The following message is posted on the MGH forum and I thought it important enough to repost here. I tried some of the baby foods with Kelly which she enjoyed. But her tube was too small to try and get anything but liquid down it. I wonder if I could have asked for a wider tube to allow pureed foods?
Reading things like this just reminds me......we never can ask too many questions for our pHD's care. What we need is a little person walking behind us giving us reminders or to-do lists constantly. Now I'm depressed.........do we ever stop saying "I'm sorry angel"
Love
Jean
==================================================
My husband has been feeding via peg tube for more than 2 yrs due to MS dysphagia. The feedings consisted of jevity, jevity plus and TwoCal. Despite ever increasing volumes of these products used, my husband's weight dropped, his general nutrition dwindled until he developed pressure ulcers that were slow to heal.
After a particularly nasty spell in. hospital, he was returned home to die under hospice care. I quit my job and stayed home to be a caregiver.
I suspected that my husband's poor condition was due to inadequate nutrition from the canned liquid foods, so I decided to supplement his PEG feedings with REAL FOOD.
I started with stage 2 baby food meats, they are fine enough to pass easily through the tube if diluted with about 1/2 jar of water and added directly to his jevity in the feeding bag. The tube did not clog, and the food was well tolerated by my husband.
Within five days, both his nurse and I saw astonishing improvement in his stage 4 wounds! Tissue growth was greatly accelerated. Also, the chronic problem with hard stools - "jevity stones" - vanished and his stools became regular, easily passed and well formed.
I advanced from the baby meats to stage 2 dinners, using ratio of 1/2 jar water to 1 jar food, added to his regular jevity, also baby cereal and fruit for breakfast. Husband gained weight, regrew lost hair, and the pressure ulcers, one of which was a stage 4 with his hipbone exposed when I brought him home 4 months ago is now closing skin and almost completely healed.
Will someone out there PLEASE spread the word throughout the medical community that these so-called "complete" nutrition formulae are seriously defective in quantity/quality of protein.
Also, using REAL Foods is possible and can be done safely via a PEG.
I will share what I have learned with anyone who asks.
