Ostomy Personal Cleansing Care Archives

How Do I Bathe With An Ostomy-The Steps to Cleanliness

Bathe With an Ostomy-The Easy Way

When you talk about bathing with an ostomy I see it as two choices. Choice one is considered the easy way to bathe with an ostomy.

This choice the details would be-you are naked when you get in the shower or the bathtub with your ostomy pouch and wafer fully intact. Shower as a normal human would.

You wouldn’t be covering it up with a baggie, or any cover. You would be bathing like it wasn’t even there. You can get it all wet and wash it with soap shampoo etc without the fear of it being dislodged in the bathtub or your shower.

The Second Choice That I Offer

As your second choice, you may become deeply involved in removing your bag (ostomy pouch). This would be bagging up your pouch for disposal, actually disposing of it properly, and then cleaning your stoma up.

Then you are hoping that you don’t experience any releasing (going to the bathroom) while it is open to air and water. That could get kind of messy.

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It is perfectly fine and safe to expose your stoma to submersion in a bath or to have it hit with flowing water in the shower.

Nothing will get inside of you by doing the bathing or showering without an ostomy pouch attached to you.

Then after your shower or bath is over you will need to get completely dried off.

Then all of your supplies will need to be used to get yourself back to where you need to be for your normal living routines.

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Bathing Preparations for the Two Choices

Preparations for Choice #1
You will need a towel to dry off with and I usually use a hair dryer to dry very carefully all of the area around my stoma where the wafer is applied.
I also sometimes need a second smaller towel to hand dry the ostomy pouch. I squeeze it and rub it with a cloth towel to make sure the pouch is dry before I pull my underwear and pants over it.

Preparations for Choice #2
The preparations for choice 2 are much more involved. Here is a list to cover this.

You will need two towels-one for drying yourself off and one to help with cleaning up the extra water on the floor. This would be because you experience a sudden leaking and you need to get out of the water quickly.
You will need a roll of paper towels to clean up an unexpected leak
You have to gather up one wafer, and one ostomy pouch to be used
A Medline Wipe Protectant Skin Sureprep-to treat the area around the stoma before adhering the wafer to your skin
A plastic bag to put soiled paper towels in to properly dispose of and remove from the bathroom
A hair dryer to dry the area thoroughly before you apply the new ostomy wafer and pouch set

So it is easy to see that just in the preparation area that one choice is much easier than doing the other choice.

If You Need A Reason To Pick Choice 2

From the onset, it definitely is much easier to pick choice one. Just get in the tub or the shower. That is actually what I always do.

In fact, I will be very honest with you. I just will not do choice two because of all of the extra effort it takes to do the second choice.

So I would need a good reason why I would pick choice #2. After nearly 5 years of this living, I can see that I will be working towards choice two because my skin needs it.

The stoma is usually only open to air and water etc only an average of fewer than 30 minutes every week. It would do me some good to expose it to the elements. HaHa?

Most Important Benefit of Open Air Exposure

Stoma Discolored Skin

I seriously do see benefits to you to get your skin out there and put it into normally natural human situations. Skin does belong in the open air and with open exposure happening to it.

It is totally unnatural to have that part of my body covered up with a wafer and a pouch for the rest of my life. You have to figure out for yourself if it is worth the extra effort to be so inclined to perform choice #2.

Here is a collage of what you see normally when looking at an always-covered-up stoma. Does yours look like this then get Healthy? Uncover and bask in the sunlight and open air

I am committing to having healthier skin around my stoma. As you can see the area close to a stoma is indeed very different looking. Any picture I have ever seen of stomas, plus seeing my own all the time, is real.

You will notice that there is a purple pale color that is close to the stoma center.
It just looks unhealthy. So get healthier than you have been.

Helping You Maintain Your Stomas’ Good Health

So good health is something you wish to properly maintain. If so then you need to constantly be monitoring the health of your stoma and its relationship with your skin and your body in general.

Here are some preparations that I have used and that you too may be interested in purchasing to help you maintain your stomas’ health integrity.

