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taadaa shiny new gastrostomy support thread no.3 tube feeding support

999 replies

isitme1 · 04/12/2013 08:29

Taaadaaaa
Welcome to the new thread! !
New and old are welcome here

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24
Sneezecakesmum · 18/03/2014 22:41

I'm also feeling grotty yet again with yet another virus! That school is a secret government germ factory Angry
Surprised I've not overdosed on paracetamol since September. At least I didn't get the D&V!

Can't find any pics to liven the page up but will have a look Grin

Giddypants · 19/03/2014 10:37

Grotty here too,poor wee Al has an awful cough which makes him vomit, he's coughed so hard he's broken some capillaries in his cheek, so looks like he has a septicaemia rash. Fine in himself just a bit more sleepy than usual.
I need to go into work to try and sort out some paperwork otherwise I won't get paid this month.
What's annoying is that 2 people have gone back to work from mat leave and their paperwork was done without issue.
El got sent home from school yesterday for puking, he's not poorly but I think they over react a bit. And I think his tolerance to the formula is getting worse.

sofluffyamgonnadie · 19/03/2014 11:03

Hi, I am fairly new around here, tend to lurk, rather than post. Found this thread and wanted to say hi, and pick the brains of other tubie mums.

I'm just wondering if there is anyone else around with a tubie, who has tried weaning down feed, the aim being removal of Mickey, and returning to 'normal feeding'

We've been attempting this off and on for the last year or so, tried both reducing feed, and stopping feed completely.........long story short at last visit to Consultant she noted on centile chart DC has gone from 90th centile to 25th and wasn't happy.

Is there anyone around here who has attempted this, and if so what kind of weight loss did DC have?

Many thanks

sofluffyamgonnadie · 19/03/2014 11:13

Sxx, my DC has a dx of bulbar palsy, but he already had a tube fitted for other health reasons, then took us 4+ years of fighting to get the powers that be to take me seriously regarding his swallow issues, but his was picked up following video-fluoroscopy showed him chucking food in his lungs Hmm

r3dh3d · 19/03/2014 11:37

Well, I have good news re: the feed - it turns out that the manufacturer had put bad info on a couple of web sites and sent bad info to the GP systems. The feed IS actually safe after all. However, it took me days of phoning round to get this info and in the end I only got it via the GOSH metabolic dieticians.

Panic over - I'm sooooo relieved!

isitme1 · 19/03/2014 11:42

Glad to hear the feed is ok red!!

Welcome sofluffy
it sounds like your dc isn't ready to be weaned off yet. I would hold off a few months and encourage eating then slowly reduce feed x

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Giddypants · 19/03/2014 16:51

Hi and welcome sxx and sofluffyimgonnadie (lol love that film)
Sofluffy, how much does you dc eat? If he was eating and drinking a fair amount, I wouldn't be overly worried about the weight loss, at this stage, as long as he looks in proportion and not skinny, like ribs showing etc. I could feed my DS is on the 50th (I think) centile anything below that and he starts to look gaunt as he is quite tall, however if he was shorter he would look ok iyswim.
I think there will always be an element of weight loss, but it's looking at how much the child can afford.

R3d glad it was a false alarm re the feed, what an awfully needlessly stressful time

Al has fallen and smacked his head on the. Door frame, tried to get some frozen peas on it, but was having non of it.

Giddypants · 19/03/2014 16:52

Posted too soon.
El constipated, had to give him a suppository which has thankfully sorted him out quite quickly Grin

Sneezecakesmum · 20/03/2014 10:48

Sofluffy. I take it DS is formula fed? If so it seems from other mums we've spoken to the formula seems to ? Retain fluid. We belong to a blended diet group and put food not formula down the tube and often when children are switched to bd they lose weight even though the calories are the same. Does DS enjoy eating? Does he eat enough quantity or get tired of all the chewing and stop? Do you add plenty of high cal foods to his meals such as oils, butter and ground nuts? Is it the oral volume he can't tolerate?

Red. Thank goodness the feed was ok after all. As if you need all the stress on top of it all Angry

Giddypants · 21/03/2014 17:04

So annoyed, school said that if I want to give food to El I have to take him out of school every lunch time to do so.
I've had a phone call every day this week to tell me he's been sick and needs picking up! He's not unwell he just pukes with the formula!

sofluffyamgonnadie · 21/03/2014 19:16

Thank you for the replies and the welcomes.. Look forward to chatting with you all. Initially when we started weaning DC off the feed he could afford to lose some weight, now he really can't. He has lung disease, and has quite severe bilateral Pectus/Harrison Sulcus, the weight loss has just made this far more obvious than it was when he weighed more, friends have started to comment on how thin he looks. He just didn't look well, dark baggy eyes, just not his usual self.

DC has a bit of a complicated history, the bulba palsy affects his swallow, he's always been risky to feed, but despite repeated bouts of puking, pneumonia etc.... we've been lucky that he's never developed any aversions to food, he's quite aware of what he can and can't eat, & in the last 10 years or so he has tried and managed "harder" foods. So he does eat more variety now than he did 10 years ago.

He's been back on the feed about 6 weeks now, and I think maybe we have to leave the weaning for now, GOSH did tell us when he was diagnosed that he might never be able to eat enough to sustain himself, if I'm honest he probably doesn't eat enough to replace the calories he's losing in the feed. Maybe we can try again when he's stopped growing!

