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Something I get asked a lot about is drinking alcohol with my ostomy; which makes me laugh because I don’t drink that often anymore but when I’m in the mood for it I sure do enjoy a drink. Last night was my birthday and I had a night out scheduled so I thought it was the perfect time to talk about having a boozey night when having an ostomy.  I have a few things that I like to do when it comes to preparing myself for a night out so that I don’t feel worse for wear in the morning, it isn’t a perfect prevention for hangovers but it definitely helps! drink a dioralyte or an electrolyte solution before you go out...

This month I decided the next company we could highlight is Dansac which is actually the first ostomy bag make that I ever tried as it has some kind of sponsorship with my hospital. Now for me that actually wasn’t an issue because the Novalife bags supplied by Dansac were really good bags and I used them right up until I found the Peak Medical bags I now use.  Dansac is quite a big company who have a range of products that are generally a good product for new ostomates as they don’t have many extra ingredients like vitamin E or aloe vera (all of which I react too) I think because of the size of the Novalife I got used...

Is this your first Christmas with an ostomy of any kind? Maybe you are a dab hand at this now or maybe you panic about running out of supplies over the festive period? Hopefully with this little guide on what I do when it comes to preparing to order my ostomy supplies delivery it might be a little less stressful! First of all please check out this post of when the last guaranteed delivery for Christmas is for the main companies here. Even though they are all open until around Christmas Eve some of them like to have a cut off date just to ensure you get those much needed supplies in time! So what else do I do before getting ready...

Having stoma surgery is definitely a big deal, whether for a temporary stoma or a permanent one. There is a lot of information out there that we all get bombarded with pre-surgery especially, leaving a lot of us feeling very overwhelmed and wondering where to start first when it comes to learning all about the stoma world! However, some people feel before surgery especially that they were not provided with enough support/information to prepare them for life with a stoma. Some people also have their surgery as an emergency, so may not have ever heard of a stoma before or actually had that time to prepare! It’s safe to say that you can read up all you like about having...

You may remember me moaning about the term accessory on this blog (and other platforms) in the past as we all have different needs when it comes to caring for our ostomies. I just wanted to talk a little about my favourite “accessory” and I would love to hear what yours are! These sorts of posts can often help someone suffering with something that could be easily remedied by adding another step into their bag changing routine.  Yes I have said it before and I will say it again the Peak Medical wedges are hands down the best thing I have in my supply kit. I used to like the Dansac seals before I found these little bad boys and...

We all have days where our ostomy drives us barmy and we have days where we *hopefully* barely notice it at all, but what things do you know now about your ostomy that you would have like to have known before you went down for surgery? One of my main ones was incredibly vain well to an extent it was and that was I didn’t think I could wear tight fitting clothes anymore. I literally tried on everything in my wardrobe with a bag stuck to my stomach and binned all the clothes I could see the outline in. I wish I hadn’t done that because some of those clothes wouldn’t have mattered with support wear or high waisted knickers....

This is something I have noticed when looking at photos of other ostomates we all have different ways of angling our pouches when we change our bags. I have tried it a couple of different ways and for me personally I like mine straight down or with a slight angling to my groin. It may seem odd for this sort of thing to intrigue me but it really does! Some people wear theirs horizontally which personally completely baffles me and when I tried it I hated it! Whether it was because it made me feel like more attention was drawn to my stomach which heightened my body dysmorphia I don’t know. Also the emptying just doesn’t seem very straight forward! However there...

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...

Are you new to having an ostomy? Did you know you if you maybe eligible (UK only) to get up to 6 garments a year which usually include underwear, support garments and support belts. In this post I want to talk to you a little about how you go about using this service. Firstly it does sometimes seem to be down to your GP’s discretion as to whether you need to have a medical exemption card or not so you may want to check with them first. The main point that I want to get across is that you don’t want to order lots of things at once because they may not suit your needs or fit. The best way...

So what do I mean when I say “flush”? Well it basically means how close your stoma sits to the skin on your abdomen. You often see people with stoma’s (not generally urostomies) that have quite a protruding stoma and that isn’t because of a prolapse but just the length the surgeon created it to be. I have often found that with people I have spoken too the ones with longer stomas tend to have had a loop surgery. This basically means everything is still attached inside but their stoma is formed whilst their insides are healing, this can be temporary or some people have it like that for as long as they feel comfortable with. My ileostomy is very...