Tube Weaning Methods

After the first month of therapy, we have realized that it is going to be really tough road ahead. Our doctors have started to pressure us to consider surgery to insert a different feeding tube, called a G-tube, which goes directly into her stomach from her abdomen, and to perform a nissen fundoplication, which wraps her stomach so that she can't vomit anymore. These are surgical procedures that will leave several scars.  No one wants to put their child through surgery and I've heard that some parents regret it later on for various reasons.

G-tube

One thing is for sure...we want to avoid surgery at all costs. We just need to find a more effective strategy to help Joy learn how to eat.  Through our research, we learned that there are essentially 2 intensive feeding methods for tube weaning:

1. Hunger Induction - make the child really hungry so that their drive to eat will be strong and re-teach/build the relationship with food. As you can imagine, Joy has a poor relationship with food all her life due to reflux and allergies. No wonder she was never interested in eating! But this could be potentially dangerous because you're starving the child. What if Joy doesn't eat? We need some serious medical support for doing this type of approach.
2. Behavioral - if your child is old enough to understand the concept of rewards, this approach may work. "If you eat this, you get to play with this toy." "If you don't eat this, you don't get to play with this toy" You get the picture.   Many of the doctors we consulted with felt this was not appropriate for Joy given her age.  

Joy is too young to even understand "No!" and "Bad girl." Whenever she does something naughty, we scold her and then she laughs or smiles. As we thought about it, we now realize that the Hunger Induction method is Joy's best hope to learn how to eat again and to get off the feeding tube.