There’s a possibility that you lost a lot of weight if you or a loved one received a cancer diagnosis. Some cancers can be identified by a 20–30 pound weight loss in a few of months. Others have an impact on a person’s taste or appetite, preventing them from eating as much as they require. Sometimes medical procedures prevent patients from eating because they are in pain or queasy. In some circumstances, your doctor or nutritionist might have advised you to think about getting nutrients through a tube. Please click here to get kangaroo feeding
For one of the aforementioned causes, patients with cancer frequently are unable to consume enough food to sustain themselves. At every meal, they take a few bites and mutter something about waiting till later to eat, how bad the food tastes, or how they are constantly sick. It becomes imperative to not only put on weight again, but to stop the process before it’s too late, if a significant amount of weight loss occurs (more than 10% of the person’s weight over a three-month period, or 5% in just one month). It gets harder the longer someone goes without gaining weight back. Even if a person was overweight to begin with, weight reduction indicates that other nutrients have not been consumed in sufficient amounts. Although it may appear that a person has extra fat reserves, the body has no protein reserves; any extra protein must be obtained from other tissues like muscle and essential organs. In other words, if a person doesn’t eat enough, more tissue will be lost from their heart and lungs each day, making it harder to breathe, and more tissue will be lost from their muscles, making it harder even to get out of bed and stand up.
Therefore, the choice of feeding method becomes necessary once it has been determined that a person is unable (or unwilling) to consume an acceptable amount of food, with or without supplements (such as Boost, Ensure, or other fortified liquids and puddings). There are typically two different kinds of tube feedings available. One is a nasogastric (NG) tube, whose tip is gently lowered into the stomach after being introduced through the nose. The procedure is carried out while the patient is awake, is uncomfortable but not painful, and carries a low risk of consequences. Once the tube has been successfully inserted (typically through x-ray to ensure the tip of the tube is not in the lung otherwise the formula will be delivered there! ), A feeding is often begun slowly and dripped in from an IV bag-like bag using a pump. Once the person’s system has had a few days to adjust, this method can provide more than 3000 calories per day, and it can fully support even a large person who is able to go without food. This kind of tube feeding is only intended for brief periods of time since, over time, the tube may move up into the oesophagus and increase the likelihood that formula may enter the lungs, leading to pneumonia. If it’s left in place for several weeks, it might potentially result in sinus infections.
The G tube (gastrostomy), which is inserted directly into the stomach via the skin, is a favoured tube site for longer-term use. This treatment, which is occasionally done at the patient’s bedside, requires local anaesthetic. This kind of tube can be left in situ for virtually ever (sometimes they are replaced after many months of use because of cracking or some other tubing problem). Once more, feedings can be given to a person to cover all of their nutritional demands. The fact that the tube is not in the patient’s face and is therefore out of the way so he can eat as he pleases is a benefit of this location. Additionally, it is not obvious if the patient is mobile and would like to be able to leave the house.
Either sort of tube feeding can be administered continuously, in specific doses multiple times daily (bolus), or formula can be pumped in at night, allowing the patient to be free to move around without a pump throughout the day.
Sometimes, such as during chemotherapy or radiation treatment, patients simply need the tube to get them through the procedure. Other times, it is beneficial to replenish and increase a person’s strength so they can endure surgery. Most of the time, it is a life-saving technique that enables someone who cannot eat enough to acquire the nutrition they require to recover. No illness, even cancer, can be cured by nutrition, but it can assist a sick person become as strong as they can be, giving them the ability to fight back, move around more easily because they are stronger, and prevent them from losing weight and becoming weaker. Always go over your alternatives with your medical team, and be willing to admit when you need some assistance getting enough nutrition.
