Can you feel it?

This is something that a lot of people have mentioned thinking about but haven’t always been comfortable bringing it up. For instance when I had my ostomy training at work someone asked if you could feel it as it produced output. My stoma nurse said no you can’t feel it.

Now I guess for the most part that is true because well there are plenty of times I knock my back or look down and think oh! when did you fill up? Yet more often than not I am very aware of my output being produced. Whether that is because it goes from being incredibly thick or being so high frequency I am always on high alert for leaks.

I took to Twitter and did a flash poll on whether people with all ostomy types could or couldn’t feel their stoma producing output. Sadly as Twitter only allows 4 options *shakes fist* I had to ask those with a urostomy to comment which they may not have felt comfortable doing and I completely understand that.

My flash poll ran for 2 short hours and got 30 votes which actually isn’t that bad! Here are the results:

• ileostomy yes – 60%
• ileostomy no – 17%
• colostomy yes – 20%
• colostomy no – 3%
• sadly I don’t think we got any urostomy votes this time round

So there we have it you definitely can feel your output! It may not be all the time as it was pointed out but it is certainly a thing which is interesting as it is supposed to have no nerve endings in, but hey ho!