Stoma Irrigation Issues with Hernia: Seeking Advice

Hello gang,

 I always irrigate my stoma every day at 5:30 am in the morning before going to work since 4 years now. I have been waiting since September 2020 for an operation for my hernia at my stoma.

 But , since a few days now  I have had trouble getting the water in and it hurts me. The water takes a long time to come out as well as the residues.

This morning I tried again after having managed to introduce half of the water; I had to go to bed and lay on my left side with a bowl in case the water starts to come out because it hurt too much.

I stayed in bed with my bowl  for 10 minutes and tried again to introduce the rest of the water. I succeeded but with pain and finally everything came out after 45 minutes.

 I always do my water insertion on my knees in front of the toilet and the water bag hanging on the high wall, and when the water is all in, I remove the cone and usually the water starts coming out immediately, and after 20 minutes everything is pretty much over.

My question is: why does it hurt now when I introduce water? And why does it take much longer for the residue to come out? The hernia hasn't grown since last year and my last scan in February 2022. 

What's going on inside of me?? I really want to continue to irrigate but I'm so afraid of having pain that I stopped eating today :( 

 Please help me!

Thank you

Danielle from Quebec, Canada

I don't have any knowledge of how irrigation works.  But with that much pain I would call a doctor.

Hi Sally ,

I already saw my surgeon last week, the one who will operate on me in the near future I hope :) precisely because of my hernia and my pain :(

Hello Shit Happens.

Sorry to here that you are having problems with irrigation. I have been irrigating for many years and, have had a few problems which I have resolved satisfactorily. 

One was that the cone device would not get the water passed my peristomal hernia so I devised an a adapted anal catheter and a pressure container to push the water through. This worked well for a number of years. However, recently I've had all sorts of problems with input and output during irrigation, to the extent that I decided to talk to the stoma nurse about it. 

She seemed in no doubt about what was likely to be wrong and described it as the colon collapsing on itself and no longer  able to enact the peristalsis to enable the irrigation to work satisfactorily.  She recommended that I stopped irrigating and went back onto bags. 

I think she was probably right in her diagnosis, but as you can imagine, I have been reluctant to accept this advice as irrigation has been so useful in the management of the stoma up to this time. 

I have continued to irrigate in my usual way and so far I have not had too many additional problems. If it stays like this, then I will continue to irrigate and hope for the best.  I figure that something 'might' go drastically wrong at sometime in the future,  but until that time I will not be following the advice given.

I hope that you will be able to sort out your own problems soon, as successful irrigation is such a useful management tool.

Best wishes

Bill