Looking for Help?

Are you struggling with your ostomy? Do you feel alone if your stoma wasn’t formed due to Cancer or Inflammatory Bowel Disease? Well did you know that the internet isn’t just full of horror stories and that social media has evolved past just photos of what you had for dinner or what you have been doing during the day? In this post I want to talk about the main three social media types and how they can hopefully benefit you.

So we will start off with the one most people maybe familiar with which is Facebook; obviously I have Ulcerative Colitis which is a form of IBD but 20+ years ago the internet wasn’t what it is now and there was only forums which didn’t always notify you when someone replied. So when I decided to have my ileostomy 4 years ago I spent 6 months on groups that I found by chance on a blog. So I fully believe that if you type what you are looking for into the search bar and there should be a group or a page that is related to what you may have.

Next up we have Twitter, a lot of people tend to be more open on this platform because tweets can get get lost as it is quite fast paced. Again you can search for specific terms and it will come up with the tweets that relate to it or even accounts that post about your search term or things that are similar. Also Twitter users often create chats at a certain time and date on specific topics which can also be useful.

Lastly we have Instagram which may surprise a lot of people but it isn’t just about pretty pictures of your kids or food anymore! Again searching for conditions etc will show up different accounts or specific posts. If you don’t want to follow the account itself you can now follow the hashtag which will allow you to see the top posts related to the tag.

I know not everyone likes technology let alone social media but it really can open up new avenues to feeling part of a group even if it’s not a group you originally wanted to be a part of.