I'm 15 year post SCI. I started off doing my bowel routine daily. Then about 6 years ago went to every other day. It took about a month for my bowels to adjust and after they did, things worked great with very few accidents. About a year ago, I started having accidents. It has progressively got worse to where I'm spending way too much time doing my bowel routine and still having accidents. Over the past 2 months I went back to doing my routine daily to try to get the accidents minimized. It worked for a couple weeks and now accidents happen no matter how long I spend in the bathroom. My activity has been reduced because of frequent accidents and I'm tired of fighting it. I'm considering a colostomy. Thoughts?????
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
I had mine done several years ago and really like the convenience and lack of accidents. I'd say to give it a try, since you can always have it reversed if you don't like it.
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I have never really thought of getting a colostomy. I am a C5/C6 quad for 23 years and I find that daily bowel routines first thing in the morning work best for me. I do enemas that we make ourselves, a solution of water and himalayan salt - all natural. I let that work its way for about 25 minutes and finish up with digital stimulation till the muscle feels closed. I have an occasional accident, but that seems to happen only when I get off track from my diet that consists of mostly fruits and vegetables. This mostly happens when I eat more processed food, spicy foods that irritate my stomach, or eat larger quantities than normal. I know food is a drug and temptations are always there, but I know that when I eat consistently and with moderation day after day, I have no problems at all. My worst case of bowel accidents was the week after I came back from a cruise last year. I feasted on the cruise, ate stuff I normally wouldn't eat and way too much of course, but paid for it dearly later.
