The ideal appliance will fit in a way that protects your skin while also providing a durable, and secure fit. Unfortunately, not every ostomate can achieve this balance so easily, so many will experience a breakdown of skin around the stoma.
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This happened to me a short while after getting my ostomy, as my new stoma was still shrinking down from its swollen state.
I was quite inexperienced, so rather than change my appliance more often, I’d try to get 5+ day wear time, which meant that as my stoma became smaller, it left room for my output to eat away at my skin.
As you can see from the photos below, I had fairly deep erosion of the skin, and it hurt a lot. At the time, I had used the “crusting technique”, which involves putting stoma powder on the exposed, raw part of my skin, dust it off and apply a barrier using either barrier wipes or cavilon spray.
You do this a few times to build up protection on the skin, and to allow the wafer to stick to something other than the powder. This technique does work for many people, but it worked very slowly for me.
More recently, as I’ve been in between wafer samples, I began to get more breakdown of the skin.
I attempted to remedy this using the crusting technique, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted; so instead, I opted to simply use a barrier ring without any powder or barrier wipes.
The results impressed me, and my skin has probably never looked that good around the stoma.
And here’s another example of how quickly this method can heal damaged skin:
Now, I continue to use a barrier ring when I notice more breakdown of the skin. I may continue to use them more regularly, but they are quite expensive and I’m not done trying new appliances that might offer a better fit.
Here’s a video showing how I change my appliance, including how I use barrier rings.
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Caution: Before you change your routine, you should check with your stoma nurse first, unless you’re willing to experiment on your own.
INFO: If you’re interested in the “crusting technique” for healing peristomal skin, check out THIS article.
QUESTION: What techniques have you tried to heal up your skin?
Great video, thank you. I’ve had my ostomy for five weeks now. I’ve been struggling with leaks almost daily it seems. After watching your video I realize I’ve been doing a few things wrong, which I’ll now correct. My skin is in pretty bad shape, I think following your tips though will help it heal. Thanks again!
Good luck, Michael! Even at five weeks, I was still figuring things out, so don’t despair. There’s always a solution for each problem, so I hope your solution (with the new changes you’ll be making) comes quickly!
Hi Suzanne,Welcome to the forum and thanks for the tip about healing and protecting the skin with the milk of Magnesia. Great tip! I wrote it down so I can refer to it when needed.I hope you continue to add your voice to ours and post more tips since you have so much experience to share.
To explain a little more, A granuloma is on the side of the stoma. They are very weepy and eroded my wafer each time. I had the little pests removed a few months back with great success. The erosion never lead to a leak but it comprised the seal. That coupled with a little scar left from the removal was proving slow to heal. It’s easy to apply and adding a little stoma powder provides an excellent crust. Once again impressed and proves how valuable sharing experience and ideas is. So cheers Suzanne and Eric for providing the forum 👍
@john68I think I have had something similar. A couple times when I saw the ostomy nurse, she used silver nitrate (I think) to burn something on or around my stoma. It was a stick with the silver nitrate at the top and she used some lidocaine to numb it and then just touched it with the tip of the stick. I am probably due to go back and have her check it again.
Wow John, it sounds like Suzanne had the fix you needed. I am glad things worked out for you!What a blessing that she found this site.Stella
I have been trying out the tip posted by Suzanne About using the Milk of Magnesium. I have a sore spot of skin where I had a granuloma removed. It was healing but slowly. I followed what Suzanne said and after 2 treatments the difference is remarkable. Many many thanks for sharing this tip. 😀👍