Medline MSC1528H Sureprep No-Sting Skin Protectant, 28 mm MEDLINE MSC1500Z Sureprep Skin Protectant Wipe (50 pack)Medline Skin integrity Wound Cleansers, 16 fl oz.

Can I Use a Hot Tub With an Ostomy

Key Things You Need To Know About Using a Hot Tub With an Ostomy

This is my hot tub. I went almost 10 months after I received my ostomy before I decided I would try entering my hot tub with my ostomy.

Why you ask yourself, would I wait so long? Well, I had my reasons. Here are my reasons.

My Ostomy Hot Tub Fears

My biggest fear was that the ostomy bag would come off in the hot tub. I just didn’t need to deal with that I thought.
I thought the heat would destroy the wafer’s seal and the ostomy bag would come loose.
I knew the water would ruin the bag and the wafer I was using. This would cost me another bag. I figured out the cost of another set(one bag & one wafer) and what the cost in $ and Cents was going to be for me.
It would be embarrassing to have to go through the mess it would create. So my trying to use the hot tub would create a mess that I would have to clean up. No Thanks!

Nothing Bad Happened??

So I went ahead and tried it one day, and guess what, it was fine.

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I even did it in day 3 of the 4 day cycle I use when my equipment gets normally changed.

I knew I had a good seal with my wafer, and everything was fine.

The only thing that happened was that I enjoyed myself. Go Figure!

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Other Ostomy Hot Tub Findings

My report is: As we heated up the water, around 98 degrees to 102 degrees, (pretty warm I think) the seal remained good. No leakage and no sign of anything melting, or the bag, the seal held up fine.

The doctor and a couple of nurses had encouraged me to go swimming, it should be fine they said, and the exercise will be good for you. I wouldn’t go swimming because that would be a public confirmation but my hot tub I could use that in the privacy of my own home.

So What Did Happen

I got to relax and enjoy the water again. Ahhh Yes!!!
I enjoyed time with my wife that we hadn’t had in some time.
The wave action didn’t do anything but make my pouch float around in the water. At first it was embarrassing, but my wife wasn’t bothered by it. The conversation, relaxing and time were more important.
My Hot Tub
I did notice the warm water did take a little bit of life out of the wafer and pouch but it didn’t cause a need that same day to change the set then. Probably a great idea to do the hot tub in either day 3 or 4 of the equipment change cycle.

Most of My Fears Were Irrational

In looking back on my first experiences of using my hot tub after receiving an ostomy, I realized that most of my fears were unfounded.

The worst that has happened was that I needed to change out my bag and wafer a day earlier because they were getting that used look (Looking rattier) quicker that they would have without using the hot tub.

I realized that most of my fears concerning my ostomy where unfounded in the midst of the lack of knowledge about the truth of having an ostomy.

There is freedom in being armed with good information. I had blown it up to unrealistic things happening and they were 95% bad. So yes It didn’t happen, but what did happen we can take a look at.

Bag & Wafer Change: Information on a Need To Know Basis

It is important for you that you would know about this (the cycle). The date when you are scheduled for changing the ostomy bag.
This will allow you a better control and better cost efficiency of using the ostomy supplies.
So this is something I wanted to give you a heads up on.

You can read about the two subjects on my other posts titled, Who Pays for Ostomy Supplies and Let’s Discuss When to Change an Ostomy Bag

Showering & Bathing With An Ostomy a Discussion

Some Thoughts About Showering & Bathing with An Ostomy

Around 5 years ago, when I was getting prepared to live with an ostomy, I seemed to have many different questions that kept coming up in my mind?

Could I do This? Would I ever be able to do This ever Again? How do you Do this? Many different questions?

Basically any questions that pertained to things that a normal person does and never even thinks about doing, I had huge concerns about them.

Many things were now held up in my mind by large caution signs or large stop signs. These questions kinda took over my mind. You know how you can think one thought and it can quickly grow out of hand.

Your mind is rapidly firing, like a machine gun, at lightning speed all types of questions??? and it is making you very fearful of the unknown.

