Luke's g-tube and feeding history Part 2

So in September (Luke is now 7 months old) the valve on Luke's Bard button broke and anytime you opened the button stomach contents came spilling out.  This was not good as he was losing stomach acid and valuable enzymes.  We tried to work with it and be really quick about putting the feeding tube in and taking it out and closing it when we were done but it was not going well.  We took a fast trip down to the surgeon and got it replaced with a Mic-key button which we would be able to change out ourselves, which proved to be very beneficial in a couple of months.  The Mic-key button sticks out more from Luke but not enough to make any difference it seemed to Luke's daily lives.  Now getting the correct extensions to go from the button to the feeding syringe for the Mic-key button was very difficult.   In the hospital it seemed that almost every time we ordered new extension tubes they sent up ones for a Mic-key button and not the Bard button.  So I was thinking that extension tubes would be easy to get for the Mic-key button.

However, getting the correct connections and lengths were the tough part.  They come with strait or 90 degree ends at the button and the other end can come with and without a medicine port.  They also come in two different diameter tubes.  We used the 90 degree thin tube when we were putting just breastmilk through it but when I started putting my real food blenderized diets we needed the strait end to help it move through and the strait end (bolus) tube is a larger diameter.  All the reference numbers for these tubes are really close together and I had to do a lot of trial and error with my durable medical equipment (DME) company.  The people ordering at the DME may have no idea what your equipment really looks like so you need to give as much description as possible and if you can find a reference number somewhere that helps.  However, be ready for trial and error.

We started with the medicine port top it didn't stay on the bottom of the syringe very well and we had LOTS of messes.  Also the medicine port would just come open.  When I started ordering the strait bottom larger tubes I realized that we could get the non medicine port top which fits very snugly on the syringe.   I would recommend the tip without the medicine port to everyone.  We usually put medicine strait into his g-button with syringes that fit directly into the button.  These syringes are hard to fine but you can ask for them at your pharmacy or your DME.  We ended up with some for awhile that had a twist tip that we just cut off with a box cutter and then washed the syringes before use.

So we were smooth sailing g-tube wise for a couple of months (breathing and health wise is a different story and got crazy in here but that will be a different post).