About NG Tubes

This Friday, we learned how to insert NG tubes. I had questions about the swallowing part, so I decided that I wanted to volunteer to have it done to me. I think that many of us were psyched up about how awful and painful this process was supposed to be. I think that having a live demonstration is so much more valuable than trying it on a dummy (not refernig to me). I was all prepared to be gagging and worse. Mindy, of our Lodi group was brave enough to do the proceedure. It tickled the inside of my nose and made my eye on the proceedure side, water because of it. The tube got stuck a few times before it finally went down. Poor Mindy, was feeling really bad because she thought that she was hurting me. I was fine, and more interested in the process than anything else. Once it got past the back of my throat, I was unable to really feel it moving, or tell how far it was going in. I could feel it a little bit, when I swallowed. It was neat to hear the stomach contents bubbling (without aid of stethescope) when air was pushed in, and it was priceless when everyone graoned, "eeoogh." I think it was worse for everyone who watched, than it was for me. I was told that it would "burn like salt water going up your nose", but it was not bad at all. I was able to talk the whole time, and put in my 2 cents worth when we were giving opinions on how to get the tube to go down with out getting stuck.I now can empathise with anyone that has an NG tube put in, and would rather have that done again any day, than have water go up my nose. Great job Mindy! I would volunteer to do it all over again.