Dealing with liquid stoma output
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Stoma Management Hear from Sarah our Clinical Advisor
From A Bigger Life
The output from your stoma can vary over the course of days, weeks and months. We have a few tips for you if your output becomes very loose.
Whenever your output is looser it can have a detrimental effect on your peristomal skin, that’s the skin around your stoma. If you are having a period of diarrhoea, whether that’s because you are on medication, chemotherapy etc, it’s really important to protect your peristomal skin.
We would advise you to speak with your stoma care nurse to get a seal or a washer around your stoma for extra protection, this also helps to secure your pouch more firmly down onto your skin.
If you had a few alcoholic drinks and it is a bit looser there a few things you can take to thicken up your output. Foods such as bananas, jellybeans, marshmallows and natural yogurt can help to thicken output.
You can get little sachets that you add into your pouch to solidify the output and turn it into a jelly like substance, very useful for people who have short bowel syndrome who are used to dealing with high output.
There are medications that can be prescribed if you suffer from a constant high output. It would be important to speak with your GP, stoma care nurse or your surgeon, to ensure these medications are prescribed exactly to your need as everyone is an individual and it can be added in as to what suits you.
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