Sunday, July 31, 2011

Stomas during Pregnancy

I have finally gotten to that point. That point in pregnancy when my stoma goes off and changes.  As if there aren't enough other changes to deal with already.  I am proud that I made it all the way in to my seventh month of pregnancy using my same "cadillac" bag---Coloplast Sensura but the time has come to move on, at least temporarily to a much larger wafer.

I have ordered the new Sensura Pro system from Coloplast and have had mixed results so far.  My stoma is rather large and oval shaped under normal circumstances requiring a large wafer to account for the ovalness (is that a word?).  As my belly has expanded with the baby, the largeness and ovalness has only increased.

The Sensura XPro wafer that I am using is the largest they make and it is MASSIVE.  So large that right edge hits my scar and will not adhere.  This is forcing me to tape up my wafer with waterproof tape every time I shower--which I forget to do about half the time, forcing bag changes sooner than necessary.  It appears they skip from large to XXL on the wafers without a middle ground.  I am convinced this reduces the effectiveness of the convexity of the wafer as well because the convexity is not centralized on the stoma like in the smaller sized wafer, it is instead displaced over a larger area.

I went to change my ostomy last week and realized that my supplier, who shall remain nameless, sent me umpteen boxes of wafers with the new adhesive to attach to the bag rather than the click n' lock that I prefer. Of course all of my bags were the click n' lock type.  So far I have to say that I am not loving the Flex adhesive attached bags.  The adhesive part of the bag that attaches to the wafer is so large that it reduces the amount of space for output, forcing the user to empty more often.  I'm also not comfortable with the large ring that is part of the wafer that the bag attaches to.  It is almost larger that the perimeter of the wafer itself.  I'm curious how the massive ring will adapt when I lay on my side, especially with my belly getting so big.  I'm curious enough that I have done it because I am scared there will be a leak.

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