Colostomy Teaching 1870
Instructed patient measure your stoma once a week for the first 6 to 8 weeks after your ostomy surgery. Your stoma shrinks while it is healing and you need to keep measuring so you can make sure that the opening in the skin barrier is the right size for your stoma. Remeasure your stoma if any irritation develops between the stoma and skin barrier wafer.
Reviewed November 2017
Reviewed for general reference only. Adapt to your patient, agency policy, and scope of practice.
Related teachings
Colostomy Teaching 1873Instructed patient the stoma is your bowel. It is protected by mucus so stool or urine won’t hurt it. A stoma rarely becomes infected. The most important thing is to protect the skin around your stoma. A correct fitting ...Colostomy Teaching 1712Instructed patient call doctor if increase pain in the abdomen or the incision,fever, redness or drainage of the incision, irritation, or redness , or drainage of the incision, change bowel habits, such as:diarrhea, or c...Colostomy Teaching 1869Instructed patient If you do put tape around the skin barrier edges do not remove the tape after water activities. Removing the
tape may cause the skin barrier to loosen. It is helpful to hold your skin smooth as you p...Colostomy Teaching 2369Instructed patient caregiver when you should call the doctor: Severe watery discharge lasting more than 5 or 6 hours bad odor lasting more than a week this may be a sign of infection, a cut in the stoma.