I know a lot of people will be here to learn about life with a stoma and I guess a lot of what I have been trying to show is that life with a stoma is basically just normal life. I still do everything I did pre-stoma, just maybe with a few changes. There have however been a couple of not so nice moments since I last wrote.
I’m not actually sure entirely when but I got two ulcer like sores around my stoma, opening up at the same time, weeping and being really rather unpleasant. We (my stoma nurse and I) couldn’t really work out whether it was to do with my bag causing the ulcers or whether it was the fact that I was quite run down at the time. They were really nasty and getting treatment for them was quite difficult. We were still at a point where doctors surgeries weren’t operating properly and its quite difficult to show a Doctor something that is happening under the baseplate. Eventually, my stoma nurse recommended a steroid tape but I needed to get this prescribed by a doctor. So I rang my GP but they were reluctant to prescribe it because technically this isn’t what steroid tape should be used for. It’s also really expensive which never helps the doctors to feel inclined to prescribe it!
For those that aren’t well versed in the treatment for things under the base plate, it can be a little bit difficult to say the least. For bags to stick well, the area needs to be dry. This poses a little bit of a problem when considering using a steroid cream or something like that as it causes the area under the baseplate to be wet underneath and therefore not to stick. So treating something like ulcers under the baseplate is quite difficult.
Anyway, the steroid tape seemed to work eventually and they healed up. It was quite sore while they healed but after a couple of weeks they did heal! I also learnt that steroid tape existed which I never knew before.. every day is a school day!