Venting the Tube?

[Anonymous]

Quinn just got her g-tube last week. She had a rough time at first and
was in the hospital for a whole week. Well, things seemed to be healing
nicely. The nurse came to our house every day and told me that things
looked good. But last night, Quinn’s belly had become extremely bloated
and the peg is sticking out farther than what it was before. We almost
thought it was actually coming out. And it is very red. Well, I heard
something about venting if the belly is bloated, am I right? I’ve never
been taught this and don’t know what I’m doing. She doesn’t seem to be
in any pain, though i know my baby has an incredibly high pain
tolerance due to this reflux so I don’t know what I should be doing.
Her belly was so bloated that I decided to be a little naughty and not
do her continuous feed last night. It was that bad. I was scared her
skin was going to burst open. This morning when she woke up she is
definitely lighter, so I don’t want to have to do this again. She needs
those continuous feeds. Yesterday, she pooped two big ones and this morning she pooped another big one. Maybe that’s the reason it was so bloated???

So any advise on how to do this? She has that
tube that sticks out like six inches… she hasn’t gotten the mickey
button yet. Any ideas??? This morning when she woke up her belly was back to normal, but the peg is sticking out much farther than it was before… is this normal or should I call our nurse out here again?

-Sarah
myQTpie2007-5-27 15:53:47

[Anonymous]

Here’s a picture of Quinn’s g-tube taken today.. she looks way way taller than what she really is in this picture… for some reason.

[Anonymous]

She is a cutie….

well a couple of thoughts:

1. it is normal for the tubes to seem to be sticking out from time to time… Matthew’s does this all of the time… sometimes it is so tight that i think that it is time to change to a bigger size… only to look a couple of days later and it is sticking out again (and by the way, for Matthew is has nothing to do with belly size for some reason… or weight. a few weeks ago i told hte nurse i thought he needed a bigger size because it was really tight… now he has gained 2 lbs in this program and the button seems big LOL)

2. while i can see what you mean by sticking out with a button — i just want to make sure that something else is going on — it seems from the picture that you have a stabiliser disc?? Sometimes, with Matthew, the disc itself would move a lot… so we always made sure that we tightened it to the same level… your tube has numbers right> If i remember, Matthew’s stabiliser had to be at around 2 (which i believe is cm). Sometmes it would get lose and get back to teh 3 or 3.5 line… so we just had to tighten it back. A couple of times, if it became too lose, it made him vomit BTW… prob resting on the pyloris

3. You know… i wrote a post to Leo about this a week ago or so… my experience is that unless your child has had a fundo… most people with only a Gtube will not vent their kids…. for some time Matthew and Kendra too ahd a ton of gas… not sure whether Leo actually vented Kendra but i tried with Matthew a couple of times and it just did nothing. His belly and his muscles were just adjusting to the surgery and after a few weeks the bloating disappeared (and for me, what was most important, Matthew starting burping nicely again…)

However, if you want to do it. Get a 60cc syringe at the end of the tub, but only one of the parts (ie not the one that you use to push, so it is open really). Make sure that the syringe is slightly above the tube site and open the tube. You should see stomach contents moving into the tube and into the syringe… then you should see some bubbles if there really is air in there… then the contents should start going back into the stomach. If you need to, you can then insert the other part of the syringe and push the contents inside. You can try before a feeding or after a feeding… never worked for us though

[Anonymous]

Hi Sarah,

She is a cutie indeed!!

We have been venting Kendra and she gets tons of gas. it helps a lot. we do it before each feeding and and hour after feeding (for some reason i do not get any air out right after feeding, but and hour or so later. I use a catheter tip 60ml open serynge. that works good. when i vent, i usually get a loud air release or just lots of bubbles mix with the milk. kendra feels much better after wards. i hope it helps, but like Thais said maybe is just part of the healing process and not bloatness. i don’t have the disc stabilizer, i have this white cover that i have to adjust as kendra puts wt. i hope she feels better soon.

