Severe Gas pain

[ecolon58]

My husband has started getting severe gas pains in the last couple of months. He is on hospice care. They tell us to use gas meds, milk of magnesia, enemas, he's even taking morphine and larazpam as part of meds from hospice. Nothing works. Has anyone else had problems with gas. we also tried to open his g tube to get air out. I hate to see him in such pain. Is this part of the ALS progression?

 

[affected]

I guess the first thing is to work out why he has so much gas.
What is he eating - commercial formula? Have you made changes to this in the past months?
Is it being given too fast?
Is the gas in his stomach or lower in his bowels?

Definitely release the gas as much as you can, and use milk of magnesia, but I wonder if you can help prevent it.
Gas as such is not ALS progression but his digestive system could be slowing down which is progression, and so there may be strategies to help prevent gas building up.

 

[Scotiaspirit]

I have a lot of GI Problems and I do aspirate some gas & bile through the Gtube. Three medications my GI specialist put me on is Domperidone, Pruclapride, and Prevacid. I have had problems with Fatty Liver disease, lost my gallbladder back in 1985, but I get times when I get gravelly bile ducts, which tends to cause gas, but slowly resolves itself over weeks. If the diaphragm has flipped, it can cause severe upper mid abdominal pain. I have to eat puréed food and use feeding tube pump IsoSource at very small amounts at a time. IsoSource at 150ml hr, if I run it faster I get gas pain. I have gastroparesis where my GI tract empties very slowly. For that I take Restoralax, and fish oil. Too much Restoralax and fish oil can cause painful cramping too, it’s a difficult thing to manage. I hope you are able to find something to be more comfortable. Gas Pain can be very difficult to manage.

 

[ecolon58]

Thanks for your help. Still trying. Found out he has a lot of stool that won't come down, so trying various meds and hopefully it will help, but I'm sure it will come back again due to the illness and not be able to push or intenstines not working they way they should. This disease is awful!

 

[Scotiaspirit]

I have had a lot of problem with gastroparesis and several ileus episodes the last few years that required hospitalisation. Try to keep stool as loose and hydrated as possible. Sometimes adding 500ml to a litre of extra water via gtube can help. Never do that without a doctors advice first though.

 

[affected]

It is a good point that lots of water is a real key.