colostomy

[mrnewman]

hello,

I am the RN student, and I have a question about colostomy :"can you control evacuation of the bowel with a colostomy." I think there is no way to control it (I am not talking about clean the bag) if you have whatever colostomy. however, my classmate thought it depends on where the colostomy is located. I checked books and really cannot find a answer for this question. Can anyone please help me? thanks ahead.

[boushie87]

In school we have learned about bowel training. It's similar to when a person with dementia is bowl trained. You sit them on the toilet at specific times and so their body kind gets used to the timing. But no, they can't literally hold it in if they want. But what you friend said is prtially correct as it really depends on the area. For instance if a pt had an ileostomy it would just continuously leak and there would be no control at all.

[3PRN]

"can you control evacuation of the bowel with a colostomy." This was the original question. Since we're talking about evacuation through a stoma and not through the rectum, muscle and sphincter control are not the issue. The issue is timing of bowel movements which can be controlled by daily irrigation. Ostomates can reduce their bowel movements to once a day if that's what they train their bowel to do.

[mrnewman]

First of all, I really appreciated everyone who tried to help me answer this question. I learned a lot from your excellent information. So far I got my personal idea by concluding everybody's idea, which is you can not control it if the "control" in question means sphincter of colon; however, you can control it with limitation if the "control" in question means the stoma, and it may have different degree to control it depending on the location (Ex. harder to control in ascending than in sigmoid). I can't make sure if everybody agree with me, but I do want to thanks everybody and I will look up the irrigation skill.

[Creamsoda, ASN, RN]

To some degree yes. If its an ileosotmy, then heck no, its will just constantly ooze liquid stool. But if its a colostomy, like another poster said, the person can sometimes times the movement as its in the colon

[thehipcrip]

Some folks are able to control evacuation using irrigation -- essentially giving themselves an enema through their stoma. One friend has had such success with irrigation that he covers his stoma with a large bandaid between the times he does his scheduled bowel care.

[mrnewman]

hi, creamsoda, you said "the person can sometimes times the movement as its in the colon". do you think there is any difference for controlling at different location such as ascending and sigmoid. I do know the different consistency of different location such as formed or softer. but I can't make sure if different location affect the degree of control . thanks

[wooh, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the info 3PRN. Very interesting!!