As my treatment progressed, I found the tube didn’t handle certain foods well at all. The pic attached shows a tube similar to mine in length and attachment. It is not, however, my abdomen or tube. Carnation’s Very High Calorie Breakfast Drink, a whooping 550 calories in one can, tended to clog the tube easily. I wanted to take VHC because I couldn’t seem to get down enough calories in one day. The process was just too time consuming. Maybe the solution was to thin VHC, but it didn’t help much. And once this super rich food was in me, I had huge coughing fits that racked my body, causing the tube to rub the skin around it raw as I coughed. The VHC would eventually look for the easiest exit from this rumbling guttural chaos and it headed up to the throat where it triggered more racking coughs and eventually a session hugging the commode.
All the nutrition I’d struggled to get down was lost on the trip back up. Whatever VHC I could keep down was so rich that it generated oral yeast infections. These are common place with glottal treatments. They are miserable. You have no saliva to help you swallow. Your mouth is covered in “fur.” You tongue has white nubbies all over it, and they smell like sour dough bread. A white foamy substance hangs out in the back of your throat and waits. When you stop coughing and wretching, this white foam wake up and sets your throat to itching and choking. For me the end result was a loss of nutrition, dehydration, and a trip to the hospital for five days.
I came home rehydrated and ready to resume the battle. A new type of canned food, some pills to kill the yeast, things ought to be good shortly. But they weren’t. the opening about the tube became infected to the point that I could barely walk. And the tube continued to allow more food to back up it than was going down. I was getting weaker by the day.
And the problem was compounded by daily Ethyol shots. This option you’d better be familiar with. It’s got some real surprises, possibly with your name on them. I’ll share more about the up and way way down side of Ethyol on the next post.
Yes Ma-am I can surly remember & it does bring back some memories for me,Reading this from you. I have been living with a Peg. Tube since March of 2002. I know that at this time it will seem impossible to believe, But for me after the last few years of living with one I have come to get used to the way I have to live now. I actually don’t find it that big of a hinderance now. I can still live on my own & go where I want. I don’t go to any dinner parties but that isn’t something I did much of anyway. I think you will be a little more comfortable with it after your body adjusts to the changes & you catch on to the easiest way for you yourself to handle having & using one. I might just mention that it has always helped me to keep in mind that if asked the Lord will help You through Anything if asked IN ALL FAITH BELIEVING. I am going on 52 Years on this earth and am a Blacksmith of well over 30 Years. I can’t practice my trade anymore for health reasons. However I try to make the best of it. I will remember you in my prayers. If you have any questions I would be happy to help in any way I could. God Bless.
Dave.j@cox.net
Thank you. What a kind comment. I will remember you in my prayers too. I always tell people a feeding tube is better than eating dirt, which would be my option, from the ground side up, w/out a feeding tube.