[I am 55 male from the UK]
I too had an emergency illeostomy last May 2016. This was performed in London, UK. during my stay in hospital I lost a stone and a half in ten days, so just like you I came out with a perfectly flat stomach and perfectly presenting stoma. I must say I was already at my correct weight and had a flat-ish stomach already.
Like you in the weeks that followed I gradually put back some of the weight I had lost and filled out. But there was another effect, which I think may be what you are describing. My stomach muscles 'sagged' for want of a better word to a point where I could no longer wear any of the trousers I had worn before. Like a pregnancy bulge, I guess [even though I am male!]. I presume this is the joined tissue at the central incision from navel to pubis just sagging as it heals while under the load of keeping the bowels inside the abdomen.
I am still like this now.
If your post actually meant directly around the stoma site, I had that too [!]. At about
six weeks I was feeling flat-stomached and strong and did some minor jobs around the house. And ended up with a slight bulging around the stoma - in a line from the hip to the penis - one above the stoma towards the hip and one below the stoma towards the penis. The external oblique muscles at the illeostomy site run in this direction, so I always understood this was some more of the small bowel being pushed through the
opening in the muscle and making the two sides of the sheet of muscle always be in a state of 'tearing' for want of a better word. That never went away.
The first time I saw my surgeon for a reversal operation he explained that every stoma patient already has a hernia - they give you one when they perform the operation by routing the bowel out through the muscle wall. Whether it gets bigger or not is the only question, it seems to me. And I have read some other medical sites that say that it is 'practically inevitable' that [further] hernias will occur. I dont knwo what a person would have to do to avoid further hernias, as the slightest thing seems to cause them.
And I have that again now after my reversal operation.
All seemed to go very well for the first 11 weeks. I was so protective of my
open wound as it healed that even the nurses coming to dress the wound at home said I needed to walk upright and with more movement. The wound had all closed over with skin and the scab had fallen off when at week 12 [last week]I sneezed while getting out of a chair. Immediately there was a little discomfort. But over the following days I noticed an ever-so-slight raising of the depression where the wound was, And muscle-tearing type discomfort. And feelings of bloating. And reduced appetite. I think some of my bowel under the wound has shifted slightly now and is perhaps kinked more, thus the bloating.
I am going to the doctors to see what they think. Hopefully muscle heals itself and the kink [if it is that] resolves, and no hernia develops. I am certainly being careful, but I dont know what you have to do [or not do!] to get back to being structurally intact. Certainly, it seems incredible to me to hear stories in these forums of people carrying on running and body building and similar.
Still, there is always hope, and so we must all hope for the best possible of outcomes in the longer term.
Hope all goes well for you and that you can be as fully healed as possible soon.
[P.S. I joined this forum specifically to reply to your post because it was the first that I have seen that seemed so close to my experience]
Post Edited (Gygergyger) : 1/25/2017 1:41:57 AM (GMT-7)