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Ostomies
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Posted 1/4/2015 8:25 PM (GMT 0)
Hi y'all, had a temp ileostomy done mid-Nov and found this forum.

So far I've been wearing leggings but I'm going back to work soon and want to wear my existing pants. The stoma is just below my belly button, just right of my midline. I ordered a stoma gear thingy because of the reviews of how people can wear their jeans etc. What experience do any of you have with this? I do not want to wear baggy stuff, elastic waistbands, maternity wear, etc. so hopefully this thing will allow me to look normal! Comments? Thanks everyone.
Posted 1/5/2015 1:14 PM (GMT 0)
wher is the waistline in your "normal" oants or skirts? My stoma is about the same place as yours, an inch or so below & to the right of my belly button. My pants tend to sit just below the stoma. So I wear my normal clothes. I sometimes add a tube top over my underwear & under my pants- to hold the top of the bag flat to my body. Try all your favorite clothes, see how they fit, do a little manouevring, etc...
Posted 1/5/2015 4:45 PM (GMT 0)
My stoma is two inches below my belly button and a couple of inches to the right. Depending on which pants I am wearing, the waistband sits above or gently rests on my stoma. I just tuck my pouch inside my pants. High-waisted ostomy underwear covers the portion of my pouch that might stick out above my pants waistband. I like the Comfizz high-waisted women's boxers. The company is out of England but they ship to the US.

Sometimes I don't like wearing ostomy underwear though (it is kinda confining), so I wear regular underwear and then just wear a long tank or camisole tucked into my pants. This holds the pouch close and covers the part that shows above my pant waistband really well too. (If you belong to Costco... I really like the Kirkland regular camisoles for this purpose. They are long and made of a really nice light-weight material that layers well under anything. They come in a lot of fun colors too.)

Though I wear one for swimming, I don't find ostomy wraps to work well for general wear in my case. Since my stoma is fairly low, they tend to roll up at the bottom near wear my leg bends and become uncomfortable.

Just experiment and don't worry about smooshing your stoma a little. They are tough little buggers and usually the output flows just fine under clothing as long as the stoma isn't constricted really tightly. I wear some fairly snug skinny jeans at times with no issues.
Posted 1/6/2015 4:25 PM (GMT 0)
Hi, Ok so it seems that one pair of my jeans hits right across my stoma and if I am careful I guess I could wear them; once I get the Stomagear guard I should be ok. My dress slacks for work I haven't tried yet. I also ordered a stretchy belt from osteosolutions.com which has the bag going sideways. One of the comments on their website was that they don't even feel like they have an ostomy which sounds good to me. I'll give it a shot with my work pants and see how it goes. I had a stupid accident a few weeks ago where I changed the wafer & bag before bed; put on a pair of sweats that I "thought" had a loose enough waistband. NOT! I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and something didn't feel right. I pulled the waistband of my sweats and had to catch the whole wafer with stuff in it of course... It just fell off into my hand like a saucer full of sh!t!!! I had to wake my hubs to help me and of course he wasn't too happy! Anyway so now I'm kind of paranoid about anything laying across the stoma area. Especially when I'm at work!

Also, since I'm not very big, the bag hangs down far enough that it covers the top part of my leg, that's annoying. I ordered a drainable mini bag sample. I have to empty this quite often so I was thinking it wouldn't be too small. Have you all tried one; what do you think?
Thanks!
Posted 1/7/2015 1:44 AM (GMT 0)
I would just double over the bottom of the bag enough that you can tuck it into your underwear without it hanging down onto your leg. I'm pretty petite and this worked for me with a regular size bag. Obviously output can't flow past the fold into the very end of the bag, but its no less capacity that you would get out of a mini bag.
Posted 1/8/2015 10:01 PM (GMT 0)
I received the Stomagear guard yesterday. I adjusted the belt like the directions said, put it on and tried on all my pants. My (smallest) jeans that I was wearing prior to surgery were tighter but part of that was weight I'd gained back after surgery (all fat, of course!). All the rest of my pants fit "ok" but due to the shape of the device, I will have to wear tops not tucked in and sort of baggier than I'm used to; sweaters while it's cold and some looser summer tops later. The ostomy will be put back to normal in about 6 months but it'll def get hit before then! The guard does not flatten when you have pants on so you have this bulge on your side but I'll have to actually try it once the tenderness goes away in my sliced and diced abdomen. I think I'm supposed to get the stretchy belt today so I'll try that out and see how that'll work and let you know. And I'll get the samples of a mini bag and a longer wearing wafer (Hollister Flextend cut your own opening thingy) next week so I'll see how that goes. Onward and upward, but I'd like to hear from anyone with clothes tips! Thanks
Posted 1/8/2015 10:04 PM (GMT 0)
Def get "hot" by then -- oops
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