Nuts and an Ostomy

This can be quite a controversial topic for many ostomates (bowel ostomates anyway) whether you can eat nuts or not! I have in fact seen many heated debates on Facebook groups and have even had people arguing with me over the fact I can eat them! Which I have to admit I found absolutely laughable as our ostomies and the diseases that lead us to have them are just as individual as we are!

 For as long as I can remember I have had struggles with foods either being trigger foods (yet that took 20 years for anyone to tell me what foods to pay attention too) intolerances, the odd allergy and now foods that affect either my output or possible blockages.

I don’t think I can imagine not eating nuts if I’m honest; obviously if they actually caused me issues then I would have to just get on with life without them but ultimately I don’t want to stop eating nuts. I have found compromises in how I eat them such as spreads or chopped up small, even baked into cakes like coffee and walnut. This tends to be the deciding factor on how your digestive tract can cope with them or not; for instance the smaller or softer they are it tends to be (I find) easier to digest. Whereas if I have a bowl of mixed nuts in front of me or even chocolate coated brazil nuts they are going to give me more jip as I know I suck at chewing my food properly.

I have at times panicked as I can feel them coming out and I then worry more about pancaking than blockages. One of my friends ate a packet of peanuts and had no output for a good few hours and was on the borderline if not already suffering from a blockage; it actually took them sneezing for it to suddenly fill his bag up!

I did a quick poll on whether people find they can eat nuts or not with their ostomy and here are the results of that mini poll:

• yes – 58%
• no – 25%
• haven’t tried – 17%

A few comments were along the lines of people eat them and chew them really well, or they don’t eat them often as they can feel them coming out of their stoma, one comment even said they enjoy playing with the nuts once in their bag!!

The struggle with nuts can be definitely real but if you want to try nuts I fully suggest chewing them to oblivion and drinking plenty as this can help prevent blockages in any food situation and is just good general advice to observe. How do you find eating nuts with your ostomy?