About 3 months after my ileostomy and ureter repair surgery, I had to start working again and could not do anything strenuous. So, I took on a job working the midnight shift in retail (no customers), bathroom accessible any time I needed, light duty work (mostly). With that said, I'd been there over a year and took on a high volume, high stress position, thinking about higher pay and such. We ...

Hello fellow ostomates! I have been following for a year and a half. This site is the best thing I have found in my new “normal.” I have tried taking my multivitamin; it makes my stool jet black! Does anyone on here have that problem? I have not been able to gain my weight back, and my appetite is not good most of the time. I had emergency surgery in April 2023; this site has been a lifesa ...

Has anyone had only colon removal? And had a success rate.

Greetings..
Having spoken to Kas, we both have decided to purge our inventory of unused, mostly expired, donated from others, ostomy supplies.
She and I will be listing our inventory for you to decide if you'd like some spare supplies for those "oh shizt" moments you run out or can't stop leaking.
It pays to have extra supplies.
There should be no issue with expired supplies. Some...not all wi ...

Sooooo, I've been dealing with this for a while and trying all sorts of things. The latest has been the Eakins circle thingie; I forget what it's called. I tried the marathon stuff, and it didn't really help and also created a very uneven surface by coating the injured skin and not coating the uninjured skin. It also did sting for me. I tried the flow assist thing, and that helped some, but mo ...

No sign of metastatic cancer! Now I'm hoping to hear from the surgeon about reversing my colostomy, but I guess it depends on how she reads the MRI and my scar tissue situation. But what a great birthday present! I do have to get back to my walking, though, so I'm in better shape. The other thing the PET scan showed was that when I fell a few weeks ago, I actually fractured my rib—no wonder ...

Well, mostly. For the pool, I was so afraid of leaks that I bought a swim bottom meant for menstruating women, labeled as “waterproof.” I know! For swimming! Ha. I wear them under my longer boy short bottoms with a loose tank top.
I haven't had leaks, but I feel more confident.

The Big Scare
At church today, Mrs. B suffered a terrible calamity. One that rendered her temporarily speechless. A church friend behind me reached over to wish me a happy Easter and shake my hand. I leaned over to bid him holiday wishes too. Mrs. B nudged my leg. She was pointing toward my pants zipper. Hmmmm. Did I forget to pull it up? Nooo.
Then she hissed, "Your thingy is showing." "Thin ...

Hi everyone. My name is Andrés, and I'm 33 years old. I had emergency surgery for acute diverticulitis, resulting in a closed colostomy. The prognosis for a reversal procedure is positive. I'd like to hear your opinions on whether it's the best option. According to the surgeon, I only had a small amount of my bowel removed, approximately 15 cm of my bowel. I'm healthy and active, and everythi ...

I’ve been using Hollister new image, flat skin barriers for the better part of 15 years and at least once a week I would experience some leakage underneath the skin barrier between my skin and the barrier. This was always frustrating because it meant that the skin barrier only lasted for a few days.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try their convex skin barrier and I am absolutely e ...

When told that I have a urostomy, some people's immediate reaction is, "Oh yuck! Fancy peeing into a bag!" My reply is, "Oh yuck! Fancy carrying pee inside your body. How unhygienic is that!"
How do you respond when people act in this way? Apart from telling them to "Foxtrot Oscar."
When you have an ostomy, you have to keep your sense of humor (SOH).