Sneezecake, DC is formula fed, he's been on scandishakes to up his calories as well, initially this was given to supplement the missing formula calories, to prop up his weight. We also struggle with volume too, anything beyond a certain quantity (about 200mls) has him puking it back, for example we went to Pizza Hut, he had nachos for his "meal" - loo/puke break - ice cream factory - loo/puke break! So we do have to be very careful about the quantity he consumes in anyone go because it doesn't stay down.

Anyhow I've waffled lots, thanks if you've got to the end of this

Sneezecakesmum · 21/03/2014 19:29

Sofluffy. 200 mls is not a lot for a 10 year old Sad. If he can't manage enough orally you're stuck with the dreaded tube feeds for the foreseeable future. Severe rapid weight loss is def not a good idea as we have lived with a little skinny boy for such a long time before we did the BD. Not sure it would do much if you are ok with the formula.

Lots of mums say their LOs could not tolerate volume on formula but once on blended food they were slowly able to increase volumes without vomiting.

The trick we all find is to give a water bolus 1/2 and hour before the feed ( we give 180mls) and it seems to stretch the stomach and reduce vomiting. It's absorbed by the time the feed (blended food) goes in.

We hate all the puking. For DGS it's the formula which does it mostly for him, but he can do it anytime if he is unwell or coughing.

r3dh3d · 22/03/2014 10:02

Tricky.

H can hold about 300ml I think (she's also 10) though current problems with stomach emptying make it hard to tell - you don't know how much is in there already. But I guess you've been down the route of domperidone etc.

We're quite reliant on calorie boosters - we use a thing called 5kc shot (5 calories in 1ml, as opposed to 1 calorie in ml for most feeds, it's slightly obscure because it's dairy free but there are more common alternatives) so if I put 200ml feed into H then it would have 30mls shot added, that's 150 extra calories for very little volume. So the 200 calories feed is now 350 calories. I guess it does the same job as your scandishake but the advantage is you can add it to anything. They make flavoured variants, but the neutral one is pretty much tasteless.

I think in your position I'd be looking to fatten him up first and then review again. It's difficult because of the reflux - H is now on night feeds, early days but it's looking v v promising: because she's getting a fair whack of feed overnight, we don't have to feed her in the day so much and as a result she's hungry enough to eat proper food and we aren't stressing about how much of it she's eating. But she's not a constant puker - she is sick but it's physical triggers (yawning, coughing, chewing) not reflux as such. So I can rely on the baby monitor to wake me up if there's a problem, because if she was to be sick then she'd kick up a kerfuffle.

isitme1 · 22/03/2014 11:49

Ds has 200mls per feed over an hour and is ok if hes not poorly. When hes ill he cant tolerate 30mls per hour and hes on neocate advance hes very rarely hungry when hes had a feed. I put his feed on late this morning as I had a driving lesson and I was hoping it would havemade him hhungry but nope.

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2old2beamum · 22/03/2014 12:27

Sofluffy welcome and sorry life is not easier for you. Haven't any answers for you. DS now 15 (yikes) has a very small stomach and strangely positioned and could only tolerate 20mls/hr without chucking up. The problem was resolved by jejunal feeding this however entails
24/hr feeding @50mls an hour. He is reasonably well nourished despite only having about 800 calories a day and 300mls water Time off for cares!!
Don't suppose this helps and I do blather on Grin

How are the rest of you? Surviving I hope!

isitme1 · 23/03/2014 10:36

Another pic...
ds is complaining it hurts at peg site (has done for a while now) its a little red....

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Sneezecakesmum · 23/03/2014 11:03

It's looks quite healthy really, but not sure about granulation or something on the inside? I tend to keep away from the mechanics of the button!

isitme1 · 23/03/2014 11:11

I dunnnooo sneeze. He just said mama tummy hurts and I asked where and he went straight to peg site. Its alittle red but thats about It

ooohh on fb there's a link for glow in the dark button and extension! How cool is that! Shame we dont use it anymore. Would come in handy for el though if he has night feeds (thats what I used to hate trying to see and attach it correctly)

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2old2beamum · 23/03/2014 15:47

Agree with Oldsneeze it looks like granulation which is common with gastrostomies. Annabel has a large area of excess sore skin which protrudes. She screams when I clean it I put loads of Vaseline around it and use a buddy button. I make sure there is 1/2 centimetre between the anchoring bits, IYSWIM.

What is facebook link please, sounds interesting.

LOVE TO ALL xx

Sneezecakesmum · 23/03/2014 18:15

Glow in dark.

taadaa shiny new gastrostomy support thread no.3 tube feeding support
Sneezecakesmum · 23/03/2014 18:16

And just for the hell of it! Grin

taadaa shiny new gastrostomy support thread no.3 tube feeding support
isitme1 · 24/03/2014 10:31

Ahh sneeze im lovin it!!

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Giddypants · 26/03/2014 09:17

Hellooooo, everybody!
I hope the quietness on here just means that people are ok and not being kept too busy.

Our Al is 1 today! Where has the time gone!

isitme1 · 26/03/2014 09:22

Awww
happy birthday Al
my niece is 1 too today Grin Cake

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isitme1 · 26/03/2014 09:27

For Al x

taadaa shiny new gastrostomy support thread no.3 tube feeding support
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