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Looking for evidence that feeding tubes prevent aspiration pneumonia
Lung Health | Last Active: Sep 9, 2021 | Replies (14)Comment receiving replies
@ltecato I wanted to add a bit more here. While my dad did die of aspiration, he also had several instances of aspiration because of not using the feeding tube. Before the feeding tube at the end of his life, he was thickening liquids with Thickit and we were using a blender to make his meal easy to swallow. He also worked with a speech pathologist on swallowing and exercises to strengthen that process. When my mom gave him a cookie that he was not supposed to have, he choked on it, and then developed aspiration pneumonia requiring medical attention. that probably would have happened more without the feeding tube, so it did help. His swallowing problems stemmed from a brain injury years earlier, so tat may not be an equal comparison as to what will happen in a different case. It is worth doing the therapy work to try to strengthen swallowing.
Replies to "@ltecato I wanted to add a bit more here. While my dad did die of aspiration,..."
Jennifer, I feel like kicking myself when I read about your dad and the cookie. I kept trying to eat Frosted Flakes because sometimes I could swallow it but I always suspected it was giving me pneumonia the next day or two.
I think the last time was because I ate minestrone. I have switched “full liquid” and “mechanical soft.” I have found some kinds of soup I can swallow, but none of them have pasta or chunky veggies.
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Jennifer, thanks very much for the reply. Very sorry to hear about your dad. My poor mom died of lung cancer just as the lockdowns of 2020 began. No one could visit.
I have dysphagia because of radiation treatment for cancer of the nasopharynx as a teenager. I also have trismus and can only open about 15mm. On top of that, the cobalt put a permanent end to my saliva. I have lived with xerostomia since 1976.
Swallowing problems began about 2002, I think. I ignored it because it never occurred to me that it could be important, but in 2006 I was at a restaurant when food got stuck part-way down and I went to an emergency room. The tortilla chips went down on their own eventually, but a GI doctor came in and explained it was radiation damage and offered to do a balloon treatment to widen the esophagus. So I agreed and it worked for a number of years but I had no health care to dentistry during the recession. Teeth went to hell.
c. 2014 I started choking again and suddenly I could no longer eat pizza that was easy to swallow before. For a while I was vomiting after waking every morning. No idea why. Either the vomiting or the dysphagia eventually gave me aspiration pneumonia. I spent a month in a hospital and the SLPs just bulldozed me into getting this tube.
I get so mad when I think how they didn’t warn me that my mouth would “forget” how to chew and swallow, that I can’t even talk about it because I will raise my voice and I truly fear non-deaf hospital employees will call security on me and I will be lucky if I don’t get Tased — but that’s another beef. ADA.
Got out of hospital and spent another month in rehab. Tube fell out maybe 6 months after it was installed. A cat accidentally pulled out the next one. Then I accidentally cut one off while trying to remove gauze and tape that got stuck on it also by accident. I had to replace it at least two more times before I decided I had enough. The stoma also got infected. One time I got pancreatitis and pneumonia concurrent with an infection.