pain and fluid retention 6 days post surgery

hi everyone,

As i posted i am 6 days post total colecomy and ileostomy. As i said, i was released from hospital after two and a half days because they thought i could do better at home.
i had one change in hospital and another at home with ostomy nurse and a third today as i felt the area was bothering me. There was some redness when i removed the paste and wafer in an area above the stoma. I removed with the adhesive remover, when i put the wafer i used the eakin seal, paste and covatec skin protector wipe on it. It is still hurting a bit, but i dont know the reason. Should i have added powder?

i am also having some problems with fluid retention in the lower stomach and above genital area (sorry, but its where they shave for surgery). my outout is not watery, it is pasty. i drink as much as i was told, water and OJ with water. i tried to limit sodium in food. Water retention was better this morning when i woke up but things seem to be swelling up again. Surgery was laproscopic (hence my early release), if this is significant. So my pain, i dont know if its skin related around the stoma, trauma related around stoma or water retention related.

any ideas? thoughts? solutions?

Everyione who responded to my earlier post, sorry did not respond, trying to deal with this.
thanks,

thanks. you are always helpful

they do pump air in laproscopic surgery. they also used a robot. i have been walking. how much is much? keeping my fluids.

i hope to start to feel better soon. i am shocked i was sent home so quickly but rather be at home, except for wanting to have an answer to this question.

I would add a stoma powder at next change as usually that has helped me best with redness, also keep in mind the stoma can change sizes over the first few weeks or longer so you may have remeasure the stoma every bag change for the first few weeks. Once your stoma has finally stopped changing size you will be able to get a much better seal to the point that you should never have any leaks except due to a appliance failure, for me personally it got to the point where I didnt even need to use an eaken seal anymore I just cut the bag and the way I go.

Are you on any medication like Pred? Seeing as your body has just lost its main fluid absorber and quite a big sodium reabosorber, your old colon you'd be hard pressed to have too much fluid!

Post Edited (Virdent) : 2/23/2015 12:10:47 AM (GMT-7)

Hi
nurse said site was ok. Noticed pain was later in day and maybe, maybe more before daily period of higher ostomy output ( which is pasty) that is afternoon and evening especially there is more output and more pain around stoma vs. Morning.
Any thoughts?

I'm 11 weeks post-op today, and I still sometimes get an ache around my stoma. I think it is sometimes when there's a lot of output coming through (or about to). When I have pain it does help me also to sit or lie down.

I get very little output in the mornings, and always felt better at that time too. The little output is because I usually eat my main meal earlier in the day, and would have just a small snack in the evening, so all of the food has gone through late evening/night time.

Make sure you are resting a lot - you're still only 10 days post-op!! Yes, you should be walking, especially to get rid of the gas in you, but rest around that too. I kept trying to do too much, even just pottering around my house, and I would cause myself to have much more pain. It took a few weeks before I could do "normal" moving around my house, with relative ease.

Haha, maybe pottering around is an Irish expression!! It means just moving around aimlessly, not really doing anything significant.

I meant I was just moving around the house too much. Like I seemed to always be getting up to make tea, or get a drink, or get a jumper or something from my room and found it hard to just sit for long periods or get someone to do something for me. Even though I needed to in the early weeks, I felt much better when I did just sit!