Peristomal skin is the area of skin around your stoma and underneath the baseplate of your pouch.
It is very important to keep this skin healthy because healthy skin provides a natural barrier to moisture, stoma output and irritants and allows you to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Unfortunately, most people with stomas will experience soreness and skin problems at some point but there are many things you can do to prevent soreness becoming an issue and to treat the problem quickly if it arises.
Get into a healthy skin habit.
Make sure your peristomal skin is completely dry before replacing your pouch and skin barrier. Dry skin ensures a good adhesive seal and helps reduce the risk of fungal infection.
Minimise any irritants you use on and around peristomal skin. For most people water is fine for cleaning your skin and you should try to avoid any perfumed soaps. Make sure you do not use soaps containing lotions or use any other creams or lotions, baby powder, baby wipes, or wipes containing alcohol. Not only could these products cause irritation they can also compromise the adhesion of your ostomy appliance and may lead to leakages. If you are in any doubt about using any other products around your stoma, ask your stoma nurse for advice.
Before applying your new pouch, you may use a barrier product such as StoCare Protect which you can apply as a spray or with an individual wipe. This provides a protective film like a second skin to prevent damage from stoma output which may leak under your baseplate and cause breakdown and irritation of peristomal skin. It also prevents your skin being damaged by repeated medical adhesive removal and provides a base for better adhesion of the next appliance.
Barrier products can be particularly beneficial for the very young or elderly who have more fragile skin, or those with diabetes who must take extra care of their skin.
Make sure your stoma bag template is measured correctly so that the base plate doesn’t rub on your stoma or surrounding skin or cause leakages because of poor fitting.
Remove any hairs from around your stoma to prevent the adhesive on the baseplate from pulling on body hairs and causing pain and inflammation.
It is important to be careful when removing your adhesive appliances especially if your skin is sore or fragile. An adhesive remover such as StoCare Remove is designed to ease discomfort and prevent skin damage when removing the pouch from the skin. Adhesive removers can be used as a spray or a remover wipe and can be used for each bag change to facilitate easy pain free removal of your pouch.
If you are experiencing leakage this can quickly cause skin issues due to the corrosive nature of stoma output. Make sure you find a solution to leakages before your skin condition worsens. There is more information about preventing leakage on our leakage blog.
It is not normal to have to suffer repeated skin issues and if you are experiencing pain or discomfort speak to your stoma nurse about a solution.
If you would like samples of our products please order on our sample order page.