Well, unknown it is, but please don’t be afraid. Here are some things I found out about showering & bathing with an ostomy.

So I thought that I would share 4 tips that will help you deal with showering & bathing with an ostomy. Tips to consider are to help you handle your transition to having an ostomy.

4 Tips To Help When Showering and Bathing With an Ostomy

TIP #1 Bathing and Showering with a stoma will not cause you to get infections, etc….

TIP #2 You don’t need to baby your stoma. It can take on water and you will be fine.

TIP #3 Enjoy Yourself. Relax and enjoy your shower and baths as you always had. Worries…..

TIP #4 Drying Yourself after the shower or bath will be different for you

So there is a bit to discuss here. Let’s move on and I will share my experiences and views.

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Water Will Not Get Into Your Stoma

Bathing and showering will not cause a problem for your stoma. In the beginning, when I didn’t have any experience or knowledge, I was concerned that the soap and the water were going to be getting inside me, through my stoma and cause me to get an infection, etc, etc,….

This is not true from my own experiences. The biggest problem for you will be that you may experience a leak from your stoma. A NOTE on THIS (by leak I mean some poo is dropped from the stoma.)

You could always sit in a tub, or shower without any clothes on and water never got into your insides way before you had your operation, you know back when you were a normal person.

Well, this is no different now, with the exception being anyone who has stoma knows that a leak can happen at any time.

Usually we don’t know it’s going to happen,(there isn’t any sign to us) and secondly, we have no control over it either. So Just Saying…..

Your Stoma Is Built Well

My next point is that you don’t need to be babying your stoma. It is well built and will not be a problem for it to be submerged in a tub for the duration of a bath. In fact, it would be a good idea to give the skin around your stoma some outdoor time.

It is usually a prisoner inside your wafer and bag set up.?

Just remember to make sure, that you are pretty certain that it will not be leaking or that it is time to be going into the waste excretion cycle before you do take the shower or bath alas, being uncovered….?

The reason I say that is that I usually have a cycle of when I am relieving myself and times when it is most likely that I am not.

Let’s Discuss Enjoy Yourself-Tip 3

Tip #3 is that you can enjoy yourself in the water much as you did before. Even if you are showering with your wafer and bag intact, nothing at all about you has changed.

What I mean here is that mostly the difference between what you can actually do in water with an ostomy is limited much more by your mind that what your actual real physical limitations would be.

Make sure your mindset is one of it’s normal and nothing is going to happen if you either shower or bathe

The Part That Is Different-Drying Off

So you have completed your bath or shower now it will be very different than what you were used to. The drying off part for an ostomy owner is where there is indeed a difference.

Although it does add a few minutes to your body maintenance schedule, it will add probably two steps. It can be learned easily in 2-3 months. A new habit will have been formed and it will all seem perfectly normal to you.

Some things extra that you will need to learn to do are the following:

Towel dry the bag on all sides of the bag. This helps the bag dry out, this will help you avoid putting on your underwear and getting them wet from the bag.
After you towel dry the bag, you then need to dry thoroughly the skin all around your wafer adhered area. Water will condensate under the wafer and cause you future problems if you don’t do this.

My Recommendations For the Ostomy Owner

If you shower or bathe with the wafer and bag fully exposed to the water I recommend that you use a hair dryer on high fan but with the lower temperature setting to dry your bag and your skin all around the area where the wafer has adhered to your skin.

This will dry the skin underneath the wafer so that you will not be getting any rashes or skin irritations going on underneath the wafer area. These can rapidly become sores, and that is not what you want to be dealing with. I usually hand towel dry the bag before I use the hair dryer.

This will help tremendously in successfully drying your bag and wafer area.

My Feelings About It now

As you can see, not much really has changed for you, most of my reservations were caused in my head by what I didn’t understand. Actually, I look back now and not that much is really that different.

I did learn the new ways, it wasn’t that hard to do, and my health is better now, than before when I had cancer. The ostomy happened, I adjusted.

So again I say plainly and simply, no worries, enjoy yourself!