SP TUBE OUT!!!!

WEll..i was at The Cleveland Clinic where the Stoma nurses actually have their own building and there are plenty of them and i was so instructed to pitch after 24 hrs as i saw them do in the hospital. They do make them in little like 4oz bottles...but the pharmacy orders the 64oz bottles if you don't tell them not to do that. Anyway...whatever!
pat

Julie - I knew you would feel so much better with that last tube out of you - YIPEE! I too, will feel like a new woman once I get the Foley catether out...which should be 12/10...feel like I am being held hostage by the medical profession. After all is back to normal for me, I'm going to write a letter to the hospital...service certainly is not as good as it was 3 years prior and I'm betting next year, with so many unknowns connected to our new nation wide medical plan, service will drop even lower.

Anyway, in my opinion, if the doctor is going to tell you NOT to flush/irrigate....he should explain why he feels that way. Common sense tells me it is the right thing to do, esp. for those of us who tend to deal with more mucus. I don't know how it can hurt anything.

As for the larger bottles of water; unlike Pat, I was never told to discard after 24 hours and there are no instructions on my bottles ....and I saw the nurses continue to use them at the hospital. One bottle usually lasts me three days and I've never had any problem with UTIs from it.

Hope to continue to hear good reports from you...things will begin to fall into place...and life will get easier for you.
Hugs, M.

Nope...i wash my hands with a antibacterial soap which, of course, all soap is antibacterial....such a misnomer.. but i do not wipe the stoma until after i cath. I use Viva paper towels as i've found them the softest and i'm so allergic to anything that has a perfume in it that i do not use soap to wipe off the stoma and surrounding area..i just use water and pat dry with a clean piece of Viva. And i did your trick in the beginning also with just removing the gauze and putting new on and resticking the bandaid...saved a little money on bandaids!! You don't want to rub the stoma ..just lightly pat it and rinse and pat dry. It will bleed every once in a while..don't be alarmed..thats normal.
Mine will still do it if my jeans hit at the wrong place or for whatever reason it decides to do it. And i never reuse a cath.
So his "YUP" had no explanation huh? Interesting. I have a theory on that as the solution really needs to be thrown out after 24 hrs and the pharmacy usually orders the largest bottles even though there are small ones...and people may be letting it sit out and not throwing it out therefore creating little microbes to induce into the pouch. ??? And then UTI's abound.......???
pat

Wow I feel like a new woman had the SP tube out on TUES and packed tight with gauze for a few days but such relief. I am still having some eruptions from stoma but they are not as frequent and if I cath early every 1hr 55 min I can usually stop them. The dr. said it will just take time to grow. I did ask again about the irrigation and Dr Steinberg does not want me irrigate. I said I thought you used to want people to irrigate he said yup and I said but you dont want me to now NO!! Weird no explanation. I did have the nurse write me script for irrigation supplies. Does everyone clean their stomas with wet ones or paper towels and soap before cathing each time? My stomas is below my skin level so I can wipe around it but cant get inside to the stoma. I sometimes clean around the skin but not every time I just remove the gauze and cath and then put more gauze on. Hope thats ok???? Julie