Some Stoma Tips and Tricks

Take my advice; from someone who had an ileostomy several years ago and has been living with a stoma ever since, I know a thing or two about stomas and ostomy care. While it can be a bit of a nightmare at first, it is pretty easy to take care of your stoma once you get a handle on things. I have accumulated a lot of knowledge on this topic since I have quite a few years of experience in dealing with these things myself. Consequently, I wanted to be able to hand down some advice to my fellow ostomites out there and help you come to terms with your new stoma in a more productive way. Now, without further ado, here are some tips and tricks about life with a stoma.

The first tip I have is to keep your stoma as clean as possible. Having an ostomy means you have to deal with your stoma for the rest of your life, so it is super important to keep it nice and clean to avoid further complications. You should have been given plenty of ostomy supplies from the hospital after your surgery that should help you with the initial cleaning during recovery, but there are a few important things to remember here. It is totally safe to shower or even bathe with an ostomy, but you are going to need to make sure to keep any type of soap or oil away from your stoma in the case of irritation. Make sure to properly clean the stoma and the surrounding stoma area, and don’t be afraid to really get in there either to keep things clean.

Another helpful tip is to shave the area around the stoma fairly regularly. If you have a decent amount of body hair wherever the stoma is, it might be important to shave it off because it could be harder for your ostomy pouch to stick to your body. It might also be annoying or irritating when trying to peel the thing off the skin barrier if you keep pulling all your little hairs with it. 

Something else I would highly suggest is that you keep active. This usually means that you can keep doing whatever physical activity you enjoyed before getting the surgery no problem! If you like running, then keep running. If you like to lift weights, then keep doing that! However, I would suggest you be careful with weights to not hurt yourself or cause any further complications with your stoma. There are special belts and wraps that are made for keeping your ostomy pouch close to your body during physical activity, so those can come in handy if you are planning on doing some serious workout or any other physical activity.

A final tip I have for you is to travel! Get out doors, go on a road trip, plan a flight overseas; honestly do whatever the heck you want this is your life. Just make sure to pack twice as much supplies as you think you’ll need in case of delays or emergencies. Remember, life is out to get you so you have to be prepared for anything that gets thrown your way, especially when it comes to taking care of your stoma and your ostomy stuff.