Has anyone had a peg tube infection? My friend has had her peg tube for almost two weeks and the site looks a little swollen and pus filled. Her temp and wbc is normal but the doctor thinks there may be an abscess. She was admitted to the hospital tonight. Is this common? Any comments welcome!

I have had my peg tube for several months and I clean and dress it every day. I first apply hydrogen peroxide and then merthiolate. I then put merthiolate on a 2" sterile gauze pad and bandage around the tube and taping with paper tape. I do this daily and have never even had ant slight redness around the tube sight.

Cas,
My husband had his PEG tube for about 5 months. He only had to cover it for the first week when showering. After that, never covered and just put hydrogen peroxide around the tube area. He never had any problems during the whole time he had it. For the first week or two, though, it did seem to pus a bit and run. I remember being worried about that thinking he might have an infection, but shortly after that it dried up and was fine.
God bless,
Debbie

When mine was placed they used stitches and these little metal things they called toggles with one on the outside and one on the inside. I had a lot of redness, swelling, pain and discomfort in the beginning and the doctor thought it was because of the position of my stomach and the small size of it. I went back, had some water let out of the bulb but I still hurt and felt full all the time. I went back and the person that usually does the PEG tubes saw me, immediately clipped all of the stitches and told me the toggles would pass through the digestive system. She said she never uses the stitches because it just causes the tube to irritate and creates sores where the stitches are.

All the problems went away. The infusion nurses gave me some really cool gauze that had a little slot cut out and I put them around the base to soak up the goo that oozed out sometimes. I took baths and just wiped up the fresh goo with a qtip after the bath and never had another problem. I never really used it for much except liquid medicine when I couldn't swallow.

Ed

It is not uncommen for a little amount of swelling and pus so soon after a new peg tube. It takes the site a little time to get used toe the foreign body (tube) being in the body. Normally it will calm down with time and the pus dries up. You can have a absess in the site, depends if the puss is able to leak out of the wound on it's own or whether a collection has formed. The best prevention is regular cleaning and keeping the site protected especially in the first few weeks,

Procy