Learn with Comfizz

Looking for ostomy education & related topics, helpful hints & real life experiences? Look no further! Browse our blog for support!

Things My Ostomy Allows Me To Appreciate

I spent a very long time being poorly and adjusting to life from a preteen being exhausted and thinking about where the nearest toilet was. Most people that now have an ostomy for whatever reason I’m sure have experienced that as well. Even though after my first surgery I had a little bit of remission I wasn’t able to fully enjoy my life as I went from having constipation to diarrhoea. I wanted to appreciate some of the things I can do now with toilets being the least of my worries!     Enjoying time with my kids; okay so Button came along after my ileostomy but Ra-Ra didn’t and she didn’t have much of a mum for those 2.5...

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Gardening With An Ostomy

Yes gardening is exercise if you are thinking “hmmmm why is it in the exercise category”! However I don’t blame you for questioning whether or not it deserves to be in this section; but during lockdown I certainly learnt it is hard work! 00Steve and I embarked on the back garden project where we entirely redesigned one corner of our garden. So we went from a lawn that slowly sloped up to holly trees to having two ponds, a rockery, a sunken trampoline, decking, two living walls and a raised bed herb garden! I started off by “supervising”, providing refreshments, keeping him company to actually getting stuck in!     We tried to share the workload, well as best as we could...

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Your Comfizz Stoma Supportwear Questions Answered

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...

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Ostomy Belts

Ostomy belts! Do you know what they are for? Do you use them? They are something that my stoma nurses remind me about when my stoma is being flush or a bit awkward (which at the moment is more often than I’d like!) The general idea behind the belts is they that help create a sort of vacum which pulls your stoma further into the bag. Every convex bag I have ever tried which is a fair few as part of my ostomy bag roulette series; has some clips on the side which is for the belt to attach too. All of the belts are adjustable and come in varying widths – I personally prefer the wider ones as they cut into...

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Aura Clothing

Recently I decided to take advantage of a sale Aura Clothing were having and bought myself a bikini and a pair of jeans. I just wanted to highlight their company for any lady who may be looking for a pair of jeans with ostomies in mind and fancy looking swimwear (that isn’t support wear – please don’t get them mixed up) Like with most small companies they may seem expensive but buying from them allows them to eventually pass the savings back to you in the long run. I am a big advocate of buying small and local when I can as once the company becomes established things become cheaper for them to make and then in turn the product becomes less...

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Pet Therapy

Pet therapy is a well known concept and I wanted to talk about how it has had a place in my life and to introduce my new dog Kobe! So I have worked in health care in a variety of settings for all my adult life and I have seen first hand how this kind of therapy can help many people be distracted from the pain they are in. Around the time that I started getting sick my parents got our dog Maxie she was a much loved little tart who loved a belly rub; she was never going to be a good guard dog although being a yorkshire terrier cross jack russell she knew how to bark. She used...

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Opinions on surgery can change sometimes

My opinions on my surgeries have changed over time and I certainly don’t feel the same way about ostomies as I did 12 years ago. Why 12 years ago? Well that is when I went in for my first bowel surgery and at 21 years old I had no idea what a stoma was, let alone there was the chance of having one.  The surgeon I saw decided he could do the jpouch surgery in one fell swoop which give him his due he did do and I often think now but at what cost? My newly formed pouch wasn’t given a chance to heal by not having the ileostomy which would have been a temporary measure. This popped up...

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Dressing with a Bloated Stomach

There are lots and lots of posts on the tinterweb about dressing with a stoma but very few about dressing with a stoma and a bloated or swollen stomach. This is the single biggest thing that I struggle with and sets off my body dysmorphia the most. Hopefully in this post it might give you some ideas on how to help disguise it if it is something that also bothers you. Of course I would love to be the person that sits here and gives you the magic formula to love yourself in your entireity but sadly I haven’t got that far myself yet. However I am trying to gain body confidence one step at a time and I managed to...

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Male Mental Health

Male mental health week starts on Monday and this is something that means a lot to me as I have lost two incredibly good friends and one I was close to in primary school to suicide. I honestly don’t know if talking to professionals would have helped two of them as they both had gone through some pretty awful stuff during their 27 years. If nothing else Josh and Ste definitely lived rock star style lives and they say rock stars die at 27.  I know many blokes that live their lives bottling their thoughts and feelings up for the fear of “not being man enough” through toxic masculinity. Men are humans and they have feelings too; we should all...

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‘A Stoma Patient’s Right To Die’ – The importance of emotional support within a patient’s stoma journey

You may, or may not, have seen the recent news last week regarding a male Inflammatory Bowel Disease patient, aged 34, at Barnsley hospital being given the right to die because he didn’t want to live with a permanent stoma bag. Before I go any further with this blog post, I am going to say that I am in no way making this about me and taking anything away from the man’s struggles & the struggles of his loved ones having to see him get to this dark place in his life. I am merely expressing my opinion & in no way is my opinion fact. It is what I feel and I believe we should all have the right...

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