When I had tested the one-piece SenSura Mio appliance, I was a bit disappointed but found enough strong points to recommend it to most ostomates.  The two-piece system has been something that I’ve been looking forward to trying, and here’s my review!

Disclosure: This review is based on samples I received through the Coloplast customer service dept, as well as samples received during a patient feedback program. No other compensation was provided, and both my experience and opinions are completely my own.

Video Review

About the Sensura Mio Click

Products I’ve used for this review

Product name: SenSura Mio Click baseplate
Manufacturer: Coloplast
Product #: 10502
Dimensions: 10-35mm, Cut-to-fit, flat wafer with 40mm coupling
Quantity per box: 5

Product name: SenSura Mio Click Narrow Outlet Drainable pouch w/ filter; opaque.
Manufacturer: Coloplast
Product #: 11432
Dimensions: 40mm flange coupling
Quantity per box: 10

Product name: SenSura Mio Click baseplate
Manufacturer: Coloplast
Product #: 10512
Dimensions: 10-45mm, Cut-to-fit, flat wafer with 50mm coupling
Quantity per box: 5

Product name: SenSura Mio Click Wide Outlet Drainable pouch w/ filter; opaque.
Manufacturer: Coloplast
Product #: 11472
Dimensions: 50mm flange coupling
Quantity per box: 10

The Sensura Mio Click is an inspired ostomy product line by Coloplast. It holds an impressive feature set and style that sets the bar for what an ostomy appliance should strive to be.

The SenSura Mio Click line comes with a staggering number of options, from opaque to transparent, filtered to filterless, wide outlet to narrow outlet, closed-ended to drainable, flat wafers and convex – you get the idea right? It’s a complete line that caters to any ostomate, including urostomates.

Coloplast is good when it comes to providing a complete package for ostomates, and the wafers are packaged with a reusable stoma measuring guide; the pouches come with small garbage bags and filter stickers.

The Wafer

The SenSura Mio Click wafers I’ve used are cut-to-fit, which means I have to measure my stoma and cut an opening to fit through the wafer.  

These wafers are really easy to cut, and they have measuring guides that you can use if you know your stoma’s size before hand.

They do come with a single release liner, but the wafers are not individually sealed, which I find more difficult to carry in my travel bag.

For those looking for added security, the wafer does have four belt hook loops (vs. two you’d find on most other appliances), but it requires a special four-hooked accessory belt to take advantage of.

One of the benefits to the Sensura Mio Click is that the wafer is highly flexible and will work well with many body shapes.

Patients with hernias, for example, may find that the Mio will form-fit along curves better than some of the more rigid plastic wafers.

The thing that I like most about the Sensura Mio wafers, is the fact that my skin does really well with them!

I don’t find any irritation under the wafer or around the edges of the wafer (which were a problem on the Xpro and Assura line), and the skin around my stoma remains intact and healthy.

My results are great even without the use of barrier rings, barrier wipes, stoma powder, or anything else to help my skin. Kudos to Coloplast!

My wear time has been a consistent three days with zero to minimal wafer erosion.

This is actually much better than I had expected, and it did perform better than the one-piece; I experienced NO LEAKS while using these wafers.

Unfortunately, wafers in the Sensura Mio line are manufactured using gelatin, so these would personally not be a product I’d choose first, since I have alternatives that are free of animal-based ingredients.  

One can only hope that Coloplast will replace gelatin in the future.

The Pouch

I’ll be honest, the SenSura Mio bags are the best looking ostomy bags on the market right now, and they are the only one I’d confidently wear without a pouch cover.

The fabric cloth that’s used on the product is unlike anything you traditionally find on an ostomy bag.

The color is a neutral gray, and it does a great job of repelling water; I often find that after showers it takes very little effort to dry my pouch, and it would often be dry before I even finished using the bathroom.

Unlike many other brands that use opaque cloth bags, the fabric used on the Mio is durable and modern looking, and it’s nice and smooth.  

As a bonus (which really should be a necessity on any opaque pouch), the fabric conceals the contents of my bag quite nicely.

The Mio Click, like many other Coloplast products, comes with a mechanical coupling that uses a locking mechanism to secure the bag. The style of the lock is slightly different from the SenSura Click, and it’s been improved to allow for easier access in a more reliable design.

The lock does add a bit more bulk to the appliance, but when unlocked, it allows you to easily rotate your bag horizontally or diagonally before locking it back into place.

This is something that you’d have trouble doing on other appliances since freely rotating the bag isn’t as easy as it is with the Mio, and it’s often less reliable.

While the mechanical coupling on the Mio is great for convenience I found that it was useless if I needed to burp my appliance to release gas from the coupling. Attempting to burp my appliance basically causes the bag to completely come off!

I was over a toilet the first time I tried that, but I can’t imagine what kind of trouble I’d be in had I attempted that in bed on in my car! If you must burp this appliance, do it from the outlet while laying flat on your back.

Coloplast offers both a wide and narrow outlet to the SenSura Mio Click, with the narrow outlet designed specifically for ileostomates (I’ll refer to this as the “ileostomy bag” throughout the rest of the review).

The narrow outlet pouch differs from the wide outlet version in a few ways, which I’ve detailed in THIS post.

Basically, you have no velcro tabs from which to hold the outlet flap open while you empty your pouch, and you also have a different filter design, which I’ll explain more of in the next section.

While I do prefer the wide outlet, the exclusion of the Velcro tabs on the narrow outlet bags really made it difficult for me to empty my pouch, or clean it without getting my hands dirty (quite literally!).  

I’m sure ileostomates with liquid output might find it easier to empty with this design, but I found it quite a challenge that easily added another 20 seconds to my routine as I struggled to clean the opening and the flap.

