“How can I ensure that the food pipe is clean?”
My father is in the hospital and is a long term patient. His food is being administered through a feeding tube. But how can I make sure that these pipes are clean?
3 Answers
There are medications that we use to unclog feeding tubes however they can be expensive and require some supervision to do properly. For example Creon which is pancreatic enzymes. A simple but cost effective option which works pretty well is coca cola. But obviously limit utilization to clogs and if the patient is diabetic consider diet coke to limit effect on blood glucose.
Those tubings are delivered in a sterile package and are hung new at designated intervals. Most facilities change that to being every 3 days, however, it may be individualized for your particular facility. It is okay to ask to have the tubing changed if it hasn't been and it is okay to ask how often the tubing gets changed.
Feeding tubes aren't sterile. It is important to flush feeding tubes with water to prevent them from being clogged but you shouldn't worry excessively about bacteria growing in them because that is unavoidable. If you think about it our gut is full of bacteria and it is able to protect itself because the good bacteria are well colonized making it difficult for bad bacteria to establish growth. Bacteria are vital to our health and nutrition and putting things in a feeding tube to kill off bacteria would likely have the opposite effect than you would be looking for.
Jack Stephens, MD
Jack Stephens, MD
