Peristomal & Perianal Skin Breakdown Support

What Is Peristomal & Perianal Skin Breakdown?

Peristomal skin is the skin around a stoma (the opening made during ostomy surgery). Perianal skin is the skin around the anus. Both areas can become irritated, red, and broken when they are exposed to moisture, stool, urine, or stoma output. This kind of damage is sometimes called moisture-associated skin damage.

What Causes It

Output from the gut can contain bile acids, digestive enzymes, and other substances that irritate skin. Constant wetness, friction from appliances, and leaks make it worse. Once skin is broken, yeast (such as Candida) or bacteria can also move in, which adds itching, redness, or infection.

How Compounding Can Help

When a provider prescribes a topical, a compounding pharmacy can prepare it in forms built for fragile, moist skin. Options your prescriber may consider include:

• Barrier or bile-acid–binding ingredients to help shield skin from irritating output
• Antifungal and/or antibacterial ingredients when fungus or bacteria are also involved
• Water-free (anhydrous) bases suited to weepy or broken skin
• Several actives combined into one preparation to simplify care
• Custom strengths and combinations matched to the prescription

Topical cholestyramine, a bile-acid binder, is one example: small case series have described severe perianal skin irritation settling within about ten days of twice-daily cholestyramine ointment. Evidence like this is case-level, and the choice of ingredients is always the prescriber's clinical decision. PubMed

Built for Quality

Mixwell Compounding Pharmacy is a state-licensed, non-sterile compounding pharmacy in Chino, CA, also serving Chino Hills, Ontario, Pomona, Diamond Bar, and Rancho Cucamonga. As a PCCA member pharmacy, we prepare each formula in our purpose-built, USP <795>-compliant lab to the prescriber's exact instructions. We do not compound sterile products or injectables.

A Note on Compounded Medicine

Compounded medications are not reviewed or approved by the FDA and are prepared only with a valid prescription. Nothing here promises a specific result, and compounded preparations are not presented as superior to commercially available products.

Talk With Your Provider

If you or someone you care for has ongoing skin breakdown around a stoma or the anal area, ask your provider or wound/ostomy nurse whether a custom topical may be an option. Call Mixwell at (909) 378-7301 to speak with our pharmacist.

Reference

Møller P, Lohmann M, Brynitz S. Cholestyramine ointment in the treatment of perianal skin irritation following ileoanal anastomosis. Dis Colon Rectum. 1987;30(2):106–107.