I have a permanent radical ileostomy with complete removal of the rectum since October 1992, and it has been a significant problem to me. I am a man so I am naturally hairy on my chest and stomach areas even though I am not as hairy as an ape. Even so, I have found that after having a well-secured appliance installed, it might only be three days later when the itching would become unbearable. So I would open up the adhesive and spent several minutes of eye-rolling ecstasy wildly scratching the opened area with my fingernails. This is an almost identical situation one has when one has to have an arm or body cast. I had a semi-body cast as a teenager for a hip injury and the hairs of my legs would torment me unmercifully when it itched against the plaster casts on my legs. I would resort to taking a coat-hanger, bending it out of shape, then sliding it down the inside of the casts to scratch my legs. That only gave me cuts and tore the inner fabric of the cast lining.
So with the ileostomy appliance, every time I broke the adhesive and enjoyed several minutes of scratching, I had proverbial hell to pay later that night or the next day. It would leak uncontrollably and at the most inopportune times.
I did try shaving before, but the more one shaves, the faster the hair grows back, so it's an uncomfortable Catch 22, especially since the cost of ostomy appliances are very high.
I have recently tried something called Brava brand elastic barrier strips and it works to reduce the itching considerably because it creates a tighter seal. Each strip is shaped like an half-oval, so I take one half oval and put it around the top part of the gasket circle and take another one to cover the bottom half of the gasket circle. It does the trick better than the usual 3mm transpore surgical tape I used to tape up the sides of the appliance gasket circle with.
