OMG - I now know why I should NOT eat oranges!

This might be TMI, just a warning! Although, you guys can handle a good poop story, right?

Oh my!!! Until now I have not had problems with any foods. I have tried oranges - but small satsumas. While the fibers came out kinda the way they went in, they didn't give me any problems at all. But yesterday I had a BIG Naval orange.

Holy COW. I never heard so much sputtering. Big sections of the orange came out little by little. I went to bed, and when I woke up, my bag had leaked, and worse - I had this huge pain like I was full of gas. When I stood up to shower I felt like puking. When I went to change my bag there was a huge piece of orange STUCK  halfway out of the stoma. CRAZY! I've never experienced anything like  something stuck halfway out. So I pulled it out, and my stoma went crazy. Everything was backed up, but it all came out then!

Yikes! It was just like a drain plug. I do feel better, though!

So, my lesson learned is not to eat oranges. My first food on the do not eat list.  :(  And I looove oranges.

wow i love oranges...but now i'm afraid to have one! lol glad u found relief tho!

that is a pretty gross story!
when i eat oranges i just spit the fibery stuff out, i dont' like it anyway

I probably would have freaked out and would have been too afraid to pull it out! Oh well, look at it this way, at least now you know about how long it takes for your food to reach your stoma

Wow, Joann, what an ordeal! I'm glad you fixed the problem and are feeling better.

Summer, thanks for the tip on the Minneola orange. Being from Florida, we can grow oranges in our yard, so I'm glad to know there's one out there with very little fibery stuff. I'm going to look for them at the store. They must be a Florida orange, because there's a Lake Minneola near Orlando.

I just Googled it and found this write-up about it:

"The Minneola tangelo is a Duncan grapefruit x Dancy tangerine hybrid released in 1931 by the United States Department of Agriculture Horticultural Research Station in Orlando. This tangelo is therefore 1/2 tangerine and 1/2 grapefruit. The fruit is quite handsome and a genuine pleasure to eat."

I love the last line!

I can only eat fruit that is pulp free and very soft. My major craving has been canned apricots. I usually do NOT eat anything in a can but these are very, very soft and they move great. As for oranges, I juice oranges and strain the pulp and drink the fresh juice. This is not nearly as satisfying as sucking on a nice sweet orange but it's good.

Oh man, I forgot all about Minneolas... my folks grew them when they had a home in FL.   Cece, you have to plan a couple of those trees!!!  They are fabulous.  A well hidden secret.  If I remember correctly, they were even good before they were ready to be picked but if you can restrain yourself until they are totally ripe, they are absolutely awesome.  And, I do remember being able to eat them and not have a real problem with them.  We used to juice them for breakfast too when I visited them.  Definitly, an orange (tangelo) that you need to stand over the kitchen sink to eat - the juice just runs down your arm to your elbow!!!   Oh, the memories..... thanks Summer for the trip down memory lane!!

for me it was almondes. I had sooo many hard chucks it was crazy. and hurt.
I even made my mom feel it through my bag....it was funny.

oh i got the greatest b vitamin thing, it disolves under your tongue and it tastes yummy!

Isn't weird how you look so closely to see if you can identify what food just came into your bag??I can't believe I do that and would have never guessed I could have done that a year ago...I would have been grossed out to even think about it!

I am sorry if I offended you..I was really talking about myself, not you. I am just saying that I am amazed that I have been able to deal with all of this, being that I have ususally been kind of wimpy about stuff like this in the past. I used to get faint at the sight of blood and pass out when I had shots when I was younger. Now here I am dealing with all of these bodily fluids and with the help of everyone at this forum, I have been able to handle it better than I thought I could at first. I think maybe I was just caught up in the conversation...maybe I will just read and not post comments...sorry again.

donut,

I understood exactly what you were talking about.  I'm a 23 1/2 year ileostomate and I too check the output, especially if it is not the watery output that I am used to.  Ya just never know what you may learn to steer away from eating if the output isn't what you expect! 

I also was the needle-fearing child, and here I am giving myself B12 injections IM every 2 weeks!  It's amazing how the convenience and cost of doing it yourself when you know it will be the rest of your life outweighs the fear of needles.  I even tell the folks at the lab which vein to use to draw blood!!!

Looking forward to hearing you post soon,

Shots are only necessary when you don't have the part of the intestine where the B12 is absorbed by the body... that would be me!  So, it wouldn't matter how many B12 pills I swallowed, my body would not be able to absorb any of it.  Now, I probably would be able to absorb a sublingual pill, the ones that you let dissolve under the tongue.  But I am sure of the dose of B12 when I give myself the injection, and it is really critical for me.