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How to care for stoma urate crystals?

What is a urostomy?

A urostomy is an opening sutured in the abdominal wall or stomach so that urine can flow out of the bladder. The opening is called a stoma. It is the ileum that replaces the bladder, so it looks the same as an ileostomy. The nursing operation of urostomy is basically the same as that of enterostomy, but the choice of bag is different. A urostomy bag needs to be worn.



Why is it easy to form urine crystals?

When the urine is alkaline, urine crystals can form on the stoma or the skin around the stoma. Crystals appear as gritty white particles. They can cause inflammation of the stoma and sometimes bleeding. By keeping your urine acidic, you can reduce urine crystallization. The urostomy bag is different from the ostomy bag. The urostomy bag must have an anti-reflux device. On the one hand, urine is normally sterile, and it will be sterile when it comes into contact with the air after it is discharged. If the urine returns The flow often contacts the stoma, which can cause retrograde infection of the urinary tract. On the other hand, urine contacting the stoma can cause leakage around the stoma.


How to prevent urine crystals?

A. Skin cleaning: When changing the ostomy bag daily, it is advisable to wash the local skin with a weakly acidic bath liquid. Choice of ostomy bag: You can choose a urostomy bag with a longterm medical anti-reflux device. The opening of the chassis should not be too large, generally 1 to 2 mm larger than the size of the stoma. Generally, the pouch should be changed every 3 to 5 days. Once leakage is found, it should be replaced at any time.

B. Dietary suggestion: drink more water, water intake 2000-2500mL/d. It is recommended to eat more foods that can help increase the acidity of urine, such as grains, corn, poultry lean meat, fish, peanuts, walnuts, oats, bread, eggs, and pasta; try to eat less alkaline foods, such as milk, green Bean sprouts, almonds, mustard greens, raisins, spinach, etc.


How are urinary crystals treated?

1. Gently clean the white crystals with cotton balls of diluted white vinegar (the ratio of vinegar to water is 1:3 by volume), then use saline cotton balls to remove the residual acetic acid solution, and then dry the skin around the stoma with gauze.

2. Choose a two-piece convex chassis. If the chassis does not have a reserved aperture, the patient should be re-instructed on the correct method of cutting the ostomy bag; the aperture of the chassis should be cut reasonably, and the aperture of the chassis should be 1mm larger than the stoma. Do not cut too large.

3. In conjunction with the use of a special belt for the stoma, it is tightened and fixed to suppress the excessively proliferative skin. It is also better to avoid leakage of urine.

4. After assessing that the patient has no contraindications to drinking water, encourage the patient to drink more water, with a daily drinking volume of at least 1500-2000 mL; eat more foods that can help increase the acidity of the urine; a week later, the stoma clinic will review.

For more information on Innomed® ostomy bag, refer to the previous articles. If you have customized needs, you are welcome to contact us; we will serve you wholeheartedly.

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Editor: kiki Jia

Date: December 13, 2022