Blog
Practical reads, and where each one came from
40 short posts on the parts of life with Crohn’s, colitis, a stoma or an ileoanal pouch that the appointment does not have time for. Each one is a reading of published patient guidance — from the Ileostomy & Internal Pouch Association, the UK charity, and from Dansac — and links to the sources it was read from, so you can check it yourself.
Eating & drinking
What actually changes about food after bowel surgery, and what does not.
There is no ileostomy diet
The most common request people make after this surgery is for a special diet. The answer, backed by a Cambridge study, is that most people do not need one.
3 min read3 sourcesFibre, chewing, and the food that arrives whole
Why sweetcorn turns up looking like sweetcorn, which foods are worth chewing twice, and the knife trick that makes corn on the cob easier to digest.
3 min read6 sourcesRead the label: it may be the brand, not the food
Sorbitol acts as a laxative, and it is in more products than you would expect. The case for checking the ingredients before you give something up for life.
3 min read3 sourcesFoods that thicken, foods that loosen
What may slow output down, what may speed it up, what makes wind, and what only looks alarming.
3 min read4 sources
Fluids, salt & kidneys
Why hydration works differently without a colon, and what to drink instead.
Why drinking more water can leave you drier
Without a colon, plain water can pull salt out of you. The mechanism is the most counter-intuitive thing about life after this surgery.
3 min read1 sourceRehydration drinks: the St Mark’s and Oxford recipes
Two sugar-salt solutions you can make at home — plus where Dioralyte, coconut water and milk fit.
3 min read4 sourcesSpotting dehydration early
The symptoms in the order they tend to arrive — and the point at which the advice stops and says go to hospital.
3 min read2 sourcesHigh output and your kidneys: the green, amber, red plan
What counts as high output, the numbers behind it, and the medicines to pause when you are ill.
3 min read1 source
Movement & recovery
The exercise programmes published for people recovering from abdominal surgery.
Your natural corset
One borrowed word explains why abdominal work matters after stoma surgery — and why the stoma sits in a site of weakness.
3 min read1 sourceDay one after surgery: breathing comes first
The very first exercises after surgery are done lying flat with knees bent — and the first of them is just breathing properly.
3 min read2 sourcesThe recovery weeks: a carton of milk is enough
Six to eight weeks, one memorable lifting limit, and the repetition counts for building back up.
3 min read3 sourcesEight weeks and beyond
The exercises that come after the recovery period — including the plank, with the repetition counts that go with it.
3 min read3 sourcesExercises for ostomates, in two groups
A programme designed for people who have had ileostomy, colostomy, urostomy or pouch surgery — with one exercise pouch patients are told to skip.
3 min read1 sourceSmall ways to move more
The least dramatic advice in any of this, and probably the most useful: fifteen ordinary habits, including what to do when you miss a day.
3 min read1 source
Infections & antibiotics
The infections that complicate inflammatory bowel disease, and the drugs used against them.
The infection that looks exactly like a flare
Clostridioides difficile causes the same symptoms as a bad flare. It is four to five times more likely if you have inflammatory bowel disease. That is why your team asks for a stool sample every time.
3 min read2 sourcesTreating C. difficile when you already have colitis
Which antibiotic, and for how long. Whether your inflammatory bowel disease drugs stop while you take it. What happens if it comes back — and the transplant that treats the infection but not the disease.
3 min read4 sourcesWhat prevents C. difficile, and what only sounds like it does
The honest state of the evidence on probiotics, fibre and food. Almost all of it is in mice. No published study has tried a change of diet in people who have the infection, and the one lever with evidence behind it is not a food at all.
3 min read3 sources
Symptoms in remission
Why the bowel can still misbehave once the inflammation is treated, and how that is measured.
When the inflammation settles and the symptoms do not
Around one in three people whose inflammatory bowel disease is in remission still have bowel symptoms. That figure has been measured several ways, and how it was measured changes what you do with it.
3 min read1 sourceRome V retired the word functional
In 2026 the committee that defines these conditions renamed the whole category and rewrote the criteria for irritable bowel syndrome. What a symptom-based diagnosis is, and what a set of criteria is actually for.
3 min read3 sourcesFour things, tested in this group
A great deal has been trialled for irritable bowel syndrome. Four interventions have been tested in randomised trials in people whose inflammatory bowel disease is in remission. The gap between those two sentences is the whole subject.
3 min read1 source
Tests & monitoring
What the tests measure, what the numbers mean, and why the intervals differ from person to person.
