My Father-in-law was diagnosed with esophageal and gastric cancer approximately eleven months ago. He is going through his second round of chemotherapy as I am posting this. It has been a rough road as I know everyone reading this has experienced. I am not sure if it is fair to say that anything positive can come out of an experience like this however my wife and father in law have gotten closer. I am hoping to gain a few things from this site.
One issue he struggled with was his feeding tube. I wanted to see if other people had unpleasant experiences with feeding tubes and what the problems were. My father in law's tube fell out three times in a 3 month period. He has maintained an active lifestyle which was difficult with the tube. He enjoys golfing, working in the yard, and exercising but found it difficult.
Look forward to hearing comments.

There is no need to post your message in multiple message forums. People here will see it as they review all the new posts for the most part. I am going to take it down from the other forum where it is duplicated.

ok...thanks

Hi Todd

In response to your feeding tube question. I had one for 6 months and found heavy excercise pretty uncomfortable. I didnt do any running or strenuous sweating excercise during that time- I walked alot did the eliptical on occasion when I felt up to it... there are people who have them for life who I'm sure do excercise a lot...

I had some clogging problems towards the end - flushing with warm water after feedings is important. If it gets clogged you can also flush it with a bit of fizzy water. Also I wrapped an ace bandage kind of thing around my waist and tucked it up that way so it wouldnt get hung up on my clothing and pull- which was painful and was a nuicance when I was active.
Hope that helps. Also hoping that your father in law gets through this all without toomuch discomfort!

KATE

Kate:
thank you for your response. My father in law had similar problems with clothes, etc, pulling on the tube causing discomfort and he also developed an irritation from the tape as he started out doing the same thing. As I mentioned his tube fell out after some activity which was painful as well as costly.
The cancer is very unfortunate but some good has potentially come out of it hopefully for many individuals with PEG tube issues.
My wife and her Father became entrenched in deigning a device to help him remain active with his Peg tube and it has brought them closer together.
I am trying to gather some feedback from individuals like yourself about their experiences with the feeding tube as well as get the word out about our device, while remaining respectful of the purpose of this website. We do feel that we have designed a belt we are calling "The Peg Belt" which will help individuals with feeding tubes enjoy their active lifestyle.
My father in law wore the belt for about three months before having his tube removed and he loved the belt because the design keeps the tube isolated from everything. We have re-designed the belt four times and think we have it.
Again, my goal is to respect this website and it's purpose. However, at the end of the day we feel we have designed a device that will help people with peg tubes stay active. I strongly feel my father in law is doing as well as he is because he refused to stop golfing and exercising. Our website is www.thepegbelt.com if you would like more information.

Again, I appreciate the feedback very much and wish you and all who read this the very best of luck with whatever they are going through. Any additional feedback would be very much appreciated.