Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS)

It’s been a long road as a lot of you have being going through for years with a lot of naysayers out there! The fight is real and for those who have been dealing with this miserable syndrome! Keep fighting because there is light at the end of the tunnel!!! Don’t take a no for an answer, or it’s in your head because this is real! I must say you have to have a strong backbone along with support in getting to the resolution your wanting. To feel better and live a normal life. You have to keep plugging along.
The compression release and now the stent have definitely given my life back to me and for my family. I have two beautiful grandkids and I wasn’t going to sit around and waste away! I wanted to be able to run around and enjoy them!

If anyone has questions on who I used for doctors and etc. Please don’t hesitate in dropping a line.
Dr. Lowry was my General Surgeon that did my release. He’s out of Shawnee Mission Hospital & Providence Hospital. Very awesome doctor who listens and understands what your going through. Upfront and personal in your well-being.
Dr. Jenny Cho and Dr. DeCamp Vascular Surgeons. Both of them work together and put a plan together after my open procedure to release my ligament. I had laparoscopic that turned into open (zipper incision).
Both of them work for The University of Kansas Health System. Dr. DeCamp is just like Dr. Lowry down to earth and listens to all that you’re going through. With Dr. Cho and Dr. DeCamp both of them fixed what was broken. Again I’m grateful to all that helped me.

Congratulations ❤️❤️ I’m so happy for you! You have given me hope and have encouraged me. I also had unsuccessful compression surgery at a different hospital and I am eagerly awaiting news from Mayo that they will be able to insert a stent. God bless you and your wife (and my husband for putting up with me)!

@jayson Congratulations!! Such great news! So happy for you. Life changes from one day to the next with no more pain.
Sorry you had reaction to meds. I have been there! Nowadays, I will tell them that I get sick from some of the drugs.
Enjoy your summer/ with BBQs. Etc!

Hello ALL! So I wanted to update everyone on my latest procedure. May 10th I had a surgical procedure to have a stent put in my Celiac Artery. The procedure was going to be difficult because the angle of the celiac artery. If the surgeon wasn’t able to obtain the right position of the stent then I would have to have a riskier surgery. Where they would’ve put me under and go from my arm. Which can be very difficult because the main artery that runs in the arm could fail and it would cause my arm to lose blood flow. So, the Vascular Surgeon was going to do his best in positioning the stent just right to open up the artery that was closed off.

So for some that have had the decompression surgery. All. know stents will not work if you haven’t had the ligament released. It will just crush the stent and you will be back at square one again.

The procedure was successful and the placement was perfect and opened the blood flow that was missing. The only issue was the surgeon had the first stent inserted and had to take it out because it was way to long. But went with a shorter one and it was perfect. After the surgery I had some reaction to the meds that were administered and was very ill. I couldn’t hold down food or water for a day or two and was sick as a dog.

With all that happening. I had my first real meal and I had no pain no discomfort ar all!!!! I’m blessed and thankful to Dr. Cho and Dr. DeCamp!! They worked out a plan to fix the problem and I’m all good to go!!!

I want to thank my wife for being there through all of this and helped me daily.

Hi Angie, I wanted to make sure that you saw @jhmontrose's and @astaingegerdm's responses to you. And to also bring in members like @jayson @lasirvent and @ukmalsman to share their thoughts to your questions about managing symptoms and surgery.

Angie, how long have you been dealing with MALS? What symptoms do you have?

The pain in the chest close to the diaphragm probably is due to irritation of diaphragm, since the ligament was attached to it.
I was given Gabapentin, which worked well.

Just a little update, needing to vent... I am 7 weeks out from open MALS surgery and overall, my recovery is going well. But I have had some things happen the past week that have freaked me out a little. First, starting Wednesday morning I woke up sick to my stomach. Not exactly nausea, more like vague discomfort, and this happened again Thurs and Sunday. My first thought was maybe it's the ibuprofen. I have been taking 2-3 ibuprofen over the course of the evening to get my aches down close to zero so I can sleep. I tried sleeping on my side, but that was the morning the stomach discomfort started, so I'm on my back again. It's not exactly like what I experienced with MALS though, as with MALS I felt nauseous and had the sharp pain on my right below the ribcage. This stomach upset seems to be relieved simply by drinking water and waiting a bit, which is atypical of MALS pain. I went ahead and saw the doctor yesterday and he put me on an acid blocker and diclofenac topical ointment for pain.

Last night was okay, but I woke up early in the morning with brief flashes of sharp pain up in my chest on the right side, so that freaked me out too, even though again it's not in the same spot as the MALS pain. It feels like it's more in my diaphragm and related to breathing in deeply. MALS was the opposite, always relieved by holding a deep breath.

Everything else is going well, so I'm hoping all I have is gastritis from taking too much ibuprofen too long. My flexibility is really coming back thanks to physical therapy, and overall I have less pain than during my MALS flare ups. I think what I've realized though is that I basically have PTSD. Every time I feel a new pain or my stomach feels off, I wonder if the surgery failed for a 2nd time. Or I worry that I was misdiagnosed and it's something else. I'm trying to remain optimistic and reminding myself it's still fairly early in recovery. I'm waiting for that 3-4 month mark to really assess whether the surgery worked. I also am reminding myself there will be other options should the MALS come back, and I will keep fighting for good health.

Hello- I would really like advice and knowledge about how people deal with the pain and other symptoms? What treatments is surgery does not work? Do people typically work? Is a feeding tube typically in future? Are there any success stories?

It confirms that there is a significant stenosis and recommended angiogram with stent placement.
Sounds good!

This is the vascular surgeon's recommendation. Thoughts?