Annie's New Button

I took Annie to see a new general surgeon here today.  For the past several weeks Annie has been having irritation around her G-button stoma site.  We took her to her pediatrician and even had a full abdominal sonogram trying to figure out what was wrong.  They couldn't find any problems, but I had that mother's intuition or gut feeling, or inspiration, or whatever you want to call it.... that Annie's G-button is probably just too small.  She originally had her G-button placed when she was 2 years old and even though we change it out ourselves every 3-6 months, we've been continuing to use the same size button for the last 6 years.

So I decided to take Annie to a general surgeon for him to determine whether she really needed a larger button size.  He was shocked when I told him she's had the same size button for 6 years!  He increased the stem length by 2mm (1.7cm 14fr) so we'll see if this helps relieve her irritation.

We realize most people don't understand how a G-button works or what it looks like, so here's a picture.  (There's also a picture of it in her tummy on Annie's FAQ page.)  So Annie has a hole directly into her stomach--called a stoma.  The balloon on the left in the picture above is the balloon we inflate in her stomach which prevents the button from coming out.  The port on the right is the part that is outside of her stomach on her skin.  So we just connect a tube to the feeding port and that's how we feed her--the fluid goes through the feeding port, down through the stem, and empties into her stomach at the base of the balloon.

This is the devise we replace at home every 3-6 months, simply by withdrawing all the fluid from the balloon that holds the button in, and pulling the devise out of her stomach.  So when we say that we got her a button with a longer stem, this means the balloon now sits further down in her stomach so it's not pressing up against the interior wall of her stomach so tightly.

Anyway, that was all just for FYI since we know people are always curious but usually too embarrassed or afraid to ask.