Sleeping With The Enemy... I mean Ostomy!

Just curious, for those out there with an ileostomy... how do you sleep with it?  Currently, my hubby can only sleep on his back which annoys the hell out of him but I'm also curious how many times in the night you guys have to get up and how often you get up to empty your bags?  Is there a time at night that you stop eating/drinking to make it through the night? 

My hubby's output greatly depends on how much liquid he drinks... it goes from really thick poridge to pure water... when he first came home we had to get up every two hours ... but, now we only have to get up once in the night.  Keeping him hydrated is still prudent so I don't like it if he stops eating or drinking too early at night but we go to bed around 12 ish and now we're getting him up at 3:30 and then we can sleep straight through till about 8. 

So, just curious what everyone else's sleep routines are.

I can't remember how long its been since your husband hd surgery, but it will slow down over time. Iusually wake up once, regardless of what or when I eat. Although I sometimes wake up more cause I have to pee! And in that case I just empty it anyway.
I sleep on my stomach, it won't hurt anything, as long as the cut has healed and it doesn't hurt. It was probably 2 months before I could do it.
Smething I did that helps me sleep,gives me a litte peace of mind, I took some waterproof pads andsewed a a sheet onto them so they are soft,and I put that under my stomach. That way if is hould have a leak it will go on the pad and I will ony haveto clean me and it, not the whole bed! I just wash them when I wash my sheets. I have discovered if I don't have one, I can't sleep as good, its all in my mind,lol.

I try to stop eating at 6pm and typically go to bed around 10pm or so. I am sure to use the bathroom when I think I'm going to fall asleep. Some nights I am able to sleep through the night, others I am up once sometimes twice. It has become second nature for me to just put my hand there and check things out in my sleep I guess LOL!? Every once in awhile I startle myself b/c my pouch has puffed up like a blowfish and I RUSH to empty it for fear it will shoot off across the room LOL!

I can't sleep on my stomach but I do sleep on both sides - favoring the left. That favoriting is leading me to have issues with my left shoulder though so I am trying REALLY hard to start off on the right.

I go to bed around 9-10 and typically wake up once, somewhere in the 2-4 range. I get up in the 5-6 range. I sleep through the night occasionally, maybe once every two weeks.

I tend to wake up because I'm too hot or too cold, and then I have to go to the bathroom too, and I empty. When I do sleep through the night, the bag is very full in the morning, but knock on wood, I've never had a blow out in the night.

I keep a small flashlight by my bed so I don't turn on any lights. Now that it's getting colder, I usually heat up one of those microwave heat things and get a hot water bottle while I'm up.... mostly I manage to go back to sleep right away.

This is way better than before surgery, when I would wake up 2 or 3 times in the night, and sometimes it'd take a half hour in the bathroom (and then I'd have to go five minutes later).

I have had issues w/regulating body temp all along though -- I just get really cold when I'm cold, really warm when I'm warm.... my gi says it's autonomic dysregulation, and it can get better but it comes from having been sick for so long and can take a long time.... this is a much bigger sleep issue for me than needing to empty the bag.

I sleep on my side. It's not a problem.....

My sleep schedule is still wacky with the prednisone taper, but to answer Somedude's question about "how you know to wake up" - I usually wake up in the middle of the night to go pee. Thank you drinking lots of water before bed to take my medications! I typically get up to go to the bathroom anyway and empty the bag. Occasionally I will dump the bag twice. If I semi-wake up in the middle of the night, I will touch my bag area. If it's getting puffy (with air or stuff), I'll go dump it. It is very tempting to fall back to sleep without getting up, but then I think about how much more awake I'll be if I have to wake up, change the sheets, shower, change the bag, etc. I typically fall right back to sleep rather easily if I'm just emptying. I have more problems from my cats waking me up than from the bag waking me up!

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, it's huge! I sometimes have trouble opening the tail without having stuff ready to explode out the opening from the pressure.

I eat dinner around 6:30 and go to bed around 11 (although I snack depending on my mood that day)
I've noticed that how much I eat and what it is will change how often I wake up. For instance if I have eaten more than usual, or I have eaten something that know has a tendency to come out watery, then i expect to wake up more in the night. The looser the stool is the more it will fill up the back, since it isn't as closely condensed as the more formed stool is. I avoid eating foods before bed that I know cause loose stools for this reason. I also avoid gassy food and overeating, as I've had night where I had to wake up on multiple occasions just to "burp" the bag.
As a sidenote: i think only the clip bags can be burped, so if your husband has a one-piece and is having to wake up and use the restroom to expell the air, a two piece is recommend and Hollister has good options.

As for sleeping positions, I find that sleeping on my side is the most comfortable and favor it over sleeping on my back. When I sleep on my back i feel like the stoll collects around the stoma and encourages skin irritation, though it may be a different case with other people. On my side I find that i can arrange the bag to promote fecal movement (it can be uncomfortable for me if it doesn't move down to the bottom of the bag) and by resting the bottom on the mattress next to my it offers support so that I don't get that annoying tugging feeling that can happen with a full bag.
Even on morning where I sleep in I don't find myself having to wake up very often (i'm prone to sleeping in until noon sometimes).

