Ostomy Bag leakage

[Luckster136]

Good evening
Hope all is well and this post finds you in good health and good spirits..

I had a emergency ileostomy performed in May 2024. I was in the hospital/skilled rehab for the last six months. I was recently discharged this October 2024. It's been a challenge having a ostomy bag. This would be mainly due to leakage from the device.

During the day all is fine with the device. No blockage or leakage. Just your normal emptying of the device when it starts to get full. The issue I'm having at the moment is leakage during the night when sleeping.

My question is "Does anyone else encounter this situation during the night?" If so what tips/advice do you have to prevent leakage.

Your assistance and tips/advice is greatly appreciated.

[Mysticobra]

Do you have a clip or velcro closure.
I have velcro. Been over 8 years now and never leaked.
I've have had wafer seals leak. To where I have to change the whole thing.
But never had a leak in bed overnight. Even with stuff in it.. Up to half a bag.
That's alot. But no leak.
R.

[Mara]

Where is the leakage coming from..... the closure or from under the wafer seal?

[Shamrock4806]

...The issue I'm having at the moment is leakage during the night when sleeping.

One of the things I did was train myself to sleep only on my back or right side. I have an illeostmy.

I also have a near flush stoma and a belly fold, which requires using a four hook otosmy belt and a convex wafer which adds strength.

I first use a paste and a protective sheet (currently cheating using barrier strips) then the paste again and the wafer, then extra large adhesive barrier strips all around . What this does is protects the skin in case of a leak and forms a collection pocket in case of a blowout between the wafer and the protective sheet.

I have quite a heavy duty setup.

But it's extremely rare I'll get a blowout and if it does occur (shower water got inside and loosened things up on me once) the extra barrier strips hold most of it in and just a tiny bit squirted out.

There is also diet and food portion control, eating all my meals between after morning shower (and bag change if needed) to about 2-3 pm, then only very small snacks after 3 pm just to keep hunger at bay until morning. I may eat something like applesauce an hour or so before bag change as to get the stoma to stop producing bile.

I quit drinking coffee as it was making my burns severe.

Then my daily meals are usually 2-4 small portions, but highly nutritional as not to cause the bag to go ballistic from too much food at once.

A bag can't leak too much if there is nearly nothing going into it.

If your using a two piece bag, I've found those can leak if the manufacturer doesn't include some sort of clamp or else it pops off. (Looking at you Hollister).

Since I keep a bag on for 7 days, rinsing from below, it lasts just as long as the wafer of 7 days so I just use a one piece (bag + wafer combined).

You can read everything here to assist you, although your stoma and body contour may be different so you may not need to use exactly the same appliance as I do. I use Coloplast as they seem to have a complete line of assisting products.

See here for my procedure list, my daily routine that works for me.

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