[Anonymous]

i forgot o mention that i use the biggest opening at the end of the tube and i lower a bit, being careful not to spill any stomach content, then when finish i move the serynge up and let the liquid go back inside by gravity.

[Anonymous]

Leo — glad that venting is working for you!! How is the vomitting?? (excluding last couple of days)… hope she is feeling better

[Anonymous]

Thais, thanks for asking.

She only puked once today (that’s nice) and is getting a buger nose and a slight cough. so somthing is up for sure now, i just don’t know what. Her ezema is terrible too .

Sarah iam sorry to steal your post a bit

How is Matthew? you are coming home soon right? i hope you got really good helped for Matthew while there.

[Anonymous]

Sarah – we had great luck with venting when Christian had the long tube, now that he has the button venting doesn’t seem to work anymore..

We too would use the 60cc syringe, open and place it lower than this belly – sometimes I would even push on his belly a little bit to get the air out. It really reduced the vomitting and crankiness. There are lots of times I wish venting would work better with the mickey.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I did call the on call nurse who was no help at all. She basically told
me everything I already know. She did say that it sounds like the tube
is trying to come out and to keep it wrapped around her belly so it
doesn’t move. I haven’t done any continuous feeds since that night
because the tube is sticking out pretty far. The peg doesn’t even sit
on her tummy, it hangs down and I know it shouldn’t look like that. The
thing is, that it’s been a holiday weekend, so all of her doctors are
out and the on call people don’t know a damn thing and keep telling me
that there is nothing they can do and to just bring her to the ER.
Well, the ER in my hometown SUCKS! I can’t tell you how badly they suck
I know there is nothing they can do for me unless the whole thing
really pops out. So I’m taking really good care of it until we go in to
see our normal pediatrician tomorrow. I won’t travel all the way to
Loma Linda just to be admitted for peg placement until the GI doctor
comes in tomorrow. So that’s out of the question. I just need to hold
off on her until then. I can take better care of her here than in the
hospital anyways and it’s dumb reason to be admitted because I know
that’s what would happen.

About
her belly, though, it’s been really bloated, and I don’t know why? Even
with me not giving her the feeds for the past few nights, it’s still
been getting bloated. The redness around the site seems to have almost
gone away. But I’m going to have to talk with the doc about that.
Especially about the tube sticking out so far. And thank you for
teaching me how to vent that thing. You guys did help a lot and I
learned how to do it. So far, though we haven’t gotten that much air
out.

Leo, not to worry, you aren’t stealing my post at all.

-Sarah

[Anonymous]

Sarah,

kendra’s site got really red from the tube moving so much. we got a tape that anchors the tube in place and it HAS BEEN NICE. i really recomend it. it’s call flexi-trak anchoring device (large). our CVS pharmacy can order it for us and it’s $99.00 for 50 ( we get the next day). you can buy by the unit only at $3.75 each. it comes in large ( i don’t know if they have smaller sizes, but i haven’t seen it yet). we trim the ends a bit to make it smaller. we change position every 2-3 days depending how bad the tape looks or if its coming unglue. you want to give her skin a brake. here is what it looks like. i hope it helps. it has worked really well for us. this is the cheapest i have seen it.

http://www.medsupplyco.com/Products/ProductDetails.cfm/Produ ctNumber/SQB037449

[Anonymous]

OOOOOOoooooo!!!! I am definitely going to have to get me some of that. I’ll talk to the pharmacy about it. Thanks a lot for the info. We are constantly changing her tape and stuff because it will just fall off after about 12 hours and I especially can’t give her a bath with the kind of tape we’ve been using. It also hurts her to take it off, which I have to do two to three times a day. We do have some skin protector stuff… I think it’s called Bard, but that only helps minimally. Thanks so much!

-Sarah

[Anonymous]

Sarah,

we use aquafor on kendra’s red skin and that helps a lot.

[Author]

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