The superior mesenteric artery provides blood to the intestines, helping to keep them healthy and functioning. When disease affects this key artery, the body becomes unable to get proper nutrition.

Mesenteric artery disease can be difficult to pinpoint. Because it causes a person to experience pain after eating, it may be mistaken for severe indigestion or another digestive issue.

Over time, the debilitating pain and nausea that are common with the condition can lead to “food fear” and avoidance of eating to try to keep the symptoms at bay. As a result, weight loss and malnutrition often occur. Without the proper diagnosis and early treatment, complications or death are possible.

Donna Kimball of Arlington first started having symptoms of mesenteric artery disease in 2021. The condition kept the normally active 75-year-old from being with her grandkids, traveling, and doing projects around the house.

“I was nauseated when I ate, in pain, and it just continued to get worse,” Donna says. “I got malnourished, dehydrated, and was losing weight. I lost over 100 pounds. The pain really impacted my activities. It got so bad that I totally just had to stop and do nothing.”

To calm her stomach down, Donna would lie on her side. She changed her eating habits and tried over-the-counter antacids. Tests and scans were done but they initially led to a misdiagnosis of gastroparesis — a condition that slows the digestion of food by the body.

Donna was desperate for answers about the illness that seemingly no one could explain. That’s when she turned to Charles West Jr., M.D., a vascular surgeon at Texas Health Vascular Surgical Specialists, a Texas Health Physicians Group practice in Fort Worth.

“It was clear that she was having classic abdominal pain when she was eating food and she was losing weight,” West explains. “Just the basic task of life became almost impossible. We went on to look at her imaging studies and evaluate the mesenteric arteries themselves, where we found they were severely occluded.”

West was finally able to put a name to what Donna had been living with for years: chronic mesentery ischemia. Chronic mesentery ischemia is a type of peripheral vascular disease that happens when a buildup of fatty deposits blocks the mesentery arteries. 

In Donna’s case, the bowel arteries had become narrowed and blood flow was being cut off into her stomach and small intestines. Several of her arteries were so clogged that stenting to open them wasn’t an option. Instead, she needed a vascular bypass operation.

During the reconstruction procedure, a section of blood vessel from another place in Donna’s body was used to create a bypass. That bypass served to provide a detour around the diseased section of each artery and promote blood flow to the small intestine.

“I had instant relief,” Donna says. “I didn’t have any pain; it was wonderful. I didn’t have to worry about what I could eat, if it was going to hurt.”

“I would recommend Dr. West and Texas Health Vascular Surgical Specialists. I found him to be very personable, very knowledgeable, caring, compassionate. He literally gave me my life back,” she adds.

Since her recovery, Donna has been able to go on a cruise, and is planning for another one. She is spending more time with her grandkids and “enjoying being alive — period.”

To learn more about your vascular health, or to find a heart and vascular specialist for advanced care, visit TexasHealth.org.