease. You can't just invent abbreviations... 182.255.99.214 (talk) 04:59, 14 March 2015 (UTC)


 * You're on the way to the whole truth. HD is indeed sometimes used to mean Hirschsprung disease, and it has been since long before Wikipedia existed (here's an example in PubMed from 1998). But what you've stumbled upon is the fact that almost every two-letter acronym, including almost every such acronym used in medicine, has many expansions (many meanings), which makes it a potentially ambiguous sign. Such potential ambiguity is pervasive in natural language even though it doesn't always work well, in terms of clear communication—and the reason it ever works at all is that context usually narrows in on the intended meaning. One main way this happens is when a writer defines an abbreviation at first mention in a document and thus conveys to the reader, "when I say HD herein, it means Hirschsprung disease" (see the 1998 example). Another main way this happens is by the relative strength or weakness of certain senses of an acronym compared with others—and this way, too, is also context-sensitive, because it depends on, for example, the subject matter of any given document. When people in health care say BP, you can usually expect that it probably means blood pressure, and in any given instance this is strengthened by the local context (for example, a nurse doing a physical examination may say BP and DOB to a colleague and no one wonders about ambiguity—they obviously mean blood pressure and date of birth). However, BP has at least 30 other expansion in other health care contexts, including buccopalatal (dentistry), bronchopulmonary (pulmonology), and breech presentation (obstetrics)—as well as boiling point in chemistry generally. Wikipedia has a list of medical abbreviations, but it is still way too underdeveloped to show the 2, 5, 10, or 30 different meanings that a typical medical acronym has. There are various good paywalled products that provide this info—databases of medical abbreviations. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

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