Speaking as not only the caregiver of my MIL with a feeding tube these last 3 yrs, but also my son who has had one for 7+ yrs, tubes do fall out. They have both had it fall out more than once (sometimes my son's gets pulled out even with the balloon inflated!). We changed both of them to gastrostomy buttons, much easier for feeds, and with the balloon style it is extremely easy to replace and in fact we have been told to replace them every 3 months. Now... it is suggested not to do this until the stoma is at least 6 weeks old and healed.

With the button, you attach an extension whenever you do a feed and detach it when finished. The button itself looks kinda like where you blow air into a beach ball. Nice to have a flat belly and no tube hanging down all the time.

When my son AND my MIL received their gastrostomies we were given a small foley style tube that we had for emergencies should the tube fall out on its own, and instructed how to use it so that the stoma did not close up. In some patients it has been known to close up within a couple of hours, or less.

I am really surprised that your surgeons/GI's are not informing their patients of this possibility and preparing them so they can take care of it themselves should it happen. But, maybe that is the difference between temporary vs permanent? Interesting! Or maybe it is the difference between the pediatric world and the adult world... I have found our ped docs are much more forthcoming and accepting of tube feeds than adult docs for my MIL are.

Anyway... just thought I would share our experiences...

Heidi