The best advice i can give is to remember what foods do what. Eating and earlier dinner helps as it can make it so that your body has digested and output most of the food sometime earlier in the night. Learn what foods cause what output, and be able to predict what they'll cause. I avoid things like pizza for dinner and stay away from milk before bed so that I don't have to deal with too much watery stool of gas caused by those foods, but each person is different. In the end it's just about figuring out how his body reacts to different things. Hope I helped :)

Hmm, I semi sleep on my stomach? I have one pillow under my head, arm under that pillow. I then semi-lay on another pillow with my arm wrapped around it. That pillow typically "ends" at the middle of my stomach. I typically do this on my left side but sometimes do this on my right side as well. I was a bit more paranoid about it before, and would sometimes check where the stoma and the bag were sitting. Many times I found that my stoma actually wasn't covered/obstructed even though I was laying somewhat on my stomach. Maybe the way I'm laying can best be described as a 30degree tilt? If I try the same on the right side, my stoma does get obstructed some. It seems to function ok even then though.

Also, when I was first post-op I found myself "supporting" myself with lots of pillows. I have a slightly firm pillow that I place directly behind my back, lengthwise. That way it supports my body in a somewhat sideways position (so that I'm kind of on my back/on my side). I can do this on both my right and left sides without obstructing my stoma.

In general, I move a ton during the night. So I never wake up the same way I fell asleep. I have noticed that I tend to wake up on my back more now than I did before.

As for having the bag "flop" about. I found three solutions. You can use one of the companies $20.00 belts. The clip onto the loops of your ostomy wafer and secure the wafer to your body. The bag still flops around, but you don't have to worry about it falling off as much. I've also tucked it into my underwear at times. Now I use ostomy secrets underwear most of the time. They have a "bag" compartment. If I don't have those on, I tend to just tuck the bag into my PJ's and let it flop around. I've recently had to change my bag every two days though (pyoderma) so I haven't been as paranoid about my ostomy system losing it's stickiness.

The green stuff is normal in morning. Unless its red from blood, not red, orange or purple foods, it doesn't realy matter. As for what foods do, its different for everyone, and doesn't always make sense. A few things that usually thicken for everyone are aplesauce which triples in volume, bananas which do the same thing and potatoes. For me bbq chicken and ham and regular apples are pure water, cake or lots of bread or crackers is thick goo. If it goes in watery,like a fruit popsicle, it will probably come out watery.
As for sleeping on your stomach, I just do it. I was a bit concerned at first, but kept waking up that way, so I stopped worrying. I keep my bag tucked in my underwear ib can't stand to have it flop orworse, touch my leg!

for me foods that are "chemically", meaning highly processed junk kind of foods, greasy... say like french fries, milk, or anything with sugar-not just cookies, but fruit juices, etc.. positively makes output more liquidy.

also .. I sleep any way I want. I was reticient to sleep on my stomach for a month or so after my first ileo. But now, sleep anyway I want. And I automatically wake up when the thing needs emptying. Usually once in the middle of the night. No alarm necessary.... ever.

also amythyst you can get extra large bags for nightime. Coloplast makes a magnum bag. Then he could deal with it himself without an alarm or waking the both of you.

LOL!! @Summer with her bathroom dreams.

Yeah I also do what ActiveUC said and support myself with lots of pillows. If I'm on my back then there's always one under my knees to keep from putting too much tension on my lower back. If I'm laying on my left side then there's always one I hug in front of me that the bag is resting on so it doesn't pull down as it fills. If I lay on either side I usually have one supporting my back as well, like she described.

And sleeping on my stomach has never stopped my stoma from working properly... So those of you who are 'scuured', feel free to give it a try sometime! It's not going to hurt anything, and if you're worried about leaks then just put a towel down the first couple times until you get more confident.

You know, I need an ostomy encyclopedia because I cannot get all the lingo down... flange... adaptor... ferengi ... I dunno what the names are for all the parts are. LOL..

This is from the online order:
Hollister New Image Two-Piece Drainable Pouch with One Sided ComfortWear Panel and Clamp Closure 1-3/4" Flange
Hollister New Image Two-Piece Cut-to-Fit Convex Flextend (Extended Wear) Skin Barrier with Tape Border 1" Stoma Size

Haha - ActiveUCer, I find this funny because that is exactly what I did earlier this evening: rinsed out the bag in the bathroom sink (after I had already emptied it in the toilet) and hung it over the faucet to dry. I usually just throw it all away at bag changes, but since I am waiting on an order and currently running low on bags, I did save the it this time just in case... Will toss it when my order arrives. But that's just for standard bag changes.

Personally, if I was switching out for a magnum at night, then yes, that's the way I would do it all the time since a new magnum AND a new standard bag every day would just be so wasteful. Though I would probably set up a more private location for drying - say, a tub under the sink? Keep in mind this is just the bag part on two-piece systems... it would make no sense to switch out for a new wafer/flange twice a day.