G TUBE – GIVING MEDICATIONS

G TUBE – GIVING MEDICATIONS
Medications can be given through your GT. Use the liquid form of your medication if it is available at your pharmacy. If the liquid form is not available, you must crush your pills.
If the letters “SR” appear after the drug name on the label, this indicates the medication is “sustained-release.” Do not crush these pills. Check with your pharmacist or nurse to be sure that your pills may be crushed and given at the same time. This link has a list of medicines DO NOT CRUSH.
  • Crush the pills. (we used a pill/tablet crusher from Walgreens $5.99)
  • We then took a clean pill bottle and filled it with water and the crushed pills and blended with a milk frother from IKEA  that was only $2.79.
  • Flush your feeding tube with 30cc of water before giving your medication.
  • Add the medication mixture with another 30cc of water to flush.
  • To prevent a clogged feeding tube, flush your tube with water each time after giving a feeding or medication.
  •  If your feeding tube becomes clogged, you can use these methods:
    • Place the syringe into your feeding tube, and pull back on the plunger.
    • Flush your tube with warm tap water.
This was all made easier by having The Buckwheat hold the syringe and peg tube together.  It freed up our hands so that we could do these other tasks.