I am following on how to manage dysphagia. Perhaps speech therapy. Eating soup and health drinks one can still swallow something. Does this group allow for direct message to someone?

“Is it possible to manage dysphagia without resorting to tube feeding?”

In my experience, it is. I was on a feeding tube for a while but it kept falling out and I kept getting aspiration pneumonia, which the feeding tube was supposed to prevent. I stopped having it replaced after it fell out for the fourth or fifth time.

I had my esophagus stretched and I am now on a diet that is either “soft mechanical” or liquid. I also am taking 100 mg doxycycline daily to prevent pneumonia. I expect to be doing this for the rest of my life.

I have decided that I will not get a feeding tube again unless I am permanently in a nursing facility that can handle all the problems that plagued me when I was trying to use a tube at home. The people who sell you on the idea of getting a tube don’t tell you half of the downsides that come along with it. It’s not what I consider to be user-friendly technology and it’s not easy to get support when the technology fails.