Ballooning - Help!

BALLOONING  21-06-11

When I was young, so many years ago, I used to blow up balloons and let the air flow freely out to sound like a long, wet fart. I played this amusing game with my children and now with my grand children.

Nowadays I no longer need to buy rubber balloons as my stoma has the same effect and it's still a great laugh for the kids.

My ballooning can sometimes be really painful as the gas builds up and doesn't seem to want to come out until the pressure is such that huge amounts come out all at once. However, when it does decide to make an entrance (or to be more precise - exit)  it does so with very long, loud farting fanfares.  

When the children are present it's easy to make a game of it and all have a good laugh.  It's not quite so easy to make light of it when in adult company as adults are not generally so open minded as children.

I would like to know if anyone has found a way of ‘silencing' the output so that I could have a little more control as to when, where and how I can let out the gas from my balloon without embarrassing those poor sensitive ‘others' who don't seem to understand the difficulties.


Perhaps a little background might be appropriate for those who know of this problem and potential solutions.

I have read the diet sheets and, fortunately for me, I already follow almost all of the diet recommendations simply because I don't like most of the things that would give me gas.

Whilst I have always had the problem to some extent, my 'excessive' gas problems began very recently when I had problems swallowing and they diagnosed it as a fault in my oesophagus. I was duly prescribed Domperidone which relaxes the muscles in the oesophagus and gets the contractions working both there and down the intestinal tract to help push the food down in the manner which it should travel. This works very well for the problems of the oesophagus but it has an unpredicted  and unusual side-effect.

I also suffer from sleep apnoea and have to use a CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machine at night times.

The very first morning after taking the Domperidone I was blown up like a balloon. My logic made me think that the relaxation of the throat and oesophagus along with making the mechanism work to push down food, made it probable that the air pressure from the CPAP machine was enough to push the air down the ‘wrong-way' into the stomach. This problem was therefore nothing to do with actual food or drink but to do with swallowing air whilst I was asleep.  I cannot do without the CPAP machine as this is a literal life-saver, so I need to address the problems of reducing the amount swallowed and find a solution to expelling the excess wind. The physical pain is another matter but I'm fortunately quite adept at coping with this aspect. ( ref: my poem on the ‘lump')

I have reduced the air swallowing by having earlier meals and not having any Domperidone after 5pm. However, this has not resolved the problem entirely so I'm looking to find a way of getting the gas to escape regularly rather than having a build up followed by a noisy, prolonged eruption.

I would be grateful for any ideas

Best wishes

Bill

THE LUMP THAT'S KILLING ME



I wish, I wish I could be free.

From this lump that grows in me.

It's in me growing day and night.

At times it saps my will to fight.



Please, please lump just go away.

And let me have a peaceful day.

Sometimes I think I'll go insane.

Because I cannot hide the pain.



Come tomorrow I just know.

My painful lump will grow and grow.

Each day I feel within my heart.

That soon I'll die for another fart.



Although I'm then released from pain.

I know that lump will grow again.

I also know what all this means.

I'll need to give up eating beans.



Bill Withers  2005

When you first notice the gas escaping, quickly place your hand over your stoma. This works for me anyway. You can also try all the gas relief pills to help prevent the gas.
Loved the poem!!!! Good luck.
Eddie

I wonder sometimes if we worry too much about these issues? This embarrassing issue seems to take away from feeling better with the ostomy. When this happens to me, I just say "My stomach is growling. I really need to eat." I have never had anyone question the validity of my statement. As for the nighttime air, I get up every 2 hours to empty. My ostomy is very active at night, so I have just learned to wake up. Do you use a bag with a filter? Also, you can get some longer or bigger bags. They are called high output pouches. Good luck!

Hello Eddie

Thanks for tips.  I do like the idea of putting a 'hand over it' as it sounds simple, easy, effective and readily to 'hand'.

Why didn't I think of that?

In my case I'm not so sure about gas relieving pills as I'm generally anti-medications where at all possible.

So glad you liked the poem, they're not to everyone's taste but writing them helps to focus on something logical and productive rather than on negative emotions and life's dysfunctional aspects.

Best wishes

Bill

Hello snowwhite,


What a lovely name, that's cheered me up already!


I also like the concept of having pre-prepared statements for potentially embarrassing and surprising moments.


