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Have you heard of the term ‘granuloma’? It is a common side effect of having an ostomy and can be easily dealt with by your stoma care nurse.  Basically a granuloma is your skin healing up on broken skin; they look like little red lumps around your stoma site and some can bleed or be uncomfortable. You can get them from friction caused by your bag or your peristomal skin being sore or damaged. Your stoma nurse can remove these with silver nitrate which can sting a bit but it shrinks them down to nothing over a short period of time. It is a very similar treatment to what they use for warts. I had a couple of granulomas when I...

Hopefully we are getting to that time of year again where the weather shows some promise of getting warmer and with that promise I wanted to talk again about hydration and just how important it is for all ostomates. For years we get told to drink more water or to ensure we are drinking enough fluids and whilst that is true as ostomates we have to be very careful about what we are drinking. I believe that it is something we should be aware of all year round to be honest because in winter we have the heating on and that can also affect our hydration, but we are generally speaking less active and notice it less. Then in the...

So this week’s post is a little late as my house was hit by the 24 hr tummy bug and along with a partial blockage I got struck by it twice! I wanted to talk about a little about my experiences with a smaller tummy bug rather than the gastroenteritis I suffered with last year! And how it all affected us differently. So it technically began on my birthday (26th) and my kiddies went to stay with their Grandma so that 00Steve and I could have the night to ourselves – not that we had anything planned in particular. His youngest brother still lives at home and his girlfriend often stays on the weekend. She ended up being the first person to...

 hopefully won’t have to use this either ever again (wishful thinking) or very rarely but I have spent a good chunk of my life in and out of hospital and I have learnt a thing or two that was helpful for admissions. So I thought for those who may be new to chronic illness I would do a little post on what I do for those just in case moments. I always have a bag packed because if I am in a lot of pain I really don’t want to be faffing about packing a bag, plus since having my ostomy 00Steve doesn’t know what I use – now don’t get me wrong he would definitely grab me some bags but...

Now you may be wondering why I am writing about cervical smears on an ostomy related blog but you might be surprised to hear that ostomies more often than the others; urostomies can be formed due to radiation damage from having cancer treatment. For instance cervical cancer can be treated by both external and internal radiation in the pelvic area. Last year I had a long over due smear test and they found high grade pre cancerous cells which if were left over time (up to 15 years) could have turned into cervical cancer which is a terrifying thought. It was pretty hard on my dad as he lost his sister when she was 17 to cancer and his dad...

There are a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to the flu jab and I just wanted to talk about how I have dealt with the flu jab this week and my reasons for having it. I had my flu jab on Wednesday afternoon after waiting a few weeks to be able to be booked in; which since we are only a small area was quite surprising as when I have had it were I used to live it was quicker to get an appointment and that covered a much wider area. Firstly I wanted to have the flu jab as I suffer really badly when I get a cold and can imagine I would be far worse if...

This week has been national invisible disabilities week and if you have an ostomy you automatically fall into that category as unless you lift your top up it isn’t visible and although you may not view it as a disability it is in fact one as the way you go to the toilet has been changed which can put you at a disadvantage. I believe that although it can be a pain in my redundant bum; I don’t feel that I am disabled as I have more of a life now than I did back then. However that is in no way to say that having a disability means that you can’t live “your best life” as the cool kids...

So if you have Inflammatory Bowel Disease you maybe aware that today (the 19th of May) it is World IBD Awareness Day. It is the official day (although most of us do it 24/7) to raise awareness of the ins and outs of our disease, how it affects our daily lives and that it isn’t just a pooping disease. This is the NHS definition of IBD is : Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a term mainly used to describe two conditions: ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are long-term conditions that involve inflammation of the gut. Ulcerative colitis only affects the colon (large intestine). I myself suffered with Ulcerative Colitis from a very young age and have had two surgeries because of the disease and...