Learn with Comfizz

Tuesday 21st June 2022 marks the launch of Comfizz' new products - our garments which have been largely made from materials such as organic cotton and bamboo. As a valued new, or existing customer, I'm sure you will have questions surrounding this launch, which is why we decided to put it all down here for you to read at your leisure (and maybe with a cup of tea and a biscuit too!)

Let's start this post by saying that drinking alcohol with an ostomy is not the same for everybody, as is the case with a lot of things in ostomy life. It is also different depending on which ostomy you have - ileostomy, colostomy or urostomy.

Carers Week (6th-12th June 2022) was something that was never on my radar until I had a poorly baby. Truth be told, I never thought of myself as a carer, just a Mum until I was made aware that such thing as Carers allowance existed when said baby was almost 2!! 

The person who is most aware of your ostomy's smell is you.  Also, it is normal to smell your ostomy output and gas when you are changing your ostomy bag. As you would if you went to the toilet the standard way to poo, it's natural for it to have a smell... After all, it is waste from your digestive system!

When asked by Pelican to be an ambassador I had been sharing our story for 4 years already. I started my page on Instagram @gutsy.mum with the aim of reaching anyone that may stumble on my page and feel like they are the only ones. Being an ambassador has brought with it so many wonderful opportunities, and for that I am so grateful for. I have learnt some lessons along the way too.

It is natural for endless questions to be whirring around your head and to feel apprehensive about the answers or not knowing where to go for answers. One of these questions that we know a lot of ostomates have after surgery, as they start to recover, is "what clothes can I wear with a stoma?" Many people panic that they'll have to dress in clothes that don't reflect the person they are and/or spend their lives hiding in baggy clothes.

As the wedding season began and the backlog of weddings put on hold due to Covid starting to fill the diaries, I was honoured to be Maid of Honour for my best friend. We have been friends over half our lives, met in school and as the old saying goes, the rest is history. Weddings are an exciting occasion for anyone, but when it's for someone as close to your heart as this, it means so much more.

There is a lot of criteria based on each individual in question going into ostomy surgery, such as your condition/reason for needing surgery. Other factors will play a part in this such as likely quality of life outcomes of surgery, age, chances of complications in surgery and/or recovery, whether the body may just need a rest to heal such as with some Inflammatory Bowel Disease cases where an ostomy may be reversed and whether other health problems may not make a patient a good candidate for future surgery. Every case is different, just as each illness and/or need for surgery is very personal and unique to that patient.

I am rather a sociable being and love the bones of my friends. Having a poorly child will show you very quickly who the real ones are, the ones that reach out. The ones that have the difficult conversations then entertain your anxieties and dramatics in times of hardship. Child-care has always been an achilles heal for us with a child with both an ostomy and a feeding tube. 

Unless you have had an operation to form a urostomy (where a stoma is formed to divert urine out of the body via the abdomen), you will pee as normal with an ileostomy & the same goes with a colostomy.  Both surgeries to form an ileostomy or colostomy divert bowel waste from the body, not urine. It is also possible for people to have stomas for both urine (urostomy) and bowel waste (ileostomy or colostomy) at once.