Bloggers & Vloggers

Some great blogs by fellow ostomates:

Ostomy Outdoors
Heidi shows that it’s possible to do athletic, rigorous activities with an ostomy. Plus, she’s gluten free and awesome.

Ostomystory YouTube Channel
Laura has such a great youtube channel. Her goal is to honestly share her journey (emotional and physical) and she does so in a way that makes you feel like you’re her friend without ever having talked to her. She works for Shield Healthcare now as their resident Ostomy Lifestyle Expert and may not be updating this channel anymore, but there’s TONS of great videos to watch here anyway and you can catch up with her more recent stuff on the Shield Healthcare website.

Stolen Colon
Stephanie’s blog was the first one I found right after I had my colectomy. I reached out to her with silly questions and her responsiveness was so comforting and helpful. She’s also posted about her experiences with pregnancy and her ostomy, in case you’re curious about all that.

SoBadAss
Sam talks about poop and aims to raise awareness for IBD and Ostomies through her blog. She owns a photography business and has some really tasteful images of her and her ostomy right out there for the world to see. Go Sam!

Living with Stacey Stoma
She’s got some cute fashion tips and writes about her fight against crohns in addition to her experiences with an ostomy.

The Great Bowel Movement
More than a blog, they raise IBD awareness and have shirts too!

Allspice & Acrylics
Amy’s blog focuses more on art and positivity and loving life, than on her ostomy.  She expresses life through art in many ways, including a one-woman show called Gutless & Grateful.

Vegan Ostomy
Eric is vegan! And he has an ostomy! Oxymoron you say? Nope…it’s possible. Everyone digests things differently, but his story shows that vegetables are possible. He also reviews a ton of products and shares information about IBD.

Thaila Skye
She’s a peppy girl with two ostomies who is really good at making video blogs that are really fun to watch. This links to her Ostomonday playlist, but she also has other fun topics that she covers.

Kicking Cancer in the Butt
Gemma has a great attitude and is kicking cancer in the butt, from chemo to colostomy, she shares her story.

More Than Your Bag
Hattie is 19 and totally inspirational!  She’s an IBD advocate who writes about her experiences with IBD and her ileostomy.

Cancer Owl
A different take on blogging – comics! This guy draws himself as an owl in a comic strip as a way to cope with his cancer and ostomy experiences and he’s really good at it!

UncoverOstomy
Jess runs this online awareness campaign aimed at sparking positive conversations about ostomies.

Inflamed and Untamed
Sara blogs and vlogs about crohns disease and her jpouch.

Inside Out Ostomy Life
Erin won the WEGO Health Rookie of the Year Award for 2017 with her positive attitude and openness about her life with an ostomy for the last (nearly) 10 years.

Gutless & Glamorous
She’s spunky and runs a 501c3 nonprofit organization and dedicates her work toward helping improve the lives of those with chronic illnesses through education, events, support and awareness.

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Forums

Forums can be a great resource for online support and answers from people who have had similar experiences as you. Personally, I do participate in multiple ostomy-related facebook groups and find them to be very helpful when I have questions. I also really enjoy answering questions based on my experiences and being able to provide a positive attitude and support to other group members.

Sometimes the stuff you read in forums can be kind of scary because many people post questions about complications they’ve had. It’s really important to remember that just because it happened to them, doesn’t mean it will happen to you. You don’t know their medical history or lifestyle habits and freaking yourself out about what might happen is no way to live.

Some ostomy focused forums include:

Inspire – powered by Convatec

Meet An Ostomate – This isn’t just a dating site, but it does help you talk to people in your vicinity. There’s a free subscription and paid subscription with different levels of communication.

Facebook groups – There are tons of facebook groups for ostomates only. If you search in the search bar and type ostomy, you’ll see a number of them come up. Don’t forget to like the Newbie Ostomy facebook page while you’re at it!