Dear Enigma

Hey :)

Ive been reading a few of your posts and you and I are about the same surgery time (im a little over 3 weeks and you just hit your fourth. Congrats btw) I was just wondering if maybe you and i could exchange ideas or help each other out in any way. Im still really frusterated on what to eat. My appetite is back since the hospital and im always hungry but never eat because i dont really know WHAT to eat. I was wondering if you could tell me some of the things that you eat. I know for the first 6 weeks it has to be very basic. I eat a lot of chicken, sometimes some yogurt, eggs, and chicken noodle soup but its soooo boring lol. I wanna snack throughout the day but i dont really know what kinds of snack to eat. I notice that carbs make me feel really bloated and make the stoma side of my stomach feel very heavy. I eat a little bit of white bread/pasta usually for one of meals. My doctor didnt really give me a diet to follow per say. He just said eat healthy and low fibre and i know you're supposed to avoid fresh fruits and veggies for the first 6 weeks. Do you ever get that feeling? Where you feel super bloated? or your stomach just feels extremely heavy for whatever reason? Im hoping that once the surgery issues go away ie: the swelling and the able to move around a lot more it will eventually stop but it would be nice to know if this is something i will have to get used to or if it goes away.

It would be really cool if we could just slowly go through it together or exchange stories or ideas. My surgery wasnt planned... I went to emergency one day with extreme cramping and gas pain from a colonoscopy the day of and 6 days later I got my ileostomy so i had zero time to prepare or read forums so im sorta learning on the go here. These forums and these people here have helped me a lot and i appreciate every little tip and peice of advice. Let me know what you think.

Thank you :)

Newone:

No problem!  I am glad to help, and glad to receive any and all help! 

 For a quick note:

As far as protein, as UC Wife said, it's important...I am drinking at least one Ensure drink, with a glass of whole milk, for breakfast (with some toast)..that is my breakfast as mornings are slow for me to get started....otherwise, it is just as you said....chicken, turkey, etc. with a slice of bread or toast.....i had chicken, with peas, and bread tonight......   I too am a little tired of the "bland" diet as a couple of days ago, I had a larger than normal serving of mashed potatoes..well, I started feeling a little strange in the abs, and thought hmmmm....maybe too much potatoes???  Well, I drank a glass of white grape juice (cut with water)...eventually, things started coming out again...and, I felt better the next day...if I could eat potatoes with green beens, I don't think that would happen...too much fiber! 

Anyway, how are you with milk or dairy products?  Apparently, I can no longer eat my favorite Gouda cheese as I can see little bits in the bag!  Disgusting!!! 

HOw is your skin?  I  thought I had the sitatuation licked, but changed yesterday and the skin doth not look good....I am thinking the skin prep is doing less good than the nurse expected...I will see her tomorrow and tell her I only want eakin seal on my skin and we'll see how that goes.....

Let me know...I will put my e-mail on my profile so you can write me their...

jimmy

 

Omigosh thank you for the reply you two. I have been drinking 1-2 ensure shakes and i drink them for the taste. They are so yummy! lol. I think they have like 6-7g of protien in them. As for dairy im a little bit nervous to eat it because before when i was all connected and had disease in my body i couldnt eat a lot of dairy products without having pain. I think my first surgery in 2003 made me a little bit lactose intolerant because of the part they removed but ive been eating yogurt fine with no pain. If i were to drink milk it would definately be the lactaid stuff. I love dairy. I want ice cream so bad! Cheese is so good too! /drool. Honestly.... for about a week now Ive been CRAVING pickles and cheese. My mother eats it all the time in front of me and its so hard. Im scared to eat the pickle though. Its funny... because before surgery i could eat all this stuff and anything i wanted. Just maybe had a little bit of pain if i ate something my stomach didnt agree with. But for t he most part I had very little Crohn's pain. And now i have to be careful what i eat. And its so frusterating.

I am very slowly coming to terms with having this stupid bag. Im still not 100 percent happy with it and truthfully i dont think i ever will. Im fine with everything... i just REALLY hate changing it over. It takes me forever to change. My skin doesnt like the tape much and becomes irritated so i am going to start using the protective barrier wipes just where the tape goes. I use the moldable convetec wafers and the nurse said sometimes they wont stick properly if i use them under that part but my skin seems to be ok with that. I have a blister type thing right by my stoma that i have to cover up with the wafer everytime i change it. The nurse was worried about it breaking open and possibly causing leaks as it would be wet under there. I changed it a few days ago and the blister or whatever it is did infact break but i dont really know if it is a blister or not. I spent 2 hours in the hospital waiting for an appointment with my surgeon for him to look at it and he doesnt seem to be that worried and said it should heal on its own. But its SOOOO painful. Ugh! I have another appointment with him at his office on Monday and im going to get the 411 on whatever this little thing is. He said it having something to do with where my intestines got stitched inside. Grr i wish it wasnt there. Because it hurts and its causing me grief. Hows it supposed to heal with me ripping off my wafer every 4 days. Blah!

Anyway im rambling so ill let you go. I hope that you get your skin issue figured out. I get really itchy under my tape sometimes but it wasnt like that when i was in the hospital so im thinking maybe its the adhesive remover that i use. But i'd never be able to get it off without that. Thank you so much for writing back. And it would be awesome to contact you directly. Ill start doing that from now on :)

-Desaray

desary-you will get less upset about changing it as time goes on, i hated it at first it was such a hassle, took like 45 minutes. now i'm at like 8-10 minutes, depending on how much i aruge with my sure seal! as for the skin issues, have you tried different brands? or the tapeless wafers? that prep will lessen your wear time a lot.

and as for food, when i came home i ate cheese ravoli everyday for a week, or maybe more. i love cheese ravoli and couldn't eat it while i was sick!on the way home from the hostpital we stopped at mcdonalds and i got fries, then we stopped at hardees and i got a chocolate milkshake!  best thing i ever had!  i ate some pizza about two weeks after coming home, which was a huge mistake, the gas was awful!
the main thing to worry about is getting dehydrated, i think most of us ended up in the hosptial dehydrated in the first few weeks, it's hard to remember that you have t o drink like twice as much, esp at first whne you have so much output. i was drinkign a lot of juice, and juice actually makes you have more output so that wasn't helping!
i dont see why you can't eat icecream, i think i did, just try small amounts of things. the main things to stay away from, are fresh fruits and veggies (as was mentioned) and stringy meats.
and after 6 weeks you can start adding new things.

about dairy, after my colectomy on Aug 2009 i became very lactose intolerant. i couldn't drink milk or eat cheeses, but yogurt and icecream were ok for me from the begining. lately it's getting better and i can eat chees again and butter. but drinking milk is still a problem for me.