Support belt on prescription

My husband was railroaded into using up all three of his prescriptions on these products , so my advice would be to insist that you ONLY HAVE ONE until you have tried it out.

In his case it was useless, in fact, counterproductive, as the elastic in the beltcompressed the top of the pouch and caused leakage. Not a good result.

I eventually tracked down a contraption which consists of a hard disc with a hole which goes round the stoma and supports the hernia, the bag hangs outside and so is not constricted. This works really well for him.

Again, please dont let them take up your full prescription until you are sure. In our case, they put the request for all three through without our consent, luckily our GP signed off the right ones for us, but it would have been an expensive bit of sharp practice for us.

As there are different types of hernia support garments these are broken down into two categories 

Hi Ian

Yes it is SASH.

Thank goodness I found them, I was getting fairly desperate, considering ordering something from GREECE that I found on the net, and I even set about trying to manufacture something with plastic and webbing myself. Their's is much better, because it is curved and so fits better.

I agree about the problems with stoma nurses. In Oxfordshire, we had ONE visit from the local nurse, just after Jeff was discharged, but before he was moving about much, so when things were pretty easy anyway. After that we had the famous home measuring visit, arranged by the stoma nurse, which I now see was nothing but a sales call.

Since then, we have had a phone call, hoping that he was 'okay'; when we email or call we often do not get a response, if at all, for weeks. As Jeff has had a lot of problems recently, this is not very good. we are both reasonably compos mentis, and resourceful; if we weren't , I don't know how we would have coped.

Fortunately, he was/is a patient at the Royal Marsden, and the stoma nurse there is wonderful;  he is able to make an appointment to see her when he goes for the the periodic scans.

As cancer becomes a chronic condition, and the number of patients who have a permanent stoma increases, the aftercare provision seems to be being cut and cut. All the Oxfordshire nurses are now 'part-time' , but there are no more of them.

I love the idea of a personal stoma - can you have a shared one? ( sometimes I feel as if the answer is yes....)

Kind regards

Niobe

Hi, I see a couple of people in this thread use the SASH hernia belt. I'd be very grateful for any feedback etc on them for a new urostomate who was very active before the op. Thanks

Hi, I'm sorry to see that your request for feedback on Sash hernia belt has not attracted any responses yet. I do know that some members are using them and may have missed your thread.

I wonder if it might attract some response if you made a new post and headed it up with  something like

SASH Hernia Belts Reviews and comments required

or something similar

I have looked at the SASH website and it doesn't have a review page and I wonder if contacting the company and asking if they have any reviews that you could examine might be an option.

There is an open Facebook page where reviews have been posted which might help.

Hope you get some responses as I would like to read them also.

Ian

 Hi sboots

I havent got a great deal to add  about our experience which is not covered above. Our experience is for what is called a dual output or wet stoma, which has caused an enormous and incurable hernia.

My husband found the SASH product very effective, it is clearly designed by someone who understands the problem from personal experience, unlike most of the products we have found. If you call them, you speak directly to ( I think) the owner, it is quite a small company without the dreaded customer service 'advisers' ie salespeople.

The only possible problem is that you have to measure yourself yourself ( or you can get your wife to do it if you are fortunate enough to have one). Jeff measured up the first one himself and ordered  it too big; I had to take it in, it is lucky that I have a robust sewing machine because this product is built to take a lot of stress and last forever ( I should have known better, he is useless at measuring, he cant really see the tape measure properly, I think).

But we reccomend SASH thoroughly, it has been a big help to him. For example, he can mow a half acre garden with a push mower.

Thanks Niobe and I am sorry that Jeff has had such a rough time of it I do hope things improve for him in the future. Oh and sewing machines, tape measures, alterations etc is my domain as that is one thing my wife is no good at

Supportex are worth a look, they send someone to your home to measure you for the support belt and you can try on one of theirs so that you know what you will be getting. 

They also send the prescription request to your GP and remind you annually request another. 

Thanks, I've looked online at SupportX belts but they look too big/wide. I don't need support everywhere just in the stoma area but thanks

The suportx come in different widths. Maybe have another look if that is what’s putting you off.