Recently I requested some new stoma bags. After a small trial of using 2 piece bags in the summer, it thought I’d try out using the system over a longer period, however I wanted a set up which was different to other people.

A 1 piece bag sticks to the skin with a hole at the top for the stoma. You can empty the bag via the tabs at the bottom, but if you want to change the bag (usually after a shower or two the filter stops working properly) you have to remove it from the skin, clean the stoma and then put on a new bag. This somewhat irritates the skin each time you reapply a bag.

A standard 1 piece bag.

In contrast a 2 piece system consists of a ‘flange base plate’ which sits around the stoma and then the bag connects to the base plate. This can be done in a variety of ways, however in the summer I found the ‘Click’ system from Coloplast to be the most secure and trustworthy, so have gone with them – this also allows me to keep the same make and size of bag as usual. The base plate can stay on your skin whilst you swap to new, fresh bags (whilst giving the stoma a little clean in between swapping).

The baseplate

2 different sized bags.

The specific set up I was interested in though was the ability to have 2 different sizes of bags. My usual size (Coloplast Maxi) for every day use and then a smaller one (Coloplast midi) for sports.

I’ve just changed my bag for the 3rd time with the same baseplate. I’ve used both sizes and all seems to be going well so far. It will be interesting to see how things progress and whether I go back to the 1 piece system or stay with the 2 piece bags.