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Stoma Tips

Tomorrow (Saturday 2nd October) is World Ostomy Day. This post, I thought I'd share with you some stoma facts (thanks to many great resources & my experience). What better time to share some facts than around World Ostomy Day?!

Men's Health Week has nearly come to an end (14th - 20th June). Obviously from my blog posts here with Comfizz, you read a lot about how life is for me as a female with IBD and a stoma. It's widely known that women often seem to be a lot more forthcoming in talking our their struggles & experiences in general, let alone with something so personal, so it's been really nice to hear from Neil, Andy, Lee, Sean & Keith about their experiences. Thank you so much guys for being so open & sharing your stories & tips.

Christmas 2020 is going to be different… That goes without saying! Having a stoma at Christmas can also be a journey to navigate. This post will hopefully give you some hints for getting through the changes that the Christmas period can bring, whether new or well bedded in to stoma life! Staying away from home This Christmas may not fall into this category with the “bubbles” being in place & guidelines for the clinically vulnerable, but hopefully these are pointers that can be used for Christmas’s to come either way. You may feel nervous and apprehensive if you are staying away from home, or have loved ones over to stay that may not know too much about your stoma journey....

This post has an image of a naked stoma surrounded by output. I wouldn’t be doing my role as an advocate any good if I didn’t talk about leaks that stay contained. These happen to many ostomates and affect me probably the same as an “explosion” leak. Leaks either way they happen can be incredibly upsetting to the person experiencing it. The leaks that explode out from underneath the baseplate are ones you have to think fast before you need to wash more than just your clothes. The contained leaks are the slow burners as to speak. These ones are the ones that do the most damage to your skin. The ones that start with a sharp itch, but sometimes its...

Naked stoma in this post. Last week I spoke about some of the struggles I had been having with regards to my ileostomy and I try to talk about the good and the bad. Sometimes I hate my stoma. Actually scratch that I hate the things that make life with a stoma more difficult. Like hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and eczema. – with the hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome my stoma has started to fall in on its self; which is easier to deal with than a prolapse or at least I think so. But it allows leaks to happen as there is now a gap between my skin and the bag.– the eczema often ends up in me scratching my bag off....

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...

So this is going to be my fourth Christmas with an ostomy and every year I find something different to make the festive period a bit easier for me, especially as I work, have kids and I do all the cooking! I like my ostomy to work with me not against me!   Obviously the first thing I like to do is have all of my supplies ordered and then I start filtering out my supplies to the tower of drawers I have in my bathroom, refilling my emergency kits that I keep in my handbags and then I pop the extras in clear boxes on top of my wardrobe. I also being the one that cooks the food in...

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...

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...