Ostomy Fashion During the Colder Months

Ostomy fashion is becoming more and more relevant as time goes on. Both ladies and gentlemen are hunting for the perfect pair of jeans or something to hold and support their ostomy. This can be difficult to find on the high street unless you’re a lady and don’t mind wearing maternity clothing to help support and disguise the ostomy. Men, unfortunately, don’t have this option, so they may struggle to find the right clothing to be comfortable with their ostomy.

Dressing for winter

Winter is coming, it is time to start enjoying what I call the layering season, too cold, add a layer, too warm let’s remove one.

I find winter dressing so much easier, jeans, combat trousers, leggings, not to mention hoodies or long jumpers.

As you can see I am already overjoyed to get any excuse to go shopping.

My accidental shopping trip

I always store away last season’s clothes and pull out last years from the shed. After about an hour of trying everything on, it turns out that not much of it fits me any more due to more weight loss since last winter. I had to brave the shops and headed to Primark and walked out with my bank account crying but with the added bonus of having new shiny clothes.

The one thing I find at the moment is not being able to try clothing on. Thankfully trying it all on when I got home, I found that it all fits perfectly. No need to head back out to town. I also got myself a bargain in Office, new Timberland boots for £40.

Do I struggle to dress with my stoma?

I love winter, jeans, and trousers – they are my go-to outfits. The one thing I do struggle with is skirts and the pleat is in this season and praises the lord so are dungarees, it seems to be that some of the 90’s fashions are coming back into play.

Skirts, however, sit funny on my stoma bag and you can always see my convex ring outline. As I was typing this the postman just arrived with my support belts, wearing something that is specifically designed for smoothing down the stoma bags makes life easier for me when wearing skirts.

The belts or shorts also help when wearing low rise jeans. I find that they drag the bag down which pulls on the baseplate.

I have spent the last 4 years navigating what suits me and what doesn’t, all in all, I can wear most things these days.

I think with everything going on due to Corona at the moment that we are spending less time dressing up and more time in PJs or slackies.

But it is occasionally nice to get dressed up.

Ostomy garments

You now have other avenues for choices of ostomy specific clothing if you struggle with high street shops.

You have companies who make and sell jeans, joggers or trousers for those of us with ostomies, they are slightly on the more expensive side

For those of you who need or want hernia support then you have these:

Ostomy clothing can be considered a niche market, but if you put this figure into perspective there are 26,400 people facing ostomy surgery every year. The total figure for the UK alone over 10 years would equate to roughly 264,000 people living with an ostomy.

So, the need for ostomy clothing would be relatively high, but it is something that many people are doing alone as a business venture, due to their own struggles with finding clothing to accommodate their stoma and their own struggles with finding clothing to fit. Just in case you wondered where these figures came from:

Ileostomy surgery per year – Over 9000 – NHS figures

Urostomy surgery per year – 11000 – UA figures

Colostomy surgery per year – 6400 – Colostomy Association UK

As always

Many thanks for reading

Louise Xx

Louise uses our Platinum with Vitamin E range to keep her stoma site healthy. Try a sample here.