swollen stoma

[summergirl89]

my colostomy stoma has only shrunk up until now and this weekend it grew! it got about as big as it was right after my surgery-maybe even bigger. it lasted about 2.5 days and has now started to go down a little. it stayed a great pink color and i still had normal output. is this normal? it just kind of freaked me out because that sucker was huge and changed like a shape shifter. if that is something to expect in the future at times fine but i just want to make sure there was nothing wrong. thanks! Amie

[SCI-Nurse]

Hi,

Did you notice it was right before a bowel movement? Did it return to normal size following a bowel movement?

did you have any other symptoms like a fever, unusual drainage or any pain?

AAD

[summergirl89]

Originally Posted by SCI-Nurse

Hi,

Did you notice it was right before a bowel movement? Did it return to normal size following a bowel movement?

did you have any other symptoms like a fever, unusual drainage or any pain?

AAD

it pretty much stayed swollen for 2 days. it did get even bigger when i had a bm. no, everything else was normal-it was still very pink, normal output etc. it has gone back down but it was just really odd. i was needing to change my wafer but there was no way at the time that i could get it off or put a new one on b/c the holes cut into the wafer were much smaller.
my stoma stays a really dark pink, which they say is good but this morning in some areas it was a rather dull color. does that happen occasionally?
I just want to know what is "normal" and what i should consider a problem. Thanks!

[SCI-Nurse]

I would say some minimal change in size is normal depending on stool near the stoma, but I would definitely contact your colostomy surgeon to find out what is normal for your individual procedure which was done.

It is the responsbility of the surgeon and his/her staff to work with you to understand the care of the stoma. Don't be shy to contact them and they usually have an ostomy specialist working with them.

AAD

[summergirl89]

unfortuneatly my surgeon doesnt have have an ostomy specialist working for him. i had my last followup with him lastweek and asked him about it and he said the hospital has ostonomy nurses but they usually just do in house-go over things with patients before they leave the hospital. that is great however the one who came to see me was there about 15 min. and at the time i didn't really have any questions to ask.
if it happens again i will call his office-but again that office is so busy that after my surgery when i was home i had a decent amount of blood and i called and it took more than a day before anyone would even call me back for that. turns out that was most likely drainage from the surgery-hasnt happened again but i was freaking out at the time. he is a good surgeon, just to busy for quality customer care which is frustrating at times.
thanks AAD.

[quadvet]

Summergirl,
My stoma puffs up a bit right before a BM, but I must say I've never had it get so big as to not be able to get the wafer off. Seems like that would cut off the flow of blood to the stoma. Maybe you'll have to cut the hole in your wafers smaller larger, to account for swelling prior to a BM. Just a thought. It is important that the wafer hole isn't too small. Good luck with it.

[Steph73]

I had the same thing happen with my colostomy about 2 months ago. Mine was due to meds that were constipating and eating the wrong foods. My stoma swelled because it was having a hard time pushing the hard stool out. My stoma nurse said something that I had not heard before which is that I could put ice packs on the stoma over the bag; it seemed to help a bit. I can pm you the link to a site that caters exclusively to ostomy users if you want. I've been a member there for about 6 years and they are very nice and helpful.

[SCI-Nurse]

Do you recall the name of the osomy nurse that sawyou in the hospital? You could try to call the hosptal and have her paged-usually if they have seen you before, they will answer general questions for you.
The web site steph mentions above would also be good- it is probably similar to this site which can give good information.
I will also try to get onto the hollister site which has alot of ostomy products and they may too have patient access. Its too bad you have to go to many access points to get the information you need. I guess knowing the ancillay staff available through a surgeon is a good thing to know prior to making a decision for a surgeon.

AAD

[summergirl89]

i agree that before my surgery i should have researched more on available help but i didn't know i would need anything. i guess when i had my bladder surgery 14 years ago things went so smoothly i figured this would too-my mistake. not that things have gone badly but just questions etc. come up.
i do not remember the ostonomy nurses name but my cousins wife is an OT at the hospital and knows one of the ostonomy nurses there so i am going to use that as my, "in" should i need to.
so far my stoma is back to normal size again and all is well. thanks!

[summergirl89]

Originally Posted by quadvet

Summergirl,
My stoma puffs up a bit right before a BM, but I must say I've never had it get so big as to not be able to get the wafer off. Seems like that would cut off the flow of blood to the stoma. Maybe you'll have to cut the hole in your wafers smaller larger, to account for swelling prior to a BM. Just a thought. It is important that the wafer hole isn't too small. Good luck with it.

yeah quadvet-it was freaky but so far since it went back down all is well. it is back to normal. i wondered about cutting off blood flow too but at the base of my stoma where the wafer sticks was fine-it still had enough room around it there but the top part was so big that it may not have been able to go through the hole as i took the wafer off-with the stoma being blood vessils i didnt want to try. it was huge though but like i said has gone down and stayed down so unless it happens again i am just going to chalk it up as a freak thing!