You will still find Velcro fasteners at the end of the outlet, which keeps the outlet securely closed, and you can tuck that outlet neatly on the bottom, or fold it in half for a more compact look.

Like the one-piece, I really appreciate the attention to detail on these bags, and you can easily find the model number and lot number on the top of the pouch, under the fabric flap.

A nice touch that Coloplast added to the Sensor Mio bag is the inspection window which allows you to see what’s happening inside your pouch without having to resort to wearing a clear pouch.

The Filter

As I mentioned previously, the wide and narrow outlet bags both feature different filters, or more accurately: pre-filters.

If you look closely at the two styles, you’ll notice the wide outlet pre-filter has many small holes in it; this can help to remove gas from your pouch, provided your output is dry enough not to clog it up!  

The narrow outlet bags have pre-filters with only a few holes, and that should help to keep ileostomy output from clogging it.

But does it work??

I do find that the ileostomy bags work better than the colostomy bags (wide outlet bags) when it came to minimizing ballooning, however the results are still inconsistent; I found that on certain days I would have pouch balloon within 24 hours, while at other times I could go a full 3 days without ever having any pouch ballooning.

Since my output tends to be thick (for an ileostomate) this is a little concerning as I know that liquid output will probably clog this filter up much faster than the output that I’ve got.

I’m also not a fan of the large pre-filter that either of these pouches come with. One of the reasons for this is because I find that no matter how empty my pouch is, it always feels like it still has something in it.

This happens because over time the pre-filter will collect fluid without giving it any place to go so it’s basically like you’re carrying a sponge in your bag.

For some, the feeling this causes may be annoying, considering you have to wear an appliance 24 hours a day, and I do find it frustrating to have to double-check and triple-check to make sure that my bag really is empty.

I would have preferred no pre-filter and simply a small filter like what you’ll find on Hollister, ConvaTec, B. Braun and other ostomy bags. While there is an option to go with a filterless bag, this defeats the purpose for anyone who has ballooning issues.

There is one advantage to having a pre-filter, though, and it’s the fact that I’ve never noticed the pouch sagging when it got full.

But the large pre-filter is also a problem if you’re the type of person who wears stoma guards. Some stoma guards simply don’t have enough room for everything to fit under them comfortably with pre-filter there – it’s overcrowding, to say the least!

Some ostomates may also find that the large pre-filter creates pancaking issues or makes pancaking worse for people who already struggle with that problem.  I noticed this happening a lot, where I wouldn’t normally notice it on other appliances.

One thing I do need to point out is that the outer filter is not waterproof, so you do need to use the included filter stickers if you plan on having a shower or going for a swim with this appliance; not covering the filter can lead to water clogging it from the outside.

Conclusion

At the time of this writing (Dec 2015), the SenSura Mio Click is available worldwide.  I find that the prices on these are about average, but still more than a one-piece.

Coloplast is great for sending samples, and you can request them from your local Coloplast office.

The Coloplast SenSura Mio Click is a well-rounded appliance, and you can tell that a lot of work went into the design of this product; it’s worth checking out if you didn’t have much success with the one-piece Mio.

For those who have been disappointed with the filter performance on the wide outlet bags, you will have the option to use the ileostomy bags for better results.

While the system does have a few flaws, mostly coming from the size of the pre-filter, may ostomates may overlook them in favor of the next-level fabric and design.

Bonus: A Review on the Convex Urostomy Mio Click System

The following review was shared to me by a urostomate, Stephen, who’s been able to write about his experience with the Convex Urostomy version of this system. This is information that I could never provide first-hand, so I am grateful for his effort in putting this together.

Bag pt no. (11498), backing plate pt no. (16911)

I recently trialed a couple of new products from the new SenSura Mio convex range of urostomy bags, the result of suggestions made during a meeting with my stoma nurse about my slightly recessed stoma. Up to this point, due to issues with non convex Hydro Colloid bags, I had been using microskin bags.

The most recent bag I trialed was the SenSura Mio 2-piece “click” convex urostomy bag. I received as samples two convex light baseplates and four clear “click” bags (I much prefer clear bags, as it’s much easier to check on what’s happening with my stoma).

Due to the built in plastic cup the baseplate really is quite bulky, protruding somewhat and making it visible under tighter fitting trousers. However, I found the “soft seal” element of the baseplate made it relatively flexible, and I experienced no discomfort. Adhesion was excellent and remained so even after a bath (bathwater also just ran off the fabric backing of the bag).

I did find that enlarging the hole to accommodate my stoma required accuracy, there is little room for error, so I left this to my wife! (in the long term it may make sense to use Charter’s pre-cutting service). Placing the baseplate was quick and easy, with very few wrinkles in the adhesive backing requiring smoothing out.

After reading the instructions fitting the bag to the baseplate proved easy and the locking ring easy to operate. Ease of operation of the locking ring was a feature I particularly liked, easy to secure the bag preventing it from slipping and easy to unlock and rotate the bag to any angle I wanted, for example to 45O when I connected the bag to a leg bag before I went hiking. Removing the bag to clean/flush it out, clean the plastic cup of the baseplate and my stoma proved relatively quick and easy, which is something you can’t do with a 1-piece bag, (just remember to tuck a plastic bag into your waistband to catch output while you do this)

Degradation of the hydro colloid part of the baseplate at 96 hours before replacement was much better that I had experienced with non-convex hydro colloid bags, where the wear time had been as low as 10 hours! I used two bags per baseplate, replacing the first bag after approximately 48 hours.

After trialing the new SenSura Mio 2-piece “click” convex bags, I am happy enough with them to have requested a batch on my most recent prescription order for use as my main bag. I will however still be keeping a small supply of microskin bags as well.

Stephen