If you recently got home after ostomy surgery, you might wonder if you should bathe or shower. Bathing tends to be a concern for new ostomates because they’re worried about the appliance falling off due to the water, exposing the area to water, or sometimes it can be hard to dry afterward. But you sure can do this, and here, we’ll go over how to make bathing with an ostomy that much better.
It won’t Interfere within Reason
If you do like to take baths, overall it won’t affect the adhesion of the pouch, and how secure this might be as well. It can sometimes actually make the adhesion better especially once you’ve put a new system on.
But if you like long baths, such as steam or hot tub baths, you may notice that the pouch wear time is shorter than you think. There is no “right” way to wear your appliance, so you’ll be able to make decisions regarding how much you should wear the appliance based on the enjoyment and preference as well.
Drying the Ostomy Appliance
Drying is pretty easy to do, and it is based on the kind of pouch that you use. In general, many of the non-tape types of flanges and non-covered pouches are dried with a towel in most cases. Drying it can be done with a towel if the pouch3s aren’t covered. You can also use a hair dryer as well in order to help dry the covered parts of pouches or the boarders of tape, but don’t use the hot setting since it can melt and distort the pouch with too much exposure too.
Bathing with the Systems
For those who have a two piece system, you can actually bathe either with the whole appliance put there, or with the appliance taken off, especially if you’re changing the appliance too. You may hear people say to remove only the pouch and stoma, but this can actually cause flange and barrier melting, along with premature washout, so you need to change this frequently because of that. You can leave it intact.
For those who have a pouch that is covered with cloth, you can switch to stoma caps or a non-covered type of pouch when you bathe with this. That means you won’t need to actually dry out the pouch once you’re done. There are copolymer wipes that you can use, and by putting it on there you can dry out the tape.
You may need to do another application with every single shower and bath, since it can affect the adhesion. On scheduled days, you simply remove the appliance, expose the stoma, and avoid to have direct steam there. You should also avoid any oils and gels as well, since that can irritate the peristomal skin and affect adhesion too. Once you get out of the shower or bath, you need to make sure that it’s fully dry before you put the appliance back on, or before you continue on with your day.
For one-piece systems, you can use these same suggestions, but you also may want to use a hair dryer or a towel in order to help with this and use copolymer wipes for the boarders of the tape. If you’re using a closed system, you may want to remove this before bathing and showering, while also paying mind to the soaps and whatnot, or to keep the pouch on once you’re bathing until it’s over. you can do this and routine change the whole thing once the shower and bath is finished for your needs.
