Changing your ostomy pouch at home

A lot of people when they get home from hospital following surgery like to use gloves or an apron while making a pouch change. Once your home this is not necessary to use. At hospital you will have noticed your nurse wearing gloves and aprons to protect you as they deal with multiple patients. Nurses in the community would wear them for the same reason, but you are only looking after yourself. If you think of before surgery, you didn’t wear gloves or an apron when going to the bathroom, so when you’re cleaning around your stoma you don’t need to wear gloves.  Sometimes gloves can get in the way if your applying seals, flange extenders or when taking the backing off your pouch the gloves could actually stick to it making it that little bit more difficult to do a pouch change.

So, if you are comfortable you can do your pouch change at home without gloves, you would just wash your hands before and after the change is complete.

• Getting home after stoma surgery
• Things to have in place before going into hospital for stoma surgery
• Bag your routine
• Wear what makes you happy
• Protecting your stomach muscles following stoma surgery