Managing Ostomy Pouch Smells: Seeking Advice

Question

I keep reading about this very personal issue regarding the distressing problem for stomates all over the world.....smell! Yep, we've all had it or have it, it's not the first time and won't be the last. I think it's safe to say that this smell has become part of our lives and we all more or less agree that it is a more intense experience than it was before surgery. I am just 12 months into my ostomy journey and I've read so many difficult to live with situations that deal solely with the dreaded smell, the bloody thing is alive you know and waits for the best time to ruin your day! There isn't any smart formula to help so we all have to grin and bear it with the hope that a stomate can and usually does show a way forward.
Now I'd like to ask a question, yes it's about the smell. I don't think I have yet read about how and where people wrap or keep used pouches until it's convenient to dispose of them and how do you manage the smell in the meantime. Let me explain the predicament as I try to work around it.
I live in the UK in Yorkshire and we are told by the hospital staff and any other governing body that our used shitful pouches must be disposed of in our normal household waste bin, there is no medical collection strategy to dispose of them. Well that in itself is ok isn't it, until you actually start to physically process the day-to-day routine involved and then the plot thickens day by day doesn't it. Now because my colostomy produces almost normal output I am recommended to use closed pouches of which I use on average 2 per day and that of course is 60 per month. My bags are quite full after use and I at first started as usual by putting them in the black plastic bags and tying a knot, then into the 'in-house' kitchen bin. Well that was a great idea.. I stunk the friggin' kitchen out and couldn't eat my vittles. I went straight out and bought a lovely, nicely designed container made specially made for the collection of and further disposal of the bags when full with estimated 15 knotted black bags. These bags were also further protected from allowing any permeating smell by passing into an internal larger bag through nicely fitting strong rubber flaps. I increased the anti-smell properties of this rig by spraying my best male 'kill every smell on earth' spray and proceeded to add the mounting daily portions of my much-coveted shit and kept it in my wardrobe out of sight, hoho, that sorted the problem out, didn't it? Woohooo!!
No.. it pissin' didn't, I had to wash my sodding shirts and beg my family not to section me for having the brain of a gnat! Right, gloves off and slipped quietly into SAS mode, reassessed, then decided on another approach to double knot each bag, all to no avail. Depression now started to set in when I finally broke through and started to double knot the bags as before and then double bagging each of these individual bags and finished by double knotting each of the double-bagged bags. Incredible don't you think? Turned myself around and won the day! No such luck, the problem is insurmountable without bomb-proof black bags, or I'm too bloody stupid to expect to beat the dreaded smell.
The whole of this is perfectly true and it is totally beyond me to understand how a simple shit smell can find its way through so many layers of plastic within a few days and it's a strong smell after all that. I might add that since then I have tried emptying the pouches of about 95% of the bag contents before going through the same performance as before without success and the reason I try to do this is because I have a dread that our outside trash bins which are the wheelie type and are susceptible to blowing over in the wind and spreading our 60 bags of adorable trash all over the road. We live high in the Penine Range and have high winds.

FAZ · Answer

I use disposable inserts. Rather than getting rid of the pouch, I get rid of the disposable, flushable insert.

MagicFlute14 · Answer

I use closed pouches. I used drainable before, but prefer the closed ones. I put the used pouch in the bag that comes with the pouches, and found that if I do 3 knots instead of just 1, the smell is practically nonexistent. If the pouch is too runny, I use 2 bags. And then all of them in another strong plastic black garbage bag, that I dispose with no more than 10 pouches.

Ostomate &amp;amp; woundr · Answer

Yes, you probably need a drainable flat appliance and every single ostomy company that I'm aware of does make them. You might try asking for an ileostomy appliance because all of those are drainable. I don't know what's available in the UK, but in the US, Coloplast makes a starfish-shaped wafer, faceplate, or whatever it is you want to call it, and you attach the bag to that. I would highly recommend it for the shape you describe. But as I said before, not every company's products stick to everybody. For years, I had to use a kind of attack because it was the only product that would stay on my skin. Decades later, all of a sudden, they stopped sticking and would come off within hours, so I had to change companies. Back when I first got my ostomy, it was the Coloplast products that would not stick to me. As I age, my skin changes, and that is why some pouches will stick on some patients some of the time. If you feel more comfortable in the convexity, and I know a lot of "mound" patients (AKA Peri-stomal hernias) that do, I recommend an ileostomy appliance with the convexity.Feel free to PM me with your specifics, and I will do my best to recommend.

Daughter · Answer

Hi, my mom has a colostomy and she uses closed pouches. When she first came home from the hospital, she was disposing the dirty closed bags in the plastic bags we would get from grocery shopping, then tossing them in the garbage outside the house. However, our governor in NJ banned plastic bags, so we now use produce bags. On days that it is garbage pickup, I take all the produce bags thrown in the outside garbage and put them in a big garbage bag to ensure all the little bags are taken. We don't have any smell inside the house, but the garbage can does smell.

gmc449 · Answer

Bos Bags. They are great, and no smell gets out. I don't know what the technology is, but they are thin bags in several sizes for diapers, dog poop, etc. They sell them in the UK.

gentlejohn · Answer

It is very easy to use M9 for smells.

