[quote=ChristineB]To elaborate more on KristenS's granulation comments.... Granulation is something almost every feeding tube user will go thru from time to time. It can be very, VERY painful and uncomfortable. The granulation is a sign the patient is overdoing it. When someone has a feeding tube all kinds of things can affect it and its placement. Complications can arise if the patients is not careful while they have a tube. Feeding tube users do not usually have to stay put on the couch unless they have other issues going on. Things not to do with a feeding tube.... lift anything over about 25 pounds, strenuous exercises, swimming, soaking in a hot tub or bathtub, scuba diving, any activity that requires heavy use of abdominal muscles like rock climbing or gymnastics. Regular housework is ok, same with gardening, walking, laundry, etc. Just be careful not to carry heavy laundry baskets or lean the baskets against your stomach. For further feeding tube advice, you can talk this subject over with your gastro doc.
Feeding tube users should use a drain sponge (a 4"x4" gauze bad that has a cut on one side) at the tube site between their skin and the plunger disc. If the patient has granulation ask their doc for a prescription for silver sulfadine cream. Use a q-tip and place a very thin layer of silver sulfadine cream around the feeding tube site then cover with a drain sponge. The silver sulfadine cream should very thin where you can slightly see thru it, do not rub it in, allow it to soak in. Change the drain sponge daily after showering.
Hope this helps![/quote]
This DOES help. Oddly, though, I wasn't doing anything at all. I was doing precisely what I was told, being a couch potato. (I was told to do that so I wouldn't jar the PEG loose. Maybe they were being too cautious in their advice.) I was doing sponge baths and very little housework and ... well ... going out of my mind with inactivity. And my gastro doc turned out to be one of my 'idiots' on my list now, so that probably explains a lot. He didn't care that he was sending me home in truly excruciating pain. (The replacement done by the other doctor was a piece of cake, only kept me in the hospital overnight just in case there was a complication.) Anyway, when it was finally removed, I noticed the granulation start ... hadn't seen anything like it till that point, but Google was my friend on that one to at least identify the issue. And then, one quick treatment in the chemo port surgeon's office, and she made a follow-up for the next week for just in case ... but by then it was well on its way to healing. I guess I got lucky that it didn't cause pain... I did NOT know about that. Thank you, Christine, for letting me know that there's one bullet I did dodge in this whole crazy list of doctor screw-ups I'm accruing! (At least it gives me anecdotes to share if someone needs them, LOL.)
Of course, now you've mentioned pain, I wonder if there was some unnoticed granulation or something that caused my issue in the first place where it needed replaced. The second doc thought it had gotten misaligned and that's why he thought just resetting the whole thing would be best, but who knows? I was in too much pain to know, but I didn't SEE anything obviously wrong. Hm. Probably a different kind of pain altogether.
Well, I've learned something new today ... can I go back to bed now?
