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?
Hi,
This is exactly what my stoma looks like and it hurts. I have tried both methods and neither has worked. How is this working for you?
Hi Deana, I haven’t needed to use anything for quite a while, but the barrier ring method always works for me – skin will heal in a matter of days if given the right conditions.
Have you been able to see a stoma nurse? Ongoing issues will lead to new problems, so it’s best to take care of that sooner rather than later. Good luck!
Could try using cortisone CREAM but use it without aloe- as aloe is slippery- when changing the pouch- set aSIDE some time to apply cream to affected skin- allow to absorb into skin for 5-10 minutes or so (have toilet paper or paper towel ready to prevent ostomy output from flowing out all over the place while pouch is off)- wipe off as much as you can- apply karaya powder to weeping skin- then barrier spray or hollister medical adhesive over the karaya- it will take a few changes to start to see improvement- but the cortison should help heal things up nicely. I used to use Karaya pouches for nearly 30 years=- they were absolutely fantastic for nice healthy skin- never had any issues with weeping broken skin- but they stopped making them so i had to switch to hydrocolloid pouches from hollister and now have bad skin all the time because seal will not adhere to my skin tightly aroudn hte edges near the stoma- always battling skin irritation and can only wear pouches 1 day- Tried Ekins- no help- messy to change- etc- and liquid woudl work it’s way under the eakins just as bad as the regular seal. Wish htey’d brign back the Karay pouches- (Yes, they were hard to change- scraping off the stuck on Karaya was a pain, but coudl wear pouches 2 days and skin was always in great shape)
if you wanted to try cortison with aloe (as Aloe can be very healing as well as the cortison)- you could leave it on for 5-10 minutes, then clean it off really really well- probably with somethign like alcohol to make sure all the oils fro mthe aloe are gone before applying ostomy pouch
I was allergic to most wafers. I ended up in the convatec durahesive with no tape barrier and with a hollister cera ring and nuhope adhesive, I get 7 days between changes. It took a long time to figure out what would work. The cera ring was what stopped my itching.
Hi Chris looks like I’m a day late . I have used the marathon before and it worked well for me but I did not have blisters I did have a bad irritation though . So like Eric said I would be cautious about putting anything on open blisters .
Thanks for your advice! I adjusted the appliance today and used a lot of stoma powder! It doesn’t hurt quite as much so I am hoping it will start to heal!
Hello my husband has a colostomy and is taking chemo. His skin around the stigma is beat red and really moist. This doesn’t happen often. But right now it is really bad. A pouch will not stay on because its so wet. What can I do to help him with this.
Hi Dana,
Anything more than minor irritation should be investigated by a stoma nurse. Poor adhesion to the skin will only compound the problem, and a stoma nurse will be able to best plan a course of action.
Best of luck to your husband!
My peristomal skin is always a bit moist. I have a strange purple condition just under the top layers of skin that neither stoma nurses nor surgeons can quite identify or help with. It’s probably not as moist as your husband’s, but I have found that, in my case, Convatec 2-piece systems have built-in adhesive properties in the barrier ring/wafer/baseplate that work much better than Coloplast adhesives. Hollister products perform somewhere in the middle. So I get almost double the wear time and much better skin protection.
Try Safe n Simple Barrier sheets to heal skin . Place directly onto skin then your wafer on top.