Learn with Comfizz
Food

Many ostomates, including Amy here at Comfizz, worry about eating fruit or vegetables, mainly down to its fibre contents. The same can be said for foods such as lentils, beans, tough skins. The idea of having a vegan diet often feels like swearing to ostomates, but there are ostomates out there who are vegan. A vegan diet isn't impossible with an ostomy, but it may take more time and energy to get it right and involve trial and error.

Today is Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) & I always count my lucky stars that thanks to my stoma, it is a day I can now enjoy and not dread. In the stoma world, we can also speak of pancaking, which isn't so tempting or enjoyable! To read more about this, you can check out my blog post I wrote in 2020 here.

I had the phone call a few weeks in advance for my ileostomy surgery last Summer during lockdown. We had to isolate as a family for 10 days and I was in no means mentally prepared. With Covid I didn’t expect to have the surgery anytime soon giving us all quite the shock! A few weeks is much more than some people get with many stomas formed as the result of an emergency surgery where patients wake up to find one without even know what a stoma is.

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...

I remember being between a rock and a hard place after having my ileostomy on what to eat. I had next to no appetite and when I did I just wanted all the foods I was a bit worried about. For instance there wasn’t much information out there about eating vegetables with a stoma and I was worried I was going to have to change my diet! So I came up with this soup which I still have in my rotation; normally I wouldn’t share a soup in the summer but the weather has been a bit up and down so I didn’t think it was the end of the world! You know the seasonal veggie packs most supermarkets have?...