Living with J-Pouch

This is a quick J-Pouch Q&A made up from questions I have received via this blog and from the Pouch Heals YouTube Channel. It covers a range of topics, some of which don’t need a video in their own right. Therefore, they have been grouped together in this video.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be coming up to my 16-year anniversary with my J-pouch. I really do consider myself someone who’s had a good outcome with my J-pouch. To make sure I’m giving a balanced account of my experience, I want to share three things where I still struggle with my J-pouch. When I was thinking about these,

Living with a J-pouch often comes with one big question: what does a normal day actually look like? For many people, especially in the early months, it can be hard to picture how eating and toilet use fit together across a typical day. That uncertainty can create unnecessary anxiety. In this video, I use a simple

You sit down at a restaurant, order your food, and then realise you still need to mix up your fibre drink. Do you ask for a glass? Do you ask for water? It’s awkward. What do you do?Or maybe you’re out and about, eating on the go, and you don’t have the option to mix

When my J-pouch is having one of those awkward, frustrating days, this is what I eat. It looks ridiculously simple, but it’s served me well time and time again. Over the years, I’ve had days where my J-pouch just hasn’t worked properly — whether that’s due to illness, something I’ve eaten, or simply one of

I love my J-pouch, but life at first with it looked very different from the life I live now. In the beginning, life with a J-pouch is hard.No, seriously — it’s tough. My pouch didn’t yet know what it was, how it was meant to work, or how often it should be working. In a

One of the biggest questions people have — and one of the biggest questions I had before getting my J-pouch — is: how many times a day will I need to use the toilet once I have it? I used to think that if I could reach some magic number, that would be a sign of success.

Welcome to my day in the life of a j-poucher. This is my typical experience of going through a work day with a J-Pouch following surgery for ulcerative colitis. I am a long term J-Pouch user, with my pouch now being 15 and a half years old. I will guide you through my day in

‘I’ve had my J Pouch surgery and the J Pouch has now settled in. Now I am enjoying the lifestyle of someone who has recovered on the other side. Everything is great, no more problems right – Wrong! For me, recovery was a double edge sword when it came to my weight. In years gone

Start here: introducing the J Ladder Facing ulcerative colitis and weighing surgery—or even a future J-pouch? You’re not alone. In this post (and the companion video), I walk through the exact steps I took: from living with UC, to stoma surgery, and later to a J-pouch. I’ve mapped those milestones into a simple framework I