Briutz · Answer

Hi people, why do I keep reading that if someone uses convex bags because the stoma sits on top of a small mound, the first response is to exclaim that 'it is so' because you have a hernia!! Well, I'm here to tell those who don't know that there are uncountable numbers of stomas who have their stomas perched quite nicely on top of a small but very neat mound with absolutely no underlying additional anomaly to the very original surgery. I also know this to be the case because my own unadulterated gift is exactly as described and is the one I woke up with immediately after my surgery. I can assure anyone with any doubts, I have talked to my surgeon, hospital staff, and of course stoma nurses, and the condition is as normal as any other base. However, before everyone jumps all over me, I'm well aware that a Parastomal Hernia is also a mound adjacent to, or part of the stoma, but I believe it may be much larger than what I imagine to be just called a mound. There's food for thought, so anyone with pain or bulging belly or in fact anything you don't consider usual for your own normality, don't take my word or anyone else's regarding your safety, let the doc' have a look. So there you go, people!

Briutz · Answer

Hi JMC, thanks for the heads up on Bos bags. I've done a bit of a web search and they are available at Amazon. Well, isn't everything? I took a little of my time to read through the relevant info and I am presently ordering a pack! I can't believe that I've been sodding about with my bags and there's a chance that non-permeable bags are so readily available.

Ahhaa, I think my sanity is slowly sneaking back. Nice one JMC449.

Axl · Answer

I have the "mound" used convex and no hernia...

Briutz · Answer

Yep... Top man Axl! Both sides of the world and all in between.... Ohhhh Yeeaaahhh!!

eefyjig · Answer

When I used to walk my dog, I picked up her poop with green biodegradable, scented bags. The smell was practically non-existent and you could barely see the contents. It might also be less expensive than a disposable bag made specifically for ostomy pouches. If it works for our furry friends, it should work for us. Just a thought.......

Briutz · Answer

Hi eefy, I couldn't agree with you more, the actual smell from each bag is unnoticeable being that it is so well held and tied with the usual knot and most people travel home holding them in different ways about their person and of course you're right, no smell. I also accept without question, that our personal 'old arse' product, however difficult it is to work with for some of our ostomates, doesn't particularly have that well-known aroma of 'Homus Shittus' when tidied away in one of those beautiful black bags, knotted with a loveable adolescent ponytail hanging off the end, taking me all the way back to the girls of my childhood. The fun starts when it comes to our own ostomy care and bagging piles of juicy homemade produce in any way we can, to suit our own particular needs/wants/must haves, just to satisfy some shithead obsession because we humans can!! Enter stage right Brian! This is where I come in, knob 'ed in charge here!! I thought about this for some time before deciding to buy a good quality, not too big, portable bag holder something in the nature of a baby's nappy catcher. When this arrived I was well impressed and proceeded with the utmost of confidence, especially in view of the fact that it was fitted three ways of keeping smells at bay including a Carbon filter, sorted. Now I didn't realize the overall smell from the mounting number of bags would become increasingly obnoxious over a few days and although this shit bucket thing worked well at holding most of the leg-buckling laughing gas from giving me double vision, I secretly promised myself, this bugger won't beat me, and there we have it, obsessed beyond any hope of common sense.

So in spite of all the different points of view given over the previous days, and I appreciate every one of them, I am moving forward slowly on 'one only' hopeful way forward, JMC mentioned the BOS odour-proof bags, or other smell-proof bags, because unfortunately I somehow like the convenience of an in-house smell-proof system. At this stage I think my Wife is planning on moving into the garage to keep her sanity,... Oh, dear me, silly girl thinks I won't go and talk to her in there.

Thanks again stomates

Doreen 21 · Answer

I use Sensura Mio Convex drainable bags supplied by Charter. My stoma also sits on top of a small natural mound.

Mysterious Mose · Answer

I have an ileostomy and use drainable bags. I always flush my bag with water every time I empty the bag at home. And the day before I change the appliance, I try to avoid odor-producing food, such as onions. I simply dispose of the bag in another bag and put it in the household garbage, which goes out once a week and I change the appliance twice a week. I have yet to have an issue with odor from doing that. If I do, I get out the Pooph and give the garbage bag a healthy spray. :-)

Daniel

Dagger · Answer

I am so with you OP Briutz! I use closed pouches too and the smell under my bathroom sink is horrendous. Luckily I don't have to share my bathroom with anyone so I can just put up with it. I first started with drainables but I friggin hated them, always getting splashed with poo water and getting it on my clothes and all over the bathroom. I will never go back to stainable pouches. The best thing I've found to do is spray some of that odor eliminator air freshener on/in the garbage and take it out as often as possible. But I have not found a solution or a reason the poop smell permeates in such a cruel way.

Managing Ostomy Pouch Smells: Seeking Advice

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