I’m very new to the pouch (4 weeks post takedown) and likely have already had pouchitis and a stricture so take my miserable pouch experience with a grain of salt. Everybody says it will get better?
I can however speak to the ileostomies. I had my end ileo for just shy of 1.5 years which allowed me to recover after an emergent colectomy and all the illness surrounding fulminant colitis. I returned to work after 3 months and worked 60-80 hour weeks for a year. Ate everything, nuts, corn, all raw fruits and and veg, burgers, beer. Hiked and biked. Glorious. The end ileo worked like a charm. I had thick output and emptied 4-5x per day. No leaks. Slept through many nights. Felt healthy despite still having a UC flare in retained rectum necessitating pred for the 5 months before stage 2. I consider that time with the end ileo to be when I felt my best in past 2 years.
I had stage 2/3 last December and a slew of complications that I won’t innumerate. I want to say the loop ileo was much more finicky. Looser output, emptying 10x per day. Plus tons of obstructions (which you won’t necessarily have).
Guess my point is don’t necessarily judge what life with an ostomy would be like based on the loop. They are notoriously poorly behaved compared to an end. I don’t think I’ve gone more than a few hours in the past 7 months without lamenting the loss of quality of life I had with the end ileo, but my rectum had to come out and now I’m stuck with this f@“king pouch and seemingly every complication under the sun. Right now, I would take the minor inconvenience of the end ileo over this any day.
I hope you can keep your pouch and feel healthy but don’t view the ostomy as the end of the world. (BTW, I’m a female about 10 years younger than you and cavorted on the beach and in most of my old clothes with the pouch. Hardly visible. No problem.)