Bad to Worse to Horrific: The Graphic GTube Story

This is a post that I wasn't going to write. It's a post about how we all deserve to know exactly what is in the products that we rely on to maintain our health. Sure, pharmaceuticals and supplements have to list their ingredients, but beyond that, it's really hit and miss. I am going to give a very clear warning right now, right here: If you are squeemish, if you have a weak stomach for graphic pictures:

THERE ARE VERY GRAPHIC PICTURES AHEAD

This is a NG Tube
I had it for 9 months.

The "What's Eating Jacob" saga goes back in history quite a bit. It goes back to when I had my first NG tube (nasal-gastric tube for feeding). Even though obviously having a tube shoved up your nose is going to be a weird sensation for anyone, it was more than that for me. I had daily pain in the upper part of my nose and the back of my throat from the NG tube. I would get frequent nosebleeds and always had a constant sore at the corner of my nose where the tube touched flesh. The doctor at the time attributed the nosebleeds to just dryness and irritation from the tube, so said that I should just use some nasal mist to keep things moist in there. I never said anything more about it. 

How it started

Fast forward to November 2015 when the team decided that it would be best if we replaced the NG tube with a semi-permanent GTube (an implant into your stomach). Two days post surgery, I broke out in a widespread rash on my stomach and chest. It was so itchy and spreading so quick that the team thought that I had chicken pox. I ended up in the lock-down infectious disease ward for a few
weeks on IV anti-virals just in case it was chicken pox. I was also taking the anti-histamine medication Atarax for the itch. The team determined that I didn't have chicken pox and I was discharged home with a few weeks worth of Atarax while the rash went away. 

This is actually an improvement.
Picture taken about 2 weeks after insertion

Once the Atarax was over, where-ever the tube touched my skin would actually eat troughs through my skin where I would have to pull the line out of the "groove" which wasn't the nicest of things to do. But we came up with a solution for this, use DuoDerm (it's a special type of dressing that forms like a second skin) under the line and then tape it down. I no longer had problems with the line eating my skin after that, it was just around the opening where the tube touched that was raw and bleeding. The team said that I was likely reacting to one of the materials in the line, I was given Atarax again, and told to wait the 6 weeks from the date of surgery before we could swap it out. 

6 long weeks. 

My Mickey with granulation tissue
problem

At the start of January, almost like a delayed Christmas gift, I had a new type of tube inserted, a low-profile MicKey button that sits pretty much flush against my skin. I was on Atarax at the time it was inserted and thought that things were going better. I mean, it had to go better than the last tube experience, right? 

Not so much. 

Worsening rash & reaction

I took the Atarax for the first few weeks after changing the tubes over, which helped to keep "stuff" from happening. Then I ran out of medication. We were going to see what happened. What did end up happening was another rash and a lot of granulation tissue (tissue the body sends out to heal an area) forming that was bleeding around the entrance to the stomach. I went back on Atarax and things improved for awhile. Until the dam burst. 

For the past few months, this area has been nothing short of torture. As you see in the pictures, I have a huge raw, bleeding and painful area around the tube. I start bleeding just with air exposure, but when I have to put up with the cleanings... yowzers. Things just keep going from worse to worse. 

My medical team believes that I'm having a reaction to the materials in certain medical supplies such as the tubes, some bandaids, Tegaderm film that is used to secure IV lines. My dermatologist sent a referral to an allergist for patch testing to determine what it is I'm reacting to. Then things started to take a weird, interesting and horrific turn.

The allergist called back and said that the dermatologist needed to supply a list of ingredients from the potential list of offending medical supplies before he could see me. It makes sense, in order to test for something you need to first have a list of potentials to test for. You can't just test every substance known to mankind. 

You would think that this list of ingredients would be available, after all these are healthcare products we're talking about. Would it shock you if I told you that that isn't the case? Would you believe me if I told you that medical product ingredients are extremely hard to track down? Even my doctor was met with resistance when she tried to find out what these tubes were made out of. 

My mom decided to try to track down the secret ingredients listings for some of the medical products I use daily. She called the makers of the actual products for my feeding tubes, as well as for a few of the dressings I use. Here's an example of the difficulties we faced: 

My mom called one company and asked for customer service. She explained the situation and asked to find out what exactly it was made of. Customer service replied that they did not know, and that she should call product development. They transferred her to someone else. That person said that she needed to call Customer Service in Canada (because we're Canadian) and they could help us. My mom called Customer Service again, who initially told her that any of the vendors could answer our question better, but then told us to call Product Tech Support. Yes, they have tech support even for medical supplies. The Product Tech Support, who you would think would know their product the best, was unable to find the answer for us. But he said that he would try to track down the information and call us back. When he called back all he said was "I spoke to the PRODUCT ENGINEER who didn't know the exact ingredients and couldn't confirm one way or the other if the product contained silicone" (The dermatologist believes it might be a reaction to silicone because that's the one thing we know for sure each product has in common). So, the product engineer, the one who actually physically makes the product doesn't know the ingredients? Mind-boggling. Perhaps, just perhaps, things might have moved faster if this information was publicly available. I think that anything that is used in healthcare supplies should have to have a product ingredient list available to the public. Anything short of full disclosure can seriously impact lives, I'm living proof of that. 

What it looks like now

Meanwhile, I'm left in a bloody mess and last week managed to contract yet another infection in the open, bleeding, seeping wound. I'm in so much pain that I have tears rolling down my cheeks often. I suffer through hourly cleanings to try to prevent it from worsening and new infections from developing. Something needs to be done!

Next week I'll be going in for scopes to see what kind of internal damage this tube is doing to me. It's suspected that there's likely problems on the inside too given how severe the reaction is on top. There is another tube available, but they want to make sure that I'm not allergic to the materials of it, so they've referred me for patch allergy testing. Unfortunately, I got the worst news ever about that today, it's not until the end of June. I can't imagine living in this much pain until sometime after that appointment. See, that appointment is just the consultation, then I'll have to wait for the actual testing to be done. Help seems so very, very far away right now.

It's my hope that sharing this, even though it's graphic can help other people. I can't be the only one who has ever experienced something like this. Perhaps if my team is able to pinpoint the answer, then perhaps my story might help someone else who is experiencing this. I also hope that this can bring light to a bigger problem: the problem of full disclosure in healthcare. As someone who has to purchase products to supposedly benefit my health, don't I deserve the right to know what is in the products that I am using?