Will Barium Drink Affect My Trained Colostomy?

Hi All,

I am scheduled to have a barium x-ray / scan done next month.  The last time I had to drink barium for a scan, my stoma was out of control the remainder of the day. 

I started irrigating every morning, 4 almost 5 months ago and was wondering will drinking barium screw up my trained bowels / colostomy.  I have never had an issue irrigating from day one and my bowels were completely trained within the first couple days of irrigating. I really don't feel like starting over...

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.   

THANKS!

Hello JD90. It's a very interesting question you raise, which I don't have any definitive answer to. However, there are so many things that can throw the bowel training off course and it all settles down again when you get back into your normal routine. I wouldn't worry about it too much but I would very much like to hear your own feedback on the subject after the event.

 Best wishes

Bill

Well I had my tests done last week.  First was a gastrografin CT scan.  I had to drink the stuff but I only drank 1 serving.  I told the nurse no more and the images came out good.  The CT scan was at 11am and I was back at the hotel by 1pm. I irrigated just to get the stuff out of me so to try and keep my stoma trained.  It seemed to work, I had no accident and no output the next day other than when I irrigated again during my normal morning routine.

A couple days later I had to do the gastrografin enema through the stoma.  It took a while for the stuff to get through my large intestine for xrays but once the xrays were done, I went right back to the hotel and irrigated again.  Though on the way home, I had a little output which made me nervous that it was going to throw off my bowel training.  luckily it did not. 

So I suggest to anyone who irrigates and has to have any type of imagining done whether with barium or gastrografin, as soon as you're done, get home and irrigate it out of your system.

All my tests came back unremarkable and the doc is now telling me I have a 85-90 % chance at a successful reversal surgery with little or no complications.  I have a follow up on 9/21 and will address any further questions, concerns and will be scheduling my reversal surgery sometime in late November or early December.  I'm young and if there is a chance to get reversed and go back to a "normal" life, I'll take the 85-90 percent chance.  If all fails and I become sick again or can't deal with not having the stoma, the doc already told me I can have another colostomy surgery but hopefully that will never have to happen again.