Pseudomonas @ J Tube site??

[katethekid]

Long story short, I have had my j tube for about four months now. It's always been tender, but last week the pain was intolerable and I was seeing a thick yellow/green discharge (enough to drench my gauze) around the site when I'd change my dressing. The hospital cultured it and said it grew out small amounts of psuedomonas. I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue. I was started on oral antibiotics, on day four now, and I still feel awful. I cultured psuedomonas in my lungs for years when I was younger, but I've never had it anywhere else until now. If I still feel bad tomorrow I'm planning to call my doctor to see if they recommend a different course of action. Until then I was looking for similar experiences and even google has failed me on pseudo and tube sites... All help is apprectiated. Thanks

 

[jshet]

Hi. My son had a gj tube placed a year ago and also had an infection. His was staph though, but the pain was intolerable for him. It took 5 rounds of clindmician to clear, and he was miserable.

when they did my sons, they put these 3 feet(what they called them) on the site to help hold the stoma to the outside layer and to help make the tube stay in place better. They were these tiny things, but they were the source of his infection. As he healed, they were to fall off on there own. He swelled so much and had pus running down him constantly. I told them this was the problem and they didn't believe me. Finally I made them remove them and dear lord what we saw. His infection was under these things. I was wondering if they used these on you and this could be the source of your infection?
I can imagine your pain and hope you feel better soon. Good luck.

 

[katethekid]

I don't believe I have the three feet around my stoma, unless it's something internal but it doesn't sound like it. I did have a stitch randomly come out of my stoma, still wrapped around the inner side of the tube. I mentioned it to the er doc and she said it sounded like a dissolvable stitch that came loose and met outside air, causing it to turn hard and black. Now I just have horrible stinging/burning pain at the site, pus soaking my dressing with an odd smell, and about four small pustules on the underside of the stoma under the ring. There was only one bump a few days ago so they seem to be growing in size and number. I'm assuming there is pus inside these bumps but was told not to pop them. Not that I can even touch them without intolerable pain. I was on clindamycin (sp?) but was switched to levaquin when the pseudomonas grew out. Thank you for sharing your experience, just glad I'm not alone in this

 

[katethekid]

Just an update in case anyone else runs across this issue. I'm on day two of IV antibiotics (Zosyn and Vancomycin) to kill Pseudomonas and Enterococcus around and inside my j tube site. They had to pull my j tube because the infection was extremely hard to get to with it in place. Hopefully my pancreas continues to behave so I won't need another one placed. I gained back some of my weight and stabilized. The doc is waiting for the new swab culture results to come back to make sure there's no new bacteria the antibiotics won't cover. There's a high possibility my stoma will heal with the infection inside, in which case it will have to be lanced and drained. Hoping to avoid going down that road again. Breathe Easy!