Have you ever been caught short with your usual product and had to use something different for instance a bag you no longer use but still have some in your stoma storage? This recently has happened to me regarding my ostomy bag and it stems from a little mix up with my delivery company.
So we all know human error happens and that is basically what has created a knock on effect along with my hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome being a pain in my non existent ass. The way my hEDS affects my ostomy is basically the bowel (or in my case just the small bowel) uses peristalsis to move the poop through your body to be removed by going for a poo in whichever way you do it. The connective tissue in my bowel is too relaxed and doesn’t move in the way it should which creates essentially slow transit of the waste, this causes you to become constipated or in my case really thick output that pancakes rather frequently.
So before Christmas I was sent my usual supplies order and that was fine till I opened the box for a change and saw round convex base plates instead of the oval convex ones I use. I prefer the oval shape as my stoma is flush but likes to retract and it is fairly oval shaped itself so that in reality isn’t a huge issue using a round one but it is preference. I rang the company and found out it was a case of the two types are next to each other in the warehouse and sent me out boxes of the correct bags. Perfect or so I thought.
I ran out of my oval bags sooner than I usually would due to having far more leaks than normal due to the pancaking. Surgery is seeming more and more imminent for a refashion to bring my stoma further out which should help with the leaks that are caused by my stoma being flush/retracted. I obviously knew I had the round bags I could use in the meantime until my next delivery comes, sadly due to the tiny difference in the base plate shape it hasn’t been able to fit my body shape properly and I have had 4 days where I leaked in a row and my skin is red raw because sadly my output is as acidic as it is a high frequency. So having the added effort of layering up my skin with a barrier wipe, powder and my fail safe wedges has been a bit more labour intensive, when usually I just use one product.
For me it really just showed the need for me to use the correct product for my needs – sure I will still try out other bags and review them but ultimately for now at least the I have the bag that suits me fine. For anyone interested it is the Peak Medical Ileomate oval convex. Obviously the images in this post show the colostomy versions but I use the drainable pouches.
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