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Bowel kinking is a thing and I have been in the past hospitalised for it; for me personally it is the worst pain I have had since having my ileostomy formed 4 years ago. Don’t get me wrong I have had some nasty blockages especially the partials which come and go over a few days and I have had a particularly nasty stomach bug which also landed me in hospital! So for me to say these kinks are bad for me they are hella bad! I have no idea what kick starts them off as there have been different situations the one that lasted a week we have absolutely no idea and I had x-rays and a CT scan! It came in...

Tuesday 19th May is World IBD Day. With this coming up, I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about Comfizz and the impact they have made on my stoma journey. How I got my stoma At age 7 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Crohn’s Disease can be anywhere from your mouth to your bum, but a lot of people typically have it in the small intestine. This was where it was diagnosed with me. Being scared as a young child of having scopes (endoscopy/colonoscopy & I still am now, I can just push myself through it), I didn’t undergo tests to keep an eye on things as frequently as you maybe would with an adult with bowel...

For those of you who are still working and have the ability to work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, suddenly being at home all the time can be a big change to adapt to. You more than likely will experience a whole array of emotions during the working from home process, speaking from my own experience! Self-isolation – a not-so-new concept Having had signs of Inflammatory Bowel Disease for as much of my life as I can remember, followed by my diagnosis at the age of 7, staying at home is no stranger. Up until around the age of 20, I spent most of my time at home. When I wasn’t at home, I felt edgy, anxious, apprehensive and a lot...

Did you think that your ostomy may help you with home schooling your kids? Nope well it can do!! Ra-Ra is learning about the human body right now; more specifically the organs, so what better way to talk a bit more about ostomies (and poop and pee) than during this topic. We have a whatsapp group amongst the mums in our year group to help give each other ideas etc and one mum is a flipping genius she got some wallpaper and drew round her son on the back and had him draw on the organs from his encylopedia. Now I didn’t have any wallpaper but we had some fax style paper which I luckily had enough to draw round...

Some of us may have seen the memes about how us social recluses or those with social anxiety have been preparing for this our whole lives but I can honestly say that at first I laughed at it and although I use it as a deflection of how I really feel; yet this lockdown is going to break me mentally. Just a little bit of context it has been 4 months since I last thought about ending my life and just over a year ago that I acted out on my plans. With the local mental health teams just pulling out entirely when I needed them most I spent last summer not leaving the house; I couldn’t even bring myself...

Understandably, what is going on in the world right now with Covid-19 can be very daunting & scary at times for a number of reasons. We have all had to make changes, some of them quite dramatic, in a very short space of time. Some of us may have sadly experienced the virus closer to home or have tragically lost someone as a result of Covid-19. There is so much uncertainty around what may happen or how long adapted life like this will pan out, but I wanted to take this opportunity to hopefully provide a little bit of reassurance on living with a stoma at this time, & hopefully answer a few questions you may understandably have. If I...

Trigger warning: In this post, I discuss mental illness in some detail so before you read on, please do so with caution/self-care steps in place or avoid if you are mentally struggling. Remember, my inbox is always open on my Instagram and via e-mail: hashtagstomabags@gmail.com. I also include mental health support links in my previous post & there is a Samaritans link at the end of this post. Please remember that the views in this post are my own only. I am not a professional and am in no way giving concrete advice. If you are worried, it is always best to consult a medical professional/someone you trust. Understandably, having a chronic illness & having surgery of any type can have a huge...

So today I want to talk about the Coronavirus which is obviously causing mass hysteria and worry. As people with compromised immune systems we obviously do have a right to worry but is most of the information shared on social media just hype and bad case scenarios rather than being fully informative? I have spent a few days reading different articles and after some posts on Facebook I have seen that just seemed like pure scaremongering I felt that this post needed to be done. I want to highlight that although I work within the healthcare sector I am not a nurse or a doctor so I will cite sources as required. I would also like to state that any...

Last year I chose to speak only about one special woman and it was our very own Lorraine but this year I have decided to change it up a bit and talk about some women within the ostomy world who aren’t just ladies I have the privilege of calling my friends but they are the epitome of strength and resilience. They each have their own vulnerabilities of which they share with the whole world via their social media channels. So without further ado here they are: Amy – @ibdwarriorprincess  Amy is my fellow blogger here on Comfizz and is the first person to check in when my mental health isn’t that great. She has Crohns and an ileostomy; her blogs were some...

Today March 8th is International Women’s Day and this is going to be a little bit different to what we usually talk about on our Friday post’s but today I wanted to celebrate our Big Boss Lady Lorraine and why her like every other woman in our life needs to know that they are important and that we recognise that.  Lorraine as you may know has had lots of experience around Inflammatory Bowel Disease what with her Dad having Ulcerative Colitis and her youngest son having Crohns disease. She and her husband Big Boss Man Nozar started this company after Ernie had his ostomy formed and there wasn’t really any support wear available that wasn’t just as I put it...