If you are worried about your upcoming ostomy, then just know that you are not alone. Thousands of people just like you have had to undergo this surgery before, and each one of them has turned out fine (though, realistically, I’m sure there are several people that have died due to complications caused by their ostomy). Anway, what I would like to talk about today is what eating will look like for you once you have completely undergone your surgery and are on your way down the treacherous road to recovery. Eating with an ostomy can look different for different people, depending on who you are and what your circumstances are. Typically, the doctors, surgeon, nurses, and other medical staff will inform you about how you can approach eating in the next few weeks following your surgery, especially for the first couple weeks or so that you are recovering from surgery in the hospital. Most people really do not have any sort of appetite while they are first recovering from surgery. Plus, we can probably all agree that hospital food is usually absolute garbage and would be better served with a vial of anthrax to put oneself out of the misery of eating that mess. Anyways, once you are released from the hospital after recovering somewhat from your ostomy, it is now up to you to take care of yourself and make sure that you are eating the right things at the right times. So, let’s talk a little bit about what that looks like for the rest of this article.
The first thing that I would like to mention is that it is important to eat a lot of small meals throughout the day while you are recovering from your ostomy. Like I mentioned before in the paragraph above this one, there is a good chance that you will not have much of an appetite following your surgery. However, it is super important to eat regardless of how hungry you are, since your body needs plenty of nourishment in order to keep recovering from all the stuff that it just went through. To start off for the first week or so, the best types of foods to eat are really bland ones. I like to compare it to the type of diet that you may eat while experiencing an upset stomach: rice, bread, bananas, plain yogurt, and other types of really plain foods. While it is true that nobody enjoys eating bland foods, I must say that it is super important to stick to this diet for a few weeks to avoid any complications with your stoma. However, as you continue to slowly recover from your ostomy, you may find yourself craving for your old favorite foods again that you just really want to get your hands on. What about those delicious foods you used to love? Will you ever be able to eat them again?
The answer is yes! You may be surprised (but excited) to hear that you can actually enjoy a lot of the same foods that you used to even before having an ostomy. As you start to get better after surgery, it is important to start adding some of your normal foods back into your diet. It is important to do these things slowly, since you will want to take great care to identify how each new food affects your body and your stoma.
