Discussion on tube feeding

Over the last year I have struggled maintaining my weight and keeping up my blood sugar levels.  Despite waking up from sleep throughout the night to eat as well as eating as much as possible throughout the day on top of taking extra supplements in the form of the delightful fortisip and ensure drinks.  Getting as many as 7 down my neck a day.   My hubby tells friends I’ve got every woman’s dream – I can eat what I want and never put on a pound or an inch on my waist line.  The truth is he knows how much I struggle and the difficulty I face everyday.  The old saying what goes in has to come out; in my body it’s accelerated.  The food is no sooner in and either up it comes or within hours my bowels are moving.  The loose movements leave me exhausted and drained.  Hubby, Steve, said the other day ‘all your energy leaves you from your backside’ – this summary is spot on.  

Steve comes with me to my consultations.  We all agree- how things are going can’t go in like this…… I’m exhausted; especially with waking up through the night. But if I don’t eat through the night I will have a hypo.    Mealtimes are a chore.   Fitting a tube feed and giving me some food when I’m sleeping looks like the best solution.  Initially it’s discussed that I get a peg feed fitted.  The tube feed will be in my tummy and unless I told anyone or had no clothes on, no one would no I had it fitted.  I could hook up through the night, get valued nutrients and get some sleep.   We get an appointment to see the nutrician specialist consultant.  In Steve and I go, to be greeted by a team of four.  They were very informative.  The consultant starts by explaining about the peg.  Then he tells us why it’s not such a good idea to go ahead immediately.  He explains, inserting the tube into my tummy could hit a tumour and make things worse.  And even if he get the device fitted without colliding with any tumour, the foreign objects in my body could cause problems, it could accelerate growth or encourage new growth on or near the tube.  Steve stopped him and said that’s lots of negatives…… 

The team do think I need to give tube feeding a try to see if I have any improvement in quality of life.  So we are going to try a ng tube for a month.  One of the team will come to our home and train us on how to use the pump, all about the tubes, feeds, etc.  then in the next couple of weeks I will go to the ward and get a tube fitted.  This means I will have a tube up my nose – the thing I’m not looking forward to is getting the tube fed up my nose and it going down the back of my throat.  Hopefully once it’s up and running I will have a bit more control over my blood sugar levels and I will get a more peaceful sleep.  It’s worth a try.