{"id":6899,"date":"2026-03-12T10:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eakinostomy.com\/GB\/?p=6899"},"modified":"2026-03-12T10:40:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:40:22","slug":"what-to-do-if-you-have-a-stoma-blockage-by-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eakinostomy.com\/GB\/blog\/what-to-do-if-you-have-a-stoma-blockage-by-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"What to do if you have a stoma blockage | by Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What to do if you have a stoma blockage | by Summer<\/h1>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
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If you\u2019ve got a stoma, chances are you\u2019ve heard people mention blockages at some point and they can sound pretty scary. I remember being told about them early on and thinking, \u201cright, that doesn\u2019t sound ideal.\u201d The reality is they can happen, but they\u2019re not inevitable, and there are things you can do to reduce your risk. I\u2019ve 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.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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What is a stoma blockage?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019re missing parts of our bowel that would normally help break food down properly, certain foods can cause problems if they aren\u2019t chewed enough or are harder to digest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My experience with stoma blockages<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About four months after my stoma surgery, I had my first (and touch wood\u2026 last) blockage. I noticed that my stoma hadn\u2019t passed any output for around 6\u20138 hours despite me still eating, and my stomach felt really, really full. That was an immediate give away that something wasn\u2019t 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\u2019d 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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What should you do?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

First things first, if you ever suspect you might have a stoma blockage, seek medical help immediately – whether that\u2019s speaking to your stoma nurses, calling 111 or visiting A&E. It\u2019s 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\u2019ve worked for me because I haven\u2019t had one since. The biggest one is chewing my food properly. As I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At-home remedies for minor partial blockages <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s just having a harder time moving through. When that happens there are a few things I will do to help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n