Reply to Sadostomate
Hi Sad,
Yeah, agree. I've recommended many times that people on here read that book, and I've even posted all the chapters on here at least twice. But you can only lead a horse to water........you can't make 'em drink. No pun intended.
But you're right, there is zero effort by our medical professionals to provide us with the correct info we need as ostomates. I've found the whole subject of ostomies falls between the cracks of medical professional specialties. Dermatology is clueless, surgeons only know how to cut and sew things back together, and Gastroenterologists only deal with internal bowel issues. So......as soon as you mention "ostomy" you're directed to the ostomy nurse, who is usually well versed in wound care. And while they do have a lot of experience with ostomy problems, they don't know it all.
The whole subject of diet, supplementation and hydration is almost never mentioned to newly made ostomates. I was lucky in a weird twisted way, in that while on TPN my home infusion dietician recommended Carol's book to me, and as you know........it was a game changer. But had it not been for her recommendation, I would have been in pretty deep shit. Yeah, pun intended that time.
Ever since I got on here, some 8 years ago, I've said this site needed 'stickies' where we can put information that everyone can reference, but this site just doesn't support that. So info just disappears into the ether when folks stop reading that post. There's a lot of info relevant to ostomates that could be saved and readily available, especially to newbies.........but to no avail. Such is life, I guess.
;O)