What to do if you have a stoma blockage | by Summer

If you’ve got a stoma, chances are you’ve heard people mention blockages at some point and they can sound pretty scary. I remember being told about them early on and thinking, “right, that doesn’t sound ideal.” The reality is they can happen, but they’re not inevitable, and there are things you can do to reduce your risk. I’ve only had one in nearly five years, so I wanted to share what happened, what I learned, and what I now do to avoid them.

What is a stoma blockage?

A stoma blockage can vary from a partial to a full blockage depending on the cause, but the most common reason I have found is undigested food getting stuck in the small intestine. Because we’re missing parts of our bowel that would normally help break food down properly, certain foods can cause problems if they aren’t chewed enough or are harder to digest.

My experience with stoma blockages

I have an ileostomy and I am missing my entire large bowel. So while you can also get blockages with a colostomy, I am just here to talk to you about ileostomy blockages.

About four months after my stoma surgery, I had my first (and touch wood… last) blockage. I noticed that my stoma hadn’t passed any output for around 6–8 hours despite me still eating, and my stomach felt really, really full. That was an immediate give away that something wasn’t quite right, because my stoma is usually very active and routinely passes output. It was a weekend so I called 111 and was advised to go to A&E to get it checked out. I ended up staying in hospital for a few nights. I had various scans and tests, and at one point a doctor even put their finger into my stoma to see if they could manually unblock it (really gross, I know)! I was put on lots of fluids and restricted to a liquid diet. Luckily, after all the fluids, my stoma eventually unblocked itself and I was allowed to go home. When the doctors were trying to work out what had caused it, they asked if I had eaten anything unusual recently. The only thing I could think of was that I’d eaten a chicken burger with a slice of lettuce, and they suspected it was the lettuce that caused the blockage. Safe to say, that was the last time I ate any lettuce…

What should you do?

First things first, if you ever suspect you might have a stoma blockage, seek medical help immediately – whether that’s speaking to your stoma nurses, calling 111 or visiting A&E. It’s always better to get checked out than to wait and hope it sorts itself out. There are definitely some things I now do to avoid stoma blockages, and they’ve worked for me because I haven’t had one since. The biggest one is chewing my food properly. As I’m missing a large part of my intestines, which would normally help break food down, I need to give it a helping hand. I also avoid things like lettuce, spinach, nuts and sweetcorn which may cause a blockage.

At-home remedies for minor partial blockages

If I have eaten really quickly and not chewed my food as well as I should, I sometimes get a stomach ache where it feels like my stoma is struggling to digest the food properly. So not a full blockage, more like it’s just having a harder time moving through. When that happens there are a few things I will do to help:

I’ll have a hot bath because it helps relax my stomach
Go for a walk to try and get things moving
Use a hot water bottle (my favourite method)
Have a full-fat Coke – I find the fizzy sugar helps to break things down and move things along

These are just things that work for me personally and if anything ever feels more serious or doesn’t improve, I would always get medical help.

Bottom line

In the nearly five years since I’ve had my stoma, I’ve only had that one blockage in the early days while I was still figuring everything out. Blockages can be scary, but you can take steps to reduce your risk. And always remember, if in doubt, just get it checked out!

Summer
@summers_stoma