What a calprotectin test actually measures
It is often the test that decides whether you get a colonoscopy. It is very good at ruling inflammation out and much weaker at ruling it in, and the difference is the whole point of it.
3 min read2 sourcesWhy surveillance colonoscopies come on a schedule
At some point the appointments include a colonoscopy that is not about your symptoms. The British Society of Gastroenterology sorts people into four tiers, and it explains why your interval may not match anyone else’s.
3 min read1 source
Beyond the bowel
The parts of inflammatory bowel disease that are not bowel symptoms — fatigue, anaemia, and what alters risk.
The fatigue that outlasts the flare
Around half of people with inflammatory bowel disease report fatigue, and roughly that many report it while in remission. It is not simply a symptom of active inflammation, and it has been studied more than the appointment suggests.
4 min read1 sourceWhy a normal ferritin can still mean low iron
The blood test used to measure iron stores behaves differently when you are inflamed. The European consensus handles that with two different thresholds, and which one applies depends on your disease activity.
3 min read1 sourceSmoking runs in opposite directions in Crohn’s and colitis
Almost everything that affects Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis affects them the same way. Smoking does not — and the review that documents the pattern says plainly that it cannot explain it.
3 min read1 source
Living with a pouch
What an ileoanal pouch is, how it is built, and what to expect from it.
What an ileoanal pouch is, and how it is built
The operation as two Oxford colorectal surgeons describe it — stages, pouch shapes, and the timelines that go with them.
4 min read1 sourceWhat pouch function actually looks like
Erratic at first, and improving for a year or more. Two different frequency figures get quoted, and the reason they differ is worth knowing.
3 min read2 sourcesLeakage, sore skin, and the first months
The things people are least likely to ask about out loud, and what actually helps.
3 min read3 sourcesPouchitis and stenosis: what to watch for
Two complications with recognisable symptoms and established treatments — plus the pouch failure rate the Oxford surgeons publish.
3 min read2 sourcesMedicines, absorption and the colour of your output
Which tablet forms may pass through unabsorbed, which drugs slow output or speed it up, and the colour chart that stops you panicking.
3 min read3 sourcesThe pouchitis that comes back when the antibiotics stop
Antibiotics clear it, and it returns within days of the last dose. That pattern has a name, an American guideline behind it, and a set of trade-offs worth understanding before the next prescription.
4 min read5 sourcesHas anyone actually studied fasting for pouchitis?
The short answer is no. Two reviews of the diet research in ileoanal pouches turn up no study of fasting at all. Here is what has been tested nearby, including one randomised trial that came out positive, and why it was not about pouches.
4 min read7 sourcesWhat has actually been tested on a pouch
Twenty-four studies of diet in ileoanal pouches, and what the pouchitis-specific ones found: an elemental diet, an exclusion diet, the Mediterranean pattern, low FODMAP and a pouch-specific diet. Plus the verdict the reviewers reached about all of it.
3 min read2 sources
Stoma day to day
The practical routines of stoma care, day to day.
Vitamin B12: why it can take years to show up
B12 is absorbed in exactly the part of bowel that ileostomy surgery and Crohn’s affect. Why the deficiency is delayed, what it feels like, and why blood tests disappoint.
3 min read1 sourceSore skin, leakage and blockage: the causes checklist
The likely causes of the three things most likely to go wrong, so you can work through them instead of guessing.
3 min read1 sourceBathing, clothes and never running out
Water cannot get into your stoma, your existing wardrobe probably still works, and there is a rule of thumb for reordering before it becomes a crisis.
3 min read1 source
Work, travel & confidence
Going back to the rest of your life — work, travel, sport and telling people.
Body image, and the question of telling people
The case for working on self-image is an argument, not comfort — and it starts with a question about everyone you have ever met.
4 min read1 sourceBack to work, back behind the wheel, back to sport
Convalescence, the household jobs to leave alone at first, when driving becomes reasonable, and how far sport can go.
3 min read4 sourcesTravelling with a stoma or pouch
Most of what puts people off travelling is myth. The practical parts are very practical: what to pack, where to store it, and why aircraft make more wind.
3 min read2 sourcesSex, contraception and pregnancy
The part nobody should skip — including the absorption problem that makes the pill less reliable, and what the surgeons say about fertility.
3 min read3 sources
Before you change anything
These posts are readings of published patient information, and every one links to the sources it came from. They are general information, not medical advice, and they cannot account for your own diagnosis, surgery or treatment. Anything you plan to change — what you eat, how you manage your bowel, your medication, your activity, your stoma or pouch care — is a conversation to have with your IBD team or stoma care nurse.