Hey guys, it's Eric. Today when I actually talked about a pretty important topic
for ostomates, and that is: blockages, and how to handle them.
I'm no stranger to
blockages I've had a couple of partial blockages throughout my ostomy career
but I'm also been sent to the hospital because of a blockage and I i tell you
guys it is not fun at all. The word "NG Tube" just put the fear of God
into my heart, and I really would want anyone to avoid a hospital visit because
of a blockage if possible. Now for some of us, blockages are just part of the
package. If you've got a digestive disorder unfortunately you might also
have bowel obstructions and structures and other things that come along with
that so I think for the most part for people that don't have those
pre-existing issues, then blockages are something that's usually completely in
your control, so I hope some of these tips will help to prevent blockages for
you completely or will guide you through them in the event that you develop one.
Now I can't stress enough: blockages are not something to joke about! If you
suspect that you have a blockage and you're throwing up or you feel nauseated
or there's just a lot of pain going on I suggest that you head to your local ER
and have them take care of you. Believe me guys you do not want to run into
problems and you have a blockage and they do tend to be pretty common when
you're a new ostomate, but a lot veteran ostomates will still, and can still,
get them if they're not careful.
"Blockage prevention". Now for the most part there are lists of foods that you
know you do wanna stay away from if you have some difficulties passing them but
I tend to look at things as more about how you eat food and not necessarily what you're
eating so for me I tend to follow a couple rules when it comes to avoiding
blockages. First of all I always take my time when I eat. I know the one time that I
actually landed in a hospital I was rushing I basically did everything wrong.
So I was not chew my food well, I was rushing through the meal, I was
eating a lot of food all at once, and that really all just accumulated into
one big problem. So the first thing I do is I take my time. Now and the second
thing that I do is I chew, and I chew, and I chew, and I chew and I chew. This perhaps is gonna be the most
important thing to remember when you're talking about the avoidance of a
blockage. I think that chewing, you know, is just so important I can't stress this
enough: you want to chill until your food is essentially liquefied. Yes, it'll take
you a bit more time to eat, but believe me it'll take you a lot more time to
recover in a hospital! Now another thing is the volume of food that you're eating.
I tend to be someone who eats few meals a day, but when I do eat it tends to be
large meals and that tends to cause problems for me. If you snack throughout
the day and have, you know, relatively moderate sized meals, then you're
probably not gonna have too many issues. But if you are like me and you gorge on
a single meal, you're going to have a lot of trouble passing that through your system
and a lot of the times will probably get some partial blockage is along the way.
So if you can snack throughout the day, if you can split up your meals, that's
definitely going to help in the long term. If you're a new ostomate one thing
that you should keep in mind is the fact that your stoma is gonna be really
swollen and that prevents a lot of food from passing through it. And that's one
of the reasons why every new ostomate is told to go on a very easy to digest,
low-fiber diet without any skins or whole nuts or anything like that.
That's actually pretty good information when you're in new ostomate. For me
personally, once I got past that one or two month mark then foods just became
easier for me to digest, and as a matter of fact, my digestion strengthened for
about a year, I would say, until I totally felt comfortable with eating
and not getting blockages and that sort of thing. So it will take some time to
readjust your your system, but if you're a new ostomate, just hang in there!
Believe me it will get a lot better.
Another thing that you can do, and I know a lot of people do this, is to have
liquids with your meals. That will help to move things along especially if
you're having a very high starch meals. I know for myself personally if I eat a
lot of potatoes and I'm not washing it down with some kind of liquid, then
I tend to have the feeling of a partial blockage and that's not really that fun.
Ok so you think that you might have a blockage. What next?
Well first of all it's important to note that not everyone's experience is going
to be the same. For me, when I have a blockage, I tend to exhibit some of the
following things: First of all I have no output and that's kind of a classic sign
of a blockage. What I will have, though, is sometimes a bit of gas coming out of the
stoma or liquid output which is a little unusual for me. I'll also get the feeling of
pressure behind my stoma. It's almost like you're trying to pass a baseball
and just nothing's coming out! You feel that pressure, "crampiness", and when I'm
experiencing that I actually do notice that my stoma is retracting, and if I'm
wearing a clear pouch I can see right away whether or not I've got an issue
going on if I've got a bit of pain. Now when things start to get really bad and
you've got a blockage for more than a few hours ,what you might start to
develop is nausea, and in some extreme cases. vomiting. Now when I was sent to
the hospital with a blockage, vomiting was kind of my last step. Once I
started throwing up I went straight to the hospital and I mean they had to pump
my stomach out and do all kinds of stuff. I probably waited a little too
long! So I think if you're gonna get to the point where you're going wait till
you're throwing, up your probably going to run into some trouble so I would
recommend not doing what I do
and try to get to the hospital sooner. Now other people might have other symptoms to go
along with a partial blockage. Some people might have very strong smelling
output, and for some that might be totally normal, but for others if that's
a drastic shift from what you're used to
and you might want to keep an eye on that. Now it's important to note that if
you have a blockage or if you suspect the partial blockage don't eat anything.
I know you would probably think that "hey if I eat something it's going to kind of
push things along" and that's kinda not a good thing, ok? You don't want to be
doing that. If you're blocked, even if it's a partial blockage, if you try to
shove food down your throat it's just going to compact and create a bigger problem for
you. What I generally try to do is I will have warm liquids and this could either
be just warm water or tea, and in some cases I had even prune juice but prune
juice you really do have to watch out for because if you have a complete
blockage and you're drinking prune juice or any kind of laxatives or products
that will give you a laxative-like effect, you're gonna create more issues for
yourself . So I would only do that if I have a partial blockage and there is some
output coming through but not as much as I'd like or not as much as I know is
still in there. So that's really the only time when I use a prune juice or
laxative-like product. I do not recommend *at all* taking a laxative.
That can create many issues for you and you absolutely don't want to do that
unless your doctor has specifically instructed you. Now what I find really
helps when I feel partially blocked is to just massage around the stoma. Now you
don't have to go crazy! You don't have to, you know, intensely massage the area. Just
push along your stoma and if you have your wafer on, it'll basically be
around the edge of the wafer just slightly inside the border of that wafer
and just press down on some areas and you may actually find that some areas
are more tender than others and I'll generally massage that and I can massage
that for several hours at a time,
but eventually that will help to move things along that way. Along with
massaging, I will also bend my body like that or forward or do crunches and that will
also help to stretch things along inside and hopefully will loosen up anything
that stuck in there. It has worked for me in the past, and may not for you, but you know
it's something that you can definitely try. Now a lot of people like to get into
a very warm bath. That's something that I haven't personally tried but I know that
it it's helped a lot of people so if that's your thing definitely go for that.
Now what I also tend to do if I find that I've got a really stubborn partial
blockage is I actually remove my appliance altogether! For some of us if we're
putting our appliance on and it's a little too tight (especially if you're a newer
ostomate) and you're stoma is swollen, just removing your appliance will help to
open things up and ,you know, if there's anything just stuck behind the opening
of your stoma it should help to come out once you've done that. So that might be
another thing that can help you. So guys, those are a few of the things that I do
when I'm blocked and some of the things that I do to avoid blockages. Again I do
want to make sure that you realize blockages are not a joke. You do want to
talk to your doctor or head to the ER if you suspect you have a blockage, but that
doesn't mean you need to be freaked out about not being able to eat or not being
able to eat some of your favorite foods. For me personally, it's more about *how I eat*
not what I eat, so that's one thing that I'd like you to remember too. Anyway, I hope
you enjoyed the video. I'll see you in the next one. Take care!