Hey everyone,
I had surgery in April, and my ileostomy had to be moved back to my right side. I have had issues with skin breakdown around my stoma. I have measured my stoma at 7/8 inch round for a few months now. I measured tonight, and my stoma is 3/4 inch round now. Is this small of a stoma normal?
Hi all, I just measured my stoma and was surprised it was 1.4", which seems awfully large to me. I am a female, so I thought it would be much smaller. Is this a normal size?
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New ostomate, we’ve all gone through feeling low and depressed over your ostomy.
This is a pretty open group. Right now, in summer, it’s a low response time—lots of family things going on. If you need something, call out. Someone dealing with your situation will post something sooner or later.
It’s just that time of year.
Take care, and good luck.
Hi Dawn, I have an ileostomy, and my stoma is also 3/4. The opening in my bag is one inch, so there's room for my barrier ring to expand some.
To answer both of your questions, the average diameter of the small bowel is about an inch (25 mm), while the colon is larger at about 3 inches (75 mm). Both change size during the course of the day, and of course, everyone is different, and those are just averages.
;O)
My urostomy, which was made from a piece of small bowel, is oval and 13/16 on the broad side and more like half an inch on the narrow side (never measured the narrow side). 3/4 does not seem unusually small to me.
My own colostomy is smallish at 1 inch, but considering that they sell cut-to-fit wafers with a starting hole at 1.25 inches, I doubt that 1.4 would be considered large.
I don't think that the size of a stoma is related to the sex of the person. There is no reason to expect that a woman will be smaller than a man.
G-Day Dawn,
My stoma after the operation was 11/4, but now, after 4 years, it has shrunk to 3/4, and it still works OK, and that's what matters. As long as the little bugger is still pumping out each day, you're OK.
Regards, IGGIE
Stomas do not discriminate. Whether male or female.
That thing is gonna flex, breathe, inflate, and deflate, surprising you with its size.
At appliance change, mine deflates to a dime-sized diameter. And other times, it is larger than a golf ball, and I'm measured at 1 and 3/8 inches, normally.
Stoma size does change as you get further out from your surgery. It will settle on a size soon. I don't think that it is too small now. But if it gets much smaller, you might call your doctor. It also grows and shrinks on a daily basis when it is expelling output. As long as you don't have trouble pouching, I wouldn't worry.
Any problems with your stoma/output? When it comes to stoma size, the only normal is what's normal for our own stoma. As you can see from comments, size varies for all of us.
Thank you, everyone, for your input. George works just fine; I just thought that booger was tiny.
