Buyer’s Guide: Brava Elastic Barrier Strips

Medical Monks Staff

August 24, 2023

As an ostomate, you’re likely familiar with ostomy barrier strips. In recent years, they’ve become some of the most widely-used ostomy accessories on the market. For many, barrier strips play an essential role in protecting against blowouts and ensuring confidence in their ostomy systems.

One best-selling example are Coloplast’s Brava Elastic Barrier Strips. They are unique among the competition in both form and formulation. If you want to know more about these high-performance elastic barrier strips for ostomy, this guide has all the answers you need.

From learning how to use these ostomy barrier strips to the different sizes and shapes available, we’ve got your back! And you know we’ll tell you where to buy them (hint: it’s here). Let’s get started!

What are Brava Elastic Barrier Strips?

Brava Elastic Barrier Strips offer a customized fit for your ostomy barrier, increasing security and comfort. Made from latex-free hydrocolloid, they are designed to expand the surface area of your skin barrier and protect against peeling and blowouts. Due to their incredible flexibility, they easily align with your body’s movement, improving adhesion and often extending wear time.

Brava Strips are available in these four types:

Crescent: Perfect for round or oval-shaped baseplates.
Straight: Better for square-shaped baseplates.
Y-Shape: Offers wider outward support. The Y shape makes it optimal for stomas located in skin folds. Also potentially useful for stomas near hernias or bulges.
XL: Also crescent-shaped, but provides a 60% larger surface area than regular size.

Brava Elastic Barrier Strips have numerous benefits:

Designed to be used with a wide range of barrier shapes and types, such as flat and convex.
Helps prevent barrier edges from rolling or lifting, lessening the chances of potential detachment.
The unique elastic feature stretches with the user’s body movements.
Moisture absorption helps provide a reliable seal throughout the day.

How to Use Ostomy Elastic Barrier Strips

If it’s your first time and you don’t know how to attach ostomy barrier strips, it’s pretty simple. Follow the procedure below:

Remove the longer strip of protective paper.
Without stretching, position the ostomy barrier strips so it overlaps the edge of the barrier and adheres to the skin.
Remove the remaining piece of the protective paper and smooth it into place.
Add a second strip on the other side, following procedures 1 to 3.

If you’re wondering how to use skin barriers with a one-piece ostomy bag, the same procedures from above will apply. However, it’s important to carefully clean and dry the skin around the stoma before applying the barrier for a secure and comfortable fit.

Which Barrier Strips Should I Use?

For stomas located on a fairly flat area of the stomach, we recommend using the Crescent-shaped skin barriers for circular and oval-shaped baseplates. Straight-cut strips are the best option for those with rectangular or square baseplates.

Ostomates with stomas located in skin folds are unfortunately more prone to peeling and blowouts when they bend and sit. Brava’s Y-shaped barrier strips were designed specifically with those situations in mind. Their extended edges adhere to the inside of the skin folds, providing additional support.

The XL size does the same job as the crescent, but is 60% larger. Many ostomates find these suitable for any and all of the above situations.

Are the Elastic Barrier Strips Waterproof?

Adhesive barrier strips for ostomy use are not waterproof, per se. They are effective, up to a point, at helping to maintain barrier adhesion when confronted with moisture from outside (via water from showers, swimming pools, etc…) or inside the skin barrier (via sweat or output leakage from the stoma). Their hydrocolloid formulation effectively absorbs moisture, which can extend wear time.

However, there will always be an eventual point of saturation that is too much for any adhesive. It’s best to think of Brava Strips and other ostomy accessories as additional protection rather than as a failsafe.

In fact, Brava strips tend to work best when teamed up with other ostomy accessories. For instance, a Brava Protective Seal will help protect against leakage at the stoma itself, which eliminates the threat of peeling and blowout at the source. Meanwhile, the Brava ostomy support belt is designed to provide extra stabilization and support for your ostomy system, which can take some of the weight off of your strips.

Even though Brava’s semicircle ostomy adhesive barrier strips are not waterproof, using the right ostomy supplies will ensure reliability, giving you peace of mind during your daily routines.

Brava Elastic Barrier Strips

$31.59 – $76.39

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