Is Your Ostomy Pouch Leaking?

There is truly nothing worse than having to deal with a leaky ostomy pouch. Those people reading this who have had to deal with that in their lifetime know exactly what I mean. If you’ve never had to deal with an ostomy life, then count your blessings. Seriously, you are probably one of the luckiest people on this planet. Having to get an ostomy is probably the worst thing that could ever happen to a human being in the history of time. There are a lot of different reasons that could cause an ostomy pouch system to leak, so it is sometimes hard to know just exactly what is causing a leak for that specific occurrence.

However, I am going to be writing about a short comprehensive list for some reasons that could cause your ostomy pouch to leak and how to avoid and fix them. A leaky ostomy pouch can often create a lot of social embarrassment and anxiety, mostly because you may find yourself stinking up an entire room all at once. So without further ado, here are some tips and tricks on how to prevent or fix a leaky ostomy pouch.

Firstly, like I mentioned already, there are a lot of different factors that could explain why your ostomy pouch is leaking. That being said, it is important to keep looking for different solutions until one of them seems to be working. So, what I am trying to tell you is that you should not feel discouraged just because you tried one method and it did not work out the way you wanted it to. One of the first reasons as to why your ostomy bag may be leaking is because the skin around the stoma is uneven. This can happen for a variety of reasons, so you might have to check a few different boxes before you can completely rule this solution out. The first thing might be that your stomach hair is getting in the way of you forming a good seal on the skin barrier - everybody has those fine little hairs on their stomach, and some more than others. So in the case that you are not getting a good seal on your skin barrier, it may be a good idea to shave the area around your stoma often. Remember to shave very carefully so that you do not harm your stoma!

Another reason why your skin might not be totally even around your stoma is because you have some skin folds or scarring that doesn’t allow for the skin barrier to get a good seal around the stoma. In this case, output and odor can leak in those tiny gaps of skin and pores and whatnot. Some tips that I have for you in this case is to use various products like stoma powder, paste, or adhesive gel that can help even out that surface around your stoma and seal on the skin barrier more effectively.

Another reason that your ostomy pouch may be leaking is because it is getting filled with gas too quickly, so you might want to look for ways to avoid gas. Unlike normal people who get gas, people with ostomies cannot control when the gas comes out and therefore can balloon up their ostomy pouches to the size of the Hindenburg at full capacity.

How To Empty and Clean An Ostomy Pouch

Let’s face it - everyone who has ever had to wear an ostomy pouch in the history of the world absolutely hates it when it is time to change the bag. Talk about bad smelling and gross looking output! Changing the ostomy pouch is probably the most frustrating part of having to wear an ostomy pouch, even more so than trying to hide it to prevent people from noticing that you have a stoma. To make things worse, it is actually quite difficult to get the hang of changing an ostomy pouch at first, so people who are new to the life of ostomy may struggle quite a bit at first.

It is honestly one of the most disgusting things that you can do. My girlfriend is a nursing student right now at the college we go to, and during one of her clinical rotations she had to change some overweight guys’ ostomy pouches and clean his stoma - she said it was probably one of the most disgusting things that she has ever done and it smelled awful. She said it took all of her strength to stay in the room and not gag while she changed the pouch and cleaned the stoma. That being said, there are some things about changing an ostomy pouch that make it a lot easier compared to what the novice methods contain, so I wanted to come on here and talk for a little bit about how to properly empty and clean an ostomy pouch.

So the first thing that you are going to have to do when you go to change the ostomy pouch is find a good place to do it. Obviously, (and I think most people know this, but I want to just make sure) you are going to need to find a private place to change out the pouch. Believe it or not, most normal people do not want to witness you removing your ostomy pouch and wathcing your stoma leak output everywhere onto the floor of the mall food court. That being said, being next to a toilet is the best place to be when you go to change your ostomy pouch.

You can either stand over the toilet or try to sit on it, whatever works best for you. However, it is worth mentioning that your stoma will likely leak output at some point while you are changing the ostomy pouch. Keep in mind also that it is going to smell absolutely awful to change out your ostomy pouch, so you may want to make sure that no one else is around so that you don’t make anyone lose their lunch or something like that. 

Most drainable ostomy pouches open up from the bottom of the pouch, so while you are leaning over the toilet you can just open that sucker up and let fly with all your contents from the past few hours or whatever. Keep in mind that the toilet water may splash up and onto your exposed abdomen while you are draining your ostomy pouch, so it might be a good idea to put some toilet paper down to prevent too much splashing. All this being said, this was probably one of the grosser articles that I have had to write and I wish that I didn’t have to know any of this information about ostomy.