PEG for feeding. Anyone have experience with this?

If my LO had a good* chance of recovering to a good* quality of life, I would explore medical treatments.
*Good* being very subjective.

If my LO had a very poor chance of recover to a decent quality of life or a life-limiting progressive illness, I would thank the Doctor's for their service & advice but welcome in Mother Nature. Trust her to guide & be at peace with it.

Doesn't dad have an advance directive? What are his wishes for end of life care? Does he want extraordinary measures taken to extend his life, especially with dementia involved? The LAST thing I EVER would have done for my mother was anything to extend her life since she had dementia and lots of other heart and health issues too numerous to mention. She'd been poked & prodded enough in her life, and hospice was what I wanted FOR her: calmness and peace and no pain at the end of her life. Not more pain & Suffering at the hospital, but the exact opposite of that. So that's what happened: she got evaluated & approved for hospice care and all the poking and prodding stopped, thank God. 2 months later, she took to her bed b/c she felt very tired, and immediately became semi-comatose. She passed peacefully 1 week later, with hospice on board to keep her comfortable and calm the entire time.

What is your dad's long term prognosis? With dementia at play, it can't be good at all. Nobody can tell you if you're doing the 'right' or the 'best' thing for him, but ask yourself this question: if this were you in his shoes, would YOU want YOUR life extended with PEG tubes and the like?

I know how hard all these decisions are, especially if there's no advance directive from dad. But if he's in the hospital now, or has been recently, they will have asked him about a DNR and things of that nature. Take that info to make your decision from.

Best of luck

My mother had a peg feeding tube for four years. It was placed following a hemorrhagic stroke on the advice of several doctors who were convinced she had a really good chance of recovery. An NG tube is good only for short term feeding and very irritating to a person. A peg tube is a quick procedure and not irritating at all. My mom’s recovery, despite much therapy, sadly never came. She remained mentally intact but physically unable to do anything, and that means literally anything. The feeding tube remained, after all, how do you pull out a feeding tube from a mentally intact and aware person and make the decision to starve them to death? Not something anyone was prepared to do, not our family, not the medical team. The tube wasn’t wrong, it was done with hope of recovery, it wasn’t anyones fault recovery didn’t happen, no one could have predicted the outcome. I DESPISE the posts on AgingCare of “no feeding tube ever” It’s simply to big of a blanket statement to make when there are endless variations of what can occur in a persons life.
Are you doing the right or best thing? Only time can tell. You make the best decisions you can given the information and guidance you have at the time. Ask the doctors for their best judgment. I truly hope you’ll see progress and a great recovery soon if that’s what is possible. In any case, I wish both you and your dad peace

You don't mention your fathers age. My mother is in SN. She just turned 92. She has become completely immobile. I find very little quality of life. Everything is becoming more difficult. It