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Stoma Tips

Christmas 2020 is going to be different… That goes without saying! Having a stoma at Christmas can also be a journey to navigate. This post will hopefully give you some hints for getting through the changes that the Christmas period can bring, whether new or well bedded in to stoma life! Staying away from home This Christmas may not fall into this category with the “bubbles” being in place & guidelines for the clinically vulnerable, but hopefully these are pointers that can be used for Christmas’s to come either way. You may feel nervous and apprehensive if you are staying away from home, or have loved ones over to stay that may not know too much about your stoma journey....

So you’ve had your stoma surgery and you’re well on the way to making a full recovery and getting back to normal life, normal life being pretty much whatever you did before your illness but with a few differences. Apart from the obvious mechanical changes your stoma imposes, there’s not much that you can’t do, that you could do before your surgery, provided you take the right measures to reduce your risk of developing a parastomal hernia. The literature shows that over 50% of those with a stoma will go on to develop a hernia within the first two years after surgery (Boyles 2010. McGrath et al 2006, Thompson 2008). What exactly is a parastomal hernia? When a stoma is...

This post has an image of a naked stoma surrounded by output. I wouldn’t be doing my role as an advocate any good if I didn’t talk about leaks that stay contained. These happen to many ostomates and affect me probably the same as an “explosion” leak. Leaks either way they happen can be incredibly upsetting to the person experiencing it. The leaks that explode out from underneath the baseplate are ones you have to think fast before you need to wash more than just your clothes. The contained leaks are the slow burners as to speak. These ones are the ones that do the most damage to your skin. The ones that start with a sharp itch, but sometimes its...

Naked stoma in this post. Last week I spoke about some of the struggles I had been having with regards to my ileostomy and I try to talk about the good and the bad. Sometimes I hate my stoma. Actually scratch that I hate the things that make life with a stoma more difficult. Like hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and eczema. – with the hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome my stoma has started to fall in on its self; which is easier to deal with than a prolapse or at least I think so. But it allows leaks to happen as there is now a gap between my skin and the bag.– the eczema often ends up in me scratching my bag off....

Recently I have faced quite a few struggles with my ileostomy and they have taken quite the toll on my mental health; this comes after having my ostomy for over 4 years and having little to no issues prior to this. Some of the struggles I have been experiencing are: leaks – I do suffer with leaks but these have been happening far more often than usual sore peristomal skin itching increase in retraction swelling blockages soreness stoma cramping – this is probably my bowel kinking or becoming caught on adhesions and my goodness it is some of the most debilitating pain I have ever been in! To an extent I have experienced all of these before but not to this...

Understandably, when people first discover Comfizz’ stoma supportwear, they often have questions they would like answering before they consider buying. They also often don’t know that you can get certain Comfizz garments on prescription. In today’s blog post, I am going to answer a number of those questions for you. Some questions are ones I also had myself when I first discovered Comfizz back in 2011 when I had my surgery for my permanent ileostomy, which was done via a large incision down my stomach. Will it stop my stoma working? No, it won’t. If you have issues with your stoma not working when wearing the garments, it may be that you have the wrong size. The only time I...

You may, or may have never, heard of this term. You may have also heard it being spoken about along with protruding or retracting stomas. A flush stoma is a stoma that sits level with the abdominal skin level. My experience with a flush stoma I have had issues with this, which was caused by a narrowing just before skin level, just inside my abdominal cavity a few centimeters behind my stoma. The narrowing was causing my stoma to be pulled back down to the skin level. A few things can cause a flush stoma such as surgical technique, a narrowing behind the stoma as I have just mentioned, weight gain/loss and it can also simply just occur over time...

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...

I have at times struggled with my peristomal skin like I mentioned in a post last week when I wrote about self care for your ostomy I just wanted to talk about the different issues I have come across when it comes to the skin around your stoma, I haven’t experienced all of these but there are some accounts across social media where people who live with conditions talk about it in depth and openly. I guess that is the beauty of social media you can search tags and find almost anything!   When I say peristomal skin I personally mean the skin underneath the base plate; I’m not sure if that’s how the experts word it but it’s around the stoma...

What is stoma pancaking? We know it’s not going to be as pleasant as pancakes of the edible kind when we discuss pancaking in terms of stoma problems! Stoma pancaking can occur when there is little to no air inside of the stoma bag. This can lead to a vacuum forming, which then means output from the stoma stays stuck on  the stoma, or around the top of the stoma bag and on the bag filters. The output then cannot flow down into the stoma bag, unfortunately leading to the stoma bag coming away from the stoma in some cases, if not spotted early. This can then lead to sore skin, which can contribute to more leakages. Stoma pancaking can...