Nasogastric (NG) Tubes

So, first of all, what is an NG tube? Well, Naso means nose, and gastric means stomach. So an NG tube goes to the stomach through the nose by way of the nose. Why do we use them? There's a bunch of different reasons. One of the big ones is going to be decompression. So if we have something going on where we need to remove fluid or gas from the stomach, we can do so with an NG tube. And then we can also use this for administering things like medications or even enteral feeding, such as giving food through an NG tube. Now there are two different types that you need to be familiar with. The first is double lumen, and the second is small-bore single lumen. For double lumen, the example we give here is Salem Sump. You can remember that it's a double because it has two S's: Salem Sump. The biggest use for this one is decompression. It is a large-bore tube, so it may be more irritating to your patient's nose, but it works as a sump. This means that it actually filters air through as well so that the tube does not stick to the stomach while it is set to suction. This is ideal for suction, and you can administer feeds and medications through it. However, it's going to be for a much shorter time than our small-bore single lumen tubes. We have a couple of examples here. Dobhoff is the one that you're probably familiar with. But small bore, meaning it's skinnier, the diameter is smaller. So this is going to be best for medication administration and administering feeds. Moving on, we're going to talk about inserting an NG tube. So as you can see on this card, we actually have step by step in order how to insert an NG tube. Remember, this is just based on kind of best practices. Your school may have you do some extra steps. Your facility policies may be different. So this is just a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. I'm not going to go through line by line with you, but I want to point out some of the important things here. The first is how do we measure an NG tube? How do we know how much of this tube to put down into the patient? So we're going to use the NEX method, so NEX. So that's going to be measuring from the nose to the earlobe and from the earlobe to the xiphoid process at the bottom of the sternum. That's going to help us to estimate the length needed. And we're going to want to mark that length with either tape or an indelible marker, meaning something permanent. It's not going to wash off. The other thing is we have to lubricate the tip of the tube. This is very painful in general to have a tube put down. I've had an NG tube. It is not a fun experience. But if you don't lubricate it, you could cause real damage to your patients' noses. The other thing is that we are going to encourage our patients to either swallow or sip water and swallow as we advance the NG tube. The act of swallowing will help us to advance that tube and make it a little bit more comfortable for our patient. And then don't ever push past resistance. If you feel resistance, you need to stop. Okay. Now let's talk about how to confirm the placement of an NG tube. The only way that we can confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that the NG tube is in the correct place is with an x-ray. The radiologist will read the x-ray and say, "Yes, it is in the stomach" or "No, it's somewhere else". That's the only way we can be sure. But we also don't want to expose our patients to unnecessary x-rays, so we will only do this after placing the NG tube. When we place the tube, we won't use it or put anything down it, or set up suction until we know for 100% sure that it's in the right place. This is very important because we don't want to accidentally feed the lungs, right? That could be disastrous. At the bedside, though, before you use the NG tube in the future, you want to assess placement. by using one of multiple methods. The big one is going to be checking the gastric pH. When you pull back on the NG tube with a syringe, you want to test the pH of that fluid. Remember, we have a highly acidic gastric environment. So I am expecting that if I'm in the stomach, anything that I aspirate from there that's gastric fluid is going to have a pH less than 5.5. All right. Let's talk about removing an NG tube. Removal is much easier than insertion. The big thing is that I want to say you should flush that tube beforehand. It's optional. You don't have to, but it clears that tubing. So use water or air to flush it, and then tell your patient to take a deep breath and hold it and remove that tube swiftly and quickly, kind of in one fluid motion so that you're not subjecting them to unnecessary discomfort or irritation. And then afterward, your patient's probably going to want to blow their nose, and they may even want oral care as well. So be sure to offer that to them so that they can be as comfortable as possible. All right. I hope that review of NG tubes was helpful. If it was, please like this video. If you have a great way to remember something or if you have something to share with us, please do so in the comments. I would love to hear it, and I know everybody else watching would as well. Be sure to subscribe to the channel as well because we have some pretty great stuff coming out and you want to be the first to know. So the next video in this series is going to cover parenteral and enteral nutrition. I hope to see you there. Thanks so much and happy studying. Oh, my gosh. I totally forgot about my first experience putting an NG tube down when I was in nursing school. I had a patient who was confused, and he kept pulling his NG tube out. So we kept having to put the NG tube in. And so they offered me the chance to do it. And, first of all, I was just shaking, like absolutely shaking. But the patient kept kind of closing off his throat area. He was putting his tongue back, so we couldn't advance it. And it kept curling in his mouth. But he didn't want to say anything because he hated it. So it was just curling in his mouth. And then he would open his mouth to speak, and it would spill out. So be sure to assess to make sure that it's not curling in the mouth. But I really felt for him because having had an NG tube, I can tell you, they are not fun. You don't want one. So I totally get it. I felt really bad for him. But point being, make sure that you're going in the stomach because that was not in the stomach.