Heavy Bleeding from Stoma in Cancer Survivor

I am reaching out on behalf of my older brother.  He was diagnosed 4 years ago with stage 4 rectal cancer.  He underwent 6 months of radiation and then had his colostomy and small lesion removed from his lung.  Next, underwent chemo for an entire year.  Had second growth removed from lung that was initially too small to remove.  Since then, all of his scans have been clean and he's doing great except for bleeding from his stoma.  This has been going on for about a year and a half.  At times, the blood has shot out like a fire hose.  He almost bled out on two occasions.  The bleeding is becoming more frequent and he is constantly having infusions. His surgeon now feels that the way to fix this is to relocate the stoma.  My brother will be turning 70 soon and is in excellent health except for all of this.  Has anyone else out there experienced anything similar?

Hello Sister55.

Sorry to hear about your brother's problems which sound as if they need the sort of treatment that his surgeon is suggesting. 

I have not had this kind of issue myself so I've tried to find some past posts that might cover the subject. There are  a number of posts about bleeding stomas  in the section 'COLLECTIONS' ( on the left of your screen) under the sub-heading 'ostomy related problems'.  I could not find anything specific about having the stoma relocated but having been reading posts on this site for  a while now, I know that there are quite a few people that have had this procedure done without difficulties. There have been one or two who have reported having their stomas relocated more than once for one reason or another so I hope that some of these folks will respond to your post in the near future.

Meanwhile, I hope everything goes well for your brother and you can let us know how he gets on.

Best wishes to you both.

Bill 

Hi,  

I'm so sorry your brother is having diagnostice issues regarding bleeding from the stoma.  

My name is Marsha,  and I've had my ileostomy for more than 50+ years.    While the stoma is basically sturdy,  it can bleed, if irritated, and the skin around it, can get irritated & bleed easily.   I'm certainly not a doctor, or a specialist, but I've never heard of moving a stoma because of blood coming " Out of the stoma".   That sounds more like having an issue inside the intestinal track....not far from the stoma ( especially if the blood is red).   As stool comes out....it might be irritating  the intestine along the way.   That's how my 12 year old son was originally diagnosed with Crohn's disease.   Every sigmoidoscopy, showed the sigmoid....lower  decending colon clear of disease.   But he was still bleeding.   It wasn't until they did a colonoscopy, that they were able to see the inflamed bowel further up in the transverse colon, not far from the small intestine.   Since he responded to medication, he didn't need an ileostomy.  

Your brother may have a re occurance of cancer, close to the stoma opening, or some other kind of lesion, not not easily visable.   Not sure if they can view the inside of the stoma, into the small intestine from the opening.  

I did have what appeared to be a white blister where the skin meets the stoma, and that turned out to be an " ulcer"..   I went to empty my pouch, and emptied a pint of blood instead.   I took off the wafer/ pouch, and blood spurted everywhere.   I had no idea at the time, if it was coming from inside, or outside of the stoma.  As it turned out, it was Pyoderma, Gangarosum, which is ulcerative colitis on the skin.   But there could have been a leasion, inside the tract....

Before going along with moving the  stoma, which is just positional.....you might want him to get a second or even third opinion.   I hope some of this helped.   Let us know what happens...Best regards..   Marsha