Do you have to wear an ostomy bag everywhere you go? Do you struggle with having your ostomy bag filled with gas? Well, the good news is that you’re not alone. Millions of people everyday have to also struggle with the annoying affliction of having gas filled their ostomy bags. If you don’t have a stoma and just happened to come across this article, then I suggest you go ahead and log off of the internet for the day because it’s going to get pretty graphic. I have personally had an ostomy bag for several years and know a thing or two about having gas fill my pouch. It’s super annoying because, most of the time, you can usually identify how long it will take for an ostomy pouch to fill with output and can plan your daily activities and events around said output. However, there are times when you just seem more gassy than normal, and this makes your ostomy bag fill up much quicker. This leads to having to change your ostomy bag even more, because an overfilled bag can cause leakages and other complications or problems.

I wanted to write this article to give you a few tips on how you can avoid dealing with lots of irritating and unwanted gas that fills your ostomy bags. If you’re like me, you’ve had plenty of embarrassing moments in your life that have been caused by stoma related gas. So hopefully you can learn a few tips and tricks on how to lessen the amount of gas you are producing, which will lead to you not having to change your ostomy bag as often. For those of you who don’t know, colostomy related gas is different from normal flatulence because a person with a colostomy cannot control the gas that they are producing. So don’t get any funny ideas about making gas-related jokes, because this is a serious problem and not something to be taken lightly or made fun of.

Anyways, one thing you need to make sure to do is to check the fit of your actual ostomy pouch. If the ostomy pouch is not fitted to your skin barrier correctly, you may find yourself leaking certain odors or gas that are most unpleasant to the people around you. An improper fit also has more problems than just leaking odor; it can also create complications for your stoma itself. Your stoma should only be smelling while you are changing out your ostomy pouch.

The main thing to remember is that the foods that caused you gas before you had your ostomy will continue to cause you gas – the only difference is that you can no longer control when your gas is exiting your body, because it will simply all flow into your ostomy bag. Obviously, no one wants to be filled with gas and release it into the air which will cause everyone around you to immediately evacuate the area and probably not want to ever be around you again. Some foods that you should avoid eating include cabbage, spicy food like peppers or ramen, fizzy drinks like Coke or Pepsi, and even dairy products. The reason you should avoid eating these foods if you can is because they can all produce more gas in you than other foods.