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4:03am August 15, 2013

Some anonymous jerk asked someone else why they had a feeding tube because they “looked like a healthy weight” and feeding tubes are “a drastic measure”.

When you have gastroparesis, whether you need a feeding tube is not just about your weight. It’s about whether you can eat, and in some cases about whether your stomach contents build up and overflow into your lungs (in which case a g tube can let you drain your stomach).

I happen to have both problems. 

I’m 203 pounds. I would probably die from effects of starvation before I ever became underweight.

It’s not healthy to lose weight by total inability to eat no matter what weight you are.  Being fat means you won’t have the problems of being underweight (at least not yet) but it doesn’t protect you from things like burning muscle including heart muscle and other dangerous effects of starvation. Many fat people die of starvation before ever becoming thin people.

Gastroparesis means food just sits in my stomach without being fully digested. It won’t move through my body. In extreme cases this can cause food to rot inside you and give you food poisoning. Plus eventually you get too nauseated and puke it all up undigested. You can’t get good nutrition that way.

Also gastroparesis causes weight loss in some people but weight gain in others.  We gain weight because our metabolism adapts to starvation conditions by slowing down.

I have severe gastroparesis. Without my GJ tube it’s a toss up what would happen first.  Death of starvation and dehydration, or death of aspiration pneumonia.

To echo what the other poster said, you cannot tell how severe a person’s stomach problems are by looking at their weight. Especially in a condition that can cause weight gain as well as weight loss.

Being underweight is not the only reason a person could need a feeding tube. I need mine to bypass my stomach and allow me to eat, and also to drain my stomach. I actually lost a lot of weight in a very unhealthy way because of gastroparesis. You don’t wait until someone is right on the point of dying of starvation to get them a feeding tube, if you know they can’t eat and probably won’t ever be able to eat.  And people can die of starvation without being visibly underweight.

Also people can’t get j tubes or GJ tubes just by asking. You have to have a severe condition affecting your ability to eat. Yes there are some idiots who give out NG tubes to dieters but those are rare, generally rich people, and the tube is easy to put in and take out. You won’t see that happening with the kind of tubes that need to be surgically implanted.

Many people who need j tubes, g tubes, and GJ tubes, can’t get them. So if someone has one? 99% of the time, they need one. Why don’t you assume that, instead of assuming that someone has taken a “drastic measure” they don’t need?   Attitudes like yours make it harder for us to get diagnosed and get proper treatment. It’s not like we can walk into the doctor, all for a surgically implanted feeding tube, and get one. You have to need one. Doctors don’t just hand them out… Even in many cases where they acknowledge we will die without one it’s hard to get one because they feel our lives will be over and sometimes assume death would be better. We don’t need anyone adding more assumptions about not needing one. 

So when you don’t understand, just assume we need one. Don’t act like we are taking drastic measures we don’t need. There are tons of medical conditions you’ve never even heard of, so don’t act like an expert.