Question:
Feeling My Pouch While I Eat, Some Pain.. input?

Sometimes when I eat, I can feel it in my pouch and it hurts a little bit. I was under the impression that this pain is caused when the food is going through my dime sized opening to my intestines. However, (this may be my ignorance shining) this happens immediately after I eat. Doesn't the food sit in the pouch for awhile? Or does it immediately going through the stoma to the intestines? I hope this makes sense. Because it doesn't appear that my food or whatever I'm eating/drinking sits in my pouch...it appears it goes right through into my intestines. Is this right or am I odd? :)    — Kim L. (posted on April 23, 2003)

April 23, 2003
How much are you eating at one time, over how much time?
   — vitalady

April 23, 2003
I get pain every time I eat too. I am 7.5 months out and it finally is starting to ease, but I still have pain once a day, not overeating, it will happen on the first bite! Sometimes I have had to throw up the foamy stuff that is in there before I feel better. Then it seems all is fine and I can eat. It is getting MUCH better though!
   — Kristy J.

April 23, 2003
I don't believe it's because I'm overeating, because I'm barely eating at this point. When I really notice it, is if I eat something that maybe I didn't chew up real well, or it happened with one of my vitamins. But mainly what I was wondering, is it normal that immediately after you eat something it does not sit in your pouch but goes right through to your intestines. Is that normal? Specifically, I took a vitamin and I could feel it trying to get through my stoma. I realized soon that the vitamin must have been too big. But it was immediately after I had taken the vitamin that this happend. I was thinking, "that didn't take long, I just ate that vitamin". So I'm left thinking that it didn't sit in my pouch at all. Is that normal?
   — Kim L.

April 23, 2003
I get pain sometimes when I eat too. I am 13mths out and know what you mean. It does feel like the food is immediately going into my intestines, and that is where it hurts. If you are drinking while eating that can cause it too. But if you are at all like I was that damn foam is sitting in your pouch and I think that is what was being pushed down by the food at first. I would go puke up foam then I could eat. I was put on meds for gastritis and a bacterial infection and the foam has stopped. I always suggest talking to your doc, but mostly get a good gastroenterologist, that makes a WORLD of difference. After a year of suffering I met mine and he nearly diagnosed me on the first day!!
   — smedley200

April 24, 2003
Kim, you are a very new post-op and it is not unusual for you to experience some pouch pain as the pouch adjusts to food. This should go away as time goes by. Usually the food does sit in the pouch for a while unless you are washing it out with water or unless your stoma opening is abnormally large and it is dropping directly into the intestines (happens to a few). If your feeling full, then I would think the food is sitting in the pouch. I am 14 months post-op and even to this day if I eat too fast, especially dense foods like chicken chunks or something like too much rice (items that blow up in the tummy), I can cause some pouch pain.
   — Cindy R.

April 25, 2003
I get pain once in awhile but I know it's becasue I've taken too big a bite or not chewed enough. (thats my biggest problem) What weird to me is that I can feel hot and cold in the pouch. If something is very hot I get a warm sensation or if I take a drink of very cold water I feel the cold. It's very weird.
   — Amy G.

April 25, 2003
Kim, Could it possibly that you are feeling the food trying to get IN the pouch not OUT of it? That's the same feeling I get if my pills are too big or I swallow without completly chewing something. I get like a burning/stabbing feeling. And then I am miserable for some time until it breaks down and can get through. The only time I had pain with stuff leaving the pouch is when the stoma had closed off, and then nothing would go through!! Good luck to you.
   — Terri Z.