What not a lot of people know is that cleaning your stoma can be extremely difficult work. I know of many friends that have gotten ostomies in the past few years and simply struggle to take care of their own stoma when it comes to cleaning it regularly. This honestly makes me really sad to hear about, because I firmly believe that cleaning your stoma is the single most important part of making sure that you don’t run into any further problems or complications in regards to your stoma’s health. It may sound like I am blowing this whole thing out of proportion with each sentence that I write, but I can promise you right now that cleaning your stoma is absolutely critical for your own health. So if you have gotten an ostomy recently and have been searching around the internet for some simple instructions on how to properly clean out your stoma, look no further! I am writing this blog to help people like you find more success in the art of stoma cleaning and hopefully keep you from having to experience further trips to the hospital due to improper stoma care. So without further ado, let’s talk about how to properly clean your stoma.
So the first thing that you should know about cleaning your stoma is when to actually clean it. Some people are not aware that you should pretty much be cleaning your stoma every single time that you change your ostomy pouch. For some people this is a tall order, since they are usually changing their ostomy pouches during work hours as well or when they are out doing stuff. Unfortunately, there is really never a convenient time to clean your stoma,
so you kind of just have to deal with the fact that you are going to be cleaning this thing out even when you don’t want to. With that being said, it is definitely important to be cleaning out the stoma every single time you change your ostomy pouch. That way, you can ensure that things are staying nice and clean down there. I will say, however, that if you are running into any sort of problems or discomfort from cleaning your stoma too much (in the event that you change your ostomy pouch quite often), you can simply aim to clean out your stoma 3 or 4 times a day regardless of how many times you are changing your ostomy pouch. Does that make sense? I hope so.
The next thing that I want to talk about is what type of products you should be using to clean your stoma. A common misconception is that you should be using some special soaps or cleansers or wipes in order to clean your stoma; actually, this is quite far from the truth. The number one way that doctors and surgeons recommend for you to clean your stoma is to simply use some clean, fresh water. If you are concerned that your tap water is not very clean, you can use distilled water that you can buy at stores for very cheap. Cleaning out your stoma with just water is the best way to go - there is no need for fancy soaps or wipes. Then simply dry it off with a towel and you’re good to go!
