Is there a reason why people have different size stomas?

Categories
Stoma Basics

Hear from Sarah our Clinical Advisor

From A Bigger Life

Just like everybody is an individual, there is no one shape or size of stoma. Whenever you look online or if your nurse goes through your pre-op booklet and you’ll see an image of a stoma, there is no guarantee that your stoma will look like that. There are lots of different reasons why this is the case.

Ileostomy, colostomy and urostomy don’t look like each other at all. An ileostomy will ideally have a spout on it, so it will sit out a bit further from the skin. A colostomy is quite flushed to the skin so it’s down near the skin surface. A urostomy looks a little bit like an ileostomy but generally smaller in size.

Temporary and loop stomas look different but this is nothing to be alarmed about.

As long as your stoma is red, healthy and shiny and it’s functioning normally, it can look any shape or size. As long as it’s working, that’s all you have to be concerned about.

You might be interested in:

Share this article

Do you have a story you want added to A Bigger Life?

Submit your own story and we will get back to you.

Click to access the login or register cheese