Baby wipes
This may seem like a weird post title, but since I have had my ostomy, I have used baby wipes during bag changes to clean up and dry everything before putting the new bag on. I have an awesome wife. She is very big on cloth diapering, so while she was making a set of cloth baby wipes for my daughter, she made me a set also.
I started out using several of them each time I changed my bag, but now I’m down to usually only using two. They work very well and we just toss them in the wash afterwards and they are ready to use again. It’s a very workable system.
And since we do have a baby around, there are plenty of disposable wipes for when we are traveling and it’s not workable to have a bunch of cloth wipes around. I took several of these and have them in a zip-top baggie for when we are traveling and I have to change the bag. This works very well also. Just use them to wipe everything off and then dry any wetness with a piece of TP and then I’m good to put the new bag back on.
It’s not the fanciest thing around, and I’m sure the medical supply companies have something else that you can buy to use, but this is a very easy and economical solution I have found for cleaning up while changing my bag.
Explore posts in the same categories: ileostomy, ostomy bags, ostomy care
January 27th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Oh, I see your uses for the wipes. I do about the same thing, but it was by accident that I discovered using the wipes to clean the inside tip of the bag (as my kids are teens now). I was still in the hospital when my mom brought me some wipes to use in the bathroom. When I first emptied my bag, I couldn’t figure out what to do with the yucky tip of my bag when … I spotted the wipes. It was a lucky moment for me. I also use them to clean the outside of the bag because it seems no matter how hard you try to prevent it, stuff still gets on the bag, hands, toilet, everywhere!
I also occassionally use alcohol swabs to clean my clip just as an extra step to keep any bacteria, viruses, etc. that may have been missed with the wipe off of, or out of my bag. This is expecially because the clip is so exposed. I am always afraid the clip might have touched something (like the rim of the toilet) that I missed when using public facilities. Cleaning the clip with alcohol makes me feel I likely killed anything that could creep up my bag and get directly into my colon. Easy stomach virus access. Yikes!