Showering with your stoma

[AussieMumma]

Hi all,
I'm not sure if this is a really silly Q, but I will ask anyway!
When you shower, do you shower with your pouch on or off? I have been showering with it on and obviously the bag and wafer gets wet (especially the wafer), making my clothes a little wet as well. It's nothing major, but I am just trying to work out the best system for showering/ bag changes etc.
Do you dry your wafer/ bag? If so, what's the best way?
Thanks!

 

[nogutsnoglory]

I shower without the bag on whenever possible because I like to clean the area fully. This can't be done daily so I have to also shower with the bag.

When I shower with the bag I wrap my towel below and above it and press around to dry and then use my blow dryer.

 

[MicheleM]

Hi Aussi Mumma, My wafer is a Convatec Natura flexible wafer with a flexible collar. The pouch is Convatec Natura drainable pouch with a collar that snaps onto the wafer collar. It is like snapping on the lid to a plastic food storage container. I shower with the whole thing and dry it all with a towel. Sometimes the pouch still has a bit of moisture clinging to it, but I usually don't have any problems with wet clothes. The wafer never loosens with moisture and seems to dry fairly quickly. Perhaps your brand of wafer absorbs water a bit more than mine. I hope this helps. PS. I've been using this brand of appliance for many, many years.

 

[AussieMumma]

If I shower without the bag on, the water from the shower isn't going to ruin the wafer or make it loosen or anything will it? I'd like to give that area a good clean as well while I'm showering if possible!

 

[nogutsnoglory]

Well, a shower shouldn't interfere with it too much. Yes, it will peel a bit on the sides sometimes but if you dry up well you should be fine. If it peels too much you can tape the borders with skin safe medical tape.

 

[AussieMumma]

Thanks! Funny all these little things that I need to figure out. Thank god for this forum!

 

[Absentminded]

I used to use two piece bags so that when I had a shower, once I'd dried myself off as best I could, I would just clip on a new dry bag.
You'll find what suits you best pretty quickly

 

[Nyx]

If it's change day, I'll take the whole thing off and just shower with Oscar (my stoma) hanging out. Otherwise, I bathe or shower with the whole thing on and just dry it all with a towel, and if I'm in a hurry I'll use a blowdryer. Or, like Lucinda said, I just put a new dry bag on.

 

[UnXmas]

I often take it off to shower or in the bath. I know some people find that yucky but my stoma is usually inactive so I don't worry about output being produced in the bath. My stoma nurse said I could dry the bag with a hairdryer, but when I do shower with it on I just let it dry naturally which doesn't seem to take that long, but if I want to get my clothes on quick and it's not yet dry, I tuck one of the dry-wipes (little square cloths my ostomy products supplier sends me - just like babywipes but dry) into my knickers and over the bag to keep my clothes dry.