Scar tissue can create lasting problems.

Byline: Nichole Aksamit

Sep. 24--Countless X-rays, scans and medical tests. Years of debilitating pain, nausea and bloating. Partial bowel obstructions. A divorce and a lost job. Seven abdominal surgeries. Weeks in an Ohio hospital on the brink of death. Twenty-six-year-old Robin Leeling of Omaha never thought having her appendix removed seven years ago could possibly lead to this. Like most people, Leeling hadn't given much thought to adhesions, a kind of scar tissue that can form after almost any surgery. It's not something she recalls her doctor mentioning. She was young. And scarring is part of the body's healing process.

But for people who scar easily or aggressively, as Leeling did, even minor surgery can lead to major problems. And, anecdotally at least, the number of people showing up in emergency and operating rooms with adhesion-related disorders, or ARD, is on the rise. Severe internal scars -- known as dense or type 2 adhesions -- can impede or connect normally free-floating tissues and organs. They can cause chronic pain, infertility and life-threatening bowel obstructions. They also can delay or complicate future surgeries. Leeling said it took years for doctors to discover the likely cause of her chronic pain and recurrent bowel problems: dense adhesions attaching her intestines to her abdominal wall. She thought laparoscopic surgery to remove the scars, detected two years after her appendix was removed,…