Sometimes you just have to Vent!

So I have gone back and forth about posting about this topic, but I have decided that because this is a part of my everyday life with a feeding tube you guys should get to hear about it even though it is rather gross. So I have a tube that goes directly into my stomach as well as a tube that goes into my intestines. Now I don't get fed through the tube that goes into my stomach but I do use it to do something called Venting. This means I hook up a feeding extension to my G-tube and allow the air as well as any stomach contents to come out of my body. Here is what it looks like.......

You can see in the picture that most of my stomach contents is pure bile, but sometimes if I have decided to eat anything by mouth I tend to get that out of my tube as well, many hours later of course. Now why would I vent my stomach when it is such a disgusting thing to do. Well the answer to that is that venting keeps me from throwing up as well as can alleviate my nausea and it also helps with my belly pain.