Stoma Stretching?

I have seen some posts about people thinking that they have stretched their stoma or that they are afraid to. My Dr has never really talked to me about this. I have been swalloing pills since I came home from the hospital. My metformin was the 1000 mg pill and huge. He told me it would be fine. I have noticed that certian foods like soups, chili or eggs I can eat 1/2 cup or more if I don't measure. Now I am all freaked out about stmoa stretching.

How can you streach your stoma?
Can it happen just from swallowing pills?
Can it happen from eating too much once or twice?

Google has not been helpful so I ask my fellow RNYers for help in understanding this phenomenon.

excellent ?, I await responses as well.

I am curious too.  I have already had some things get "stuck".  Is that stretching me out?

Also, I swallow sooo much air when I drink.  I am trying to figure out why, and how I can stop.  I have only been drinking from a cup, and still, I burp like crazy after I drink anything.

The air and burping thing will go away with time. I had that for about the first month. Now I drink normally.

Valerie

I'm not going to address this issue directly because I don't know enough about it myself, but while you're waiting for responses for more knowledgable vets, have you tried the "search" function here on OH? It's not the best, but I just put in "stretched stoma" and came up with a crap load of threads. One of those may help you.

Just a suggestion, NOT in any way meant to discourage you from asking your questions. =)

 This is just what I have been told.  The pouch is like a funnel with a larger opening on the top and a small opening in the bottom. The stoma is normally about the diameter of a pencil.  We are told to eat our food in small pieces and chew thoroughly.  If you are swallowing large chucks of solid food, then the stoma can stretch out.  

If you eat more food than the pouch can hold, then you can form storage pockets that bulge out above and below the pouch.

If you drink with your meals you can force the food to exit the pouch too quickly.

A metformin tablet will not stretch the stoma out.

The pouch starts very small.  The normal stomach is about the size of a two liter bottle of soda and the pouch is closer to the size of the soda bottletop.  After about a year the pouch is between 8 and 12 ounces and the size of an egg.

Chances of stretching it aren't great.  No swallowing pills will NOT stretch your stoma.  Repeatedly overeating and pushing it through by drinking with meals may.

Don't sweat the changes it'll happen, for the majority it doesn't happen.  Depending on how well you heal does have some impact on the size of your stoma overall, too quick and you end up with a stricture, not quick and your stoma may be larger than others.

Thanks guys!! You have put my mind at ease. I am assuming that by the couple of times I think I over ate I did not harm my stoma or my pouch.

Pills, or even the occasional bute of food that is too big will not strectch your stoma.  It is more likely to streatch trhan your pouch, but even then it is not likely unless you routinely overfill your pouch.  My surgeon indicated that only in a small percentage of cases (don;t remember the eaxct number but it was somewhere around 20%) when patients have come back and have gained weight and beliieved it was from a stretched stoma, was the stoma truly enlarged.  The problem was almost always with what or how they were eating.

Lora