Because the problem is more to do with other people's embarrassment rather then my own (I'm rarely embarrassed myself)  I tend to make light of these types of things by utilising subtle and not so subtle humour. Most people know we're in the dog-business so a statement for me will probably be something like:


"My stoma is growling. - It probably needs feeding or walking"  or even perhaps to give it a command as if to the dog- " Down boy"  or  "stop that growling or I won't take you for a walk!"


However, the statement ends up I will always give credit to yourself for pointing me in that direction.


Now you have planted the idea of preparing statements perhaps we should let it grow by asking other ostomates if they have any gems of retort.


As for the night-time issues. I omitted to say that I irrigate, so it's not a problem of feacal output so much as air-intake. the gas output is not a problem at night but it can be the next day.


Thanks ever so much for your suggestions they are much appreciated.


Best wishes


Bill

Your welcome Bill, also try to eat an hour or so before going out. The peristalsis will start hopefully pushing the gas out before being around others! Not eating is not good; it produces more gas and noise. I tried that when I first had my ileostomy. I wouldn't eat if I had a meeting to go to at work. One day, my stoma started passing gas and I swear it seemed like it lasted for 5 minutes. Everyone laughed at me, needless to say it was embarrassing for me.

Eddie

Hello Eddie,

Thanks for this tip. It might be a bit difficult to break the habits of many years coping with feacal incontinence by eating just a little before work and then after work but I am gradually trying to eat a little midday now.

I've had experience of the 'five-minute concerto' but It always cheers me up when people laugh at me as I feel somehow privileged to be a brief moments respite from their otherwise dull, sad lives. I think that whilst they are focussed on me, they're not laughing at anyone else.  It's always seemed obvious to me that the vast majority of what passes for humour is a reaction to someone's misfortune or simply at their expense. That just seems to be the way of things. It may be even instinctual to some extent.

I am aware that fresh fruit such as rasberries, stawberries, blueberries etc give me gas. However,  I'm definitely not going to give them up just for the sake of a bit of wind. Anyway the effect of fruit seems to be here and gone within half an hour or so.  

I often wonder how the gas passes through so quickly but doesn't seem to push the solids through with it. I guess it must be that the feaces is liquid for much of the journey and the gas just rises though it as any gas would pass through liquid.

I suppose one of my retorts could be " Here come the rasberries!"

Best wishes

Bill

Every now and then I encounter some words placed together in such an interesting way that I stop and feel, "Wow, I never saw it that way... thanks for those words."

Hi Carol Dawn ~ His name is Vito Acconci, and here's a link to some of his story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Acconci

Hi! I know and understand full well the embarrassment of those wonderful stoma toots and fraps and squeals and whistles. LOL I've had my ostomy for 34 years......and you know what?? I have not found a 'cure' for it at all....sure, sometimes things we eat or drink can bring on more gas, heck even drinking out of a straw or swallowing more air can bring 'em on.....but I say to you and everyone else on here ......."let - ur - rip !!" LMAO.........I have tried everything from trying to use my arm to smother one out by pressing my arm against my stoma, which sometimes makes it whistle louder. HA .... but what the heck, everybody with and without stomas fart....we have less control sometimes, but hey, it happens .....nobody can 'sound off' as good as my dad and he doesn't have a stoma at all, all he needs is a good belly full of supper and he has to take his "fart walk" as he calls it, and there is a bugle and a toot and a frap with his every step and it is hysterical.....lol....or at least goofy me thinks so.

......if each and every one of you were in a room with me, I would say GO FOR IT MY SWEETS!! Let it fly....I don't care....I would think it's cute....guess I've changed my mind about how I react to some things I cannot control.............and hey, if you are in public, make sure you are sitting close to someone else so you have someone else to blame it on. LOL .....just point at the person sitting next to you and say "What the FRIG was THAT??!!!" .....haha

................everyone is different and we all sort of find our own things that give us more gas or settle things a bit........but try not to worry about it too much..........gimme a big bowl of my beloved sauerkraut and I bet I can 'out-doo' you ALL. LOL ............LOL .... It's OK

~Your knucklehead Doe

Your description of your father's evening stroll has just had me in fits of laughter. That used to happen to me all the time before I got my wonderful stoma. My family christened my ever-present wind "The Duck". The Duck would go everywhere with me. I got off the plane in Madrid to meet my daughter, and her first words to me (after not seeing one another for 2 months) were "I hear you have brought The Duck".
But do you know, now he has gone, I don't miss him at all!!!!!

Glad to inspire the laughs LOL.... "The Duck" LOL!!!.... now that cracks me up!!!
Good day all