Learn with Comfizz
Stoma Tips

Not everyone thinks about how to self care when it comes to your ostomy and until my depression hit really badly neither did I! Yet when you think about it, it is actually quite important to think about caring for your ostomy and yourself as even though it is part and parcel the two have slightly different requirements. As we all know our ostomy can be either a very steady and reliable little red blob OR it can literally be doing try outs for Dennis the Menace. We do have to roll with the punches sometimes and that is when our ostomy self care comes into play! Most of us have a fairly standard routine that we don’t often deviate from...

Have you ever experienced phantom rectum pain? If you haven’t or not sure what it is exactly this is how I describe it: the feeling of needing to poo or pass wind from your bum but it either has been sewn up or made defunct by a temporary stoma. A lot of ostomates have experienced this and it isn’t a particularly pleasant experience and when you think about it, it is hardly surprising as you often hear about people suffering phantom limb issues from an amputated limb.  It is very common in women around their periods and can cause more discomfort than usual and can cause twitching or cramps in the rectal area. That is certainly not to say other...

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...

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...

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...

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...