Bowel/Colon Cancer

FormerMember over 3 years ago

4 replies
118 subscribers
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After an almost complete recovery from bladder cancer (with stoma for pee) the cancer has now spread to the colon/bowel region. Intestine has been removed and I now have a poo stoma. I am none too pleased! The poo stoma is horrible and messy: disgusting. I am eating as much as I can, but it doesn't seem to digest ( the poo is very liquid) and I am losing weight very fast - now only 48-47 kilos (for a man) and post bladder cancer I was upto around 55kilos. Anyone one else experienced this - do I have a chance or am I done for?

Katz51 over 3 years ago

Is it a colostomy or an iliostomy?as they have very different outputs.is it messy because you are having leaks?if so maybe your stoma nurse could suggest a different bag.the stoma itself takes about 6 weeks usually to shrink and settle to its finished size,so maybe a change of hole size might help

Kath

FormerMember over 3 years ago in reply to Katz51

Colostomy. No leaks. The mess relates to the liquid content. Thank you

Kareno62 over 3 years ago

Hi . Have you been told you can take loperamide to thicken and slow down your output? It slows down the transit of the poo and allows more liquid to be absorbed. There are also lots of foods that can thicken the output like rice, bananas, pasta, jelly babies and marshmallows. There’s a few ideas in the booklet below

https://bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/Publications/EatingWell_BowelCancerUK.pdf

Please ring and have a chat with your stoma nurse -there’s lots of help available

Take care

Karen x

Macmillan Support Line - 0808 808 00 00, 7 days a week between 8am-8pm

FormerMember over 3 years ago in reply to Kareno62

Thank you