bludy buggery NG tube!!!!

[champagneanddaisys]

My daughter is pulling it out average of 4 times a day at the mo. I askd my district nurse about better ways of attatching it and she had no bright ideas.

We are using the brown sticky duoderm stuff and then sticking tegaderm over that.

Any better ideas?
Im realy loosing my patience, its nearly three in the morning and I go to do her feed and shes lying in her cot grinning at me waving the sodding thing around like a lasso! (dispite it being taped across her face, over her ear, down her neck, and to her back!!!)

roll on gastrostomy!!!

Also does anyone know the reason that I am told to drip feed her with the NG via gravity, instead of just syringing it in?
I would ask her nurse but dont want her to think im not doing what im told!!! (I am!)

Thanks MNrs!

Oh, they are a nightmare arent they???!

No advice I'm afraid, we fed ds1 via gravity too but this was 8 years ago so things may have altered since.

Ds1 pulled his out on average 4 times per day but we were in hospital so the nurses - with very bad grace somtimes - put in back in.

I am not sure there is anything that will keep the ng tube in place is she is determined to get it out!!!!

Sorry for butting in but wondered if you'd tried some cotton mittens on her. It may reduce her ability to grab at the tube.

Oh PITA aren't they daisys?

No advice on the taping - it's difficult to not get that little bit right by their nose where they manage to get a finger in and pull.

We used to syringe dd's feed because it was too thick to gravity feed, but it had to be done really slowly otherwise she'd just chuck it back up. I doubt it was any quicker than gravity feeding. We had a pump after a while but often when she'd pull the tube I just fed the bedclothes. Messy.

we were told to gravity feed DD2 at first. this was going brilliantly till she was transferred to a closer hospital and we were told to syringe feed her. apparently the milk would get germs in gravity fed. she vomited almost every feed after that even tho it was done as slowly as i could.
3 weeks later after her heart op, i mentioned the feeding to an NICU nurse and she said gravity all the way. the germs that would get in the milk wont harm DD and that they need germs etc

My DS had an NG for 5 years and he pulled it out once!!! I think that must be a record!

We used brown plaster ( many people are sensitive to this so try it out first). He was allergig to duoderm/tegaderm so that just didn't work for him. And when that get's wet it just falls off! The brown plaster is also less obvious and they don't look so 'sick'.

So my advice would be brown plaster. Cut a strip about 5-7cm and trim the end into a blunt point. Put the point end as near to her nose as possible when taping it. The cut a tiny piece of the plaster and tape that further back on her cheek. Then lop the NG aound the back of her neck and tape it to the opposite shoulder ( I used leukosilk tape). Make sure, before you tape it down that you've left enough so she can fully turn her head both ways.

This way

A) It's harder to pull it directly out of her nose
B) the tape is stickier and doesn't come off so easy if she pulls
C) If she pulls on the end she effectively has to get 3 pieces of sticky stuff off before the tube will actually come out.

HTH

we used hyperfix tape

Oh how many times have i fed the bed:o.We had the same problem 10 years ago.Not sure there is anything you can do.We tried most things.We did use scrachy mits as dd has very small hands but we ended up taping them onto her hands as she took them off.I think the maximum times she pulled it out was 6.DD has gastro tube now and yes she has been known to pull that out too:o

Oh how I remember the hilarity of the lassoo....our ds used to think it was a great game at 3am:o
No great tips apart from us as never really cracked it apart from instead of mitts, babygros or pj's with foldover mitts. Next do them best and ds couldn't manage to get out of them the way he could scratch mitts.
Now little mans weaned and cup feeding we look back on it and laugh but it was far from fun at the time.
All the best x

I'll second the cotton mitts! With ds we realised that he only pulled the ng out with the hand on the same side as the ng - so left nostril left hand iyswim so we only had to use one mitt, but I did have to tape it to his babygro!
He had a gastrostomy when he was 3; and to start with we dressed him in all in one vest/body suits (luckily he was tiny) and dungarees so he couldn't pull that out!

We used to gravity feed (daytime) until the local pct stopped providing the gravity feed stuff; we were supposed to gravity feed from the reservoirs that went on the pump. This was virtually impossible as the tubing was so long and in the end we just put all his feeds through the pump even thought the nursing team didn't like it......until they actually had to try doint the drip feed!