Dealing with Stoma Blockages in Colostomy Care

Hi - I have had a colostomy for 10 months. It is permanent. I have had good luck with it except for one thing: my poop gets hung up around my stoma and won't drop down into the pouch. This happens almost every day, meaning I am changing my bag almost every day. This is getting to be expensive. Recently, I adjusted my diet to include more fruit (canned, without sugar) and that seems to help loosen the poop up a bit, but it still hangs up. I am thinking about adding cooked vegetables to my diet. Will that help, do you think? Also, I have heard there is a product which lubricates the pouch so that the poop slides down to the bottom, but I have also heard that the lubricatinhg product neutralizes the odor-fighting capacity of pouch deoderant. Does anyone have experience with this? Any help would be very appreciated.

crossley8,

  You can use cooking spray to lubricate the inside of your pouch or anything that you like that would act like a lubricant that would be safe to eat since your stoma still absorbs nutrients as it is part of your digestive system.  Believe it or not, some ostomates that were not educated properly with stoma care have used industrial cleaning products to wash their stoma...*cringes*.  If it's not safe to swallow, don't expose your stoma to it.

  When I first got my ileostomy, I was given a hospital douche bottle to fill with water, open the end of my drainable pouch and squirt water in, swish it around and it would loosen/rinse most of the poo away.  I eventually gave this up as I can slide most of the waste out of my drainable pouch without water and it seemed like the water made the wafer break down a little bit faster.

  Since you have a colostomy, have you tried irrigating?  I hear it's all the rage with colostomates.  But this technique cannot be used for ileostomates.  It might resolve a lot of your issues.  Just my 2 cents.

Bain

Like Bain said...absolutely try irrigation!  What you're experiencing is called pancaking.  I had that same problem.  Nothing I used seemed to work very well.   You can try a pouch without a filter.  That way some air stays in the pouch and it can help.  Also, they have a lubricating deoderant that can lubricate the pouch as well as deodorize.  That can help too.  Good luck to you with everything...but irrigation is the only thing that really worked for me.

Linda

Hello crossley8. I'm with Bain and Linda.  Irrigation is definitely the way to go to resolve this problem during the active day. However, Irrigation only gives you the freedom from the problem once the output has ceased. I found that I was getting the same problem whilst the irrigation process was in progress in that the output would be sticking to the irrigation sleeve. After one or two sleeves detached in full flow. I decided to make my own. My device has a 90 degree detachable wastepipe bend that directs the flow away from the stoma and further down the sleeve, which also avoids splashback. In spite of the fact that it sticks out a bit, I wear this until all output has ceased, which is sometimes a couple of hours. The fact that it is much better contained and controlled, allows me to conduct the first part of the irrigation in less than 30 minutes. The rest of the time I can go about my normal business as I fold the sleeve up to form a large pouch, just the same as other people would use who don't irrigate.

I hope you find these replies helpful and I do urge you to give irrigation a try as it could completely change your waking day.

Best wishes

Bill 

I certainly am for irrigation! Even though I still use a two piece drainable pouch, I love it! I have not had any leakage and one flange and pouch last for 6 day so required supplies had decreased drastically! I do not even think of anything Ostomy when I walk out the door. Have an emergency bag in my purse that I have not opened other than to rotate supplies since I started irrigation! 

Hope you find what works for you! 

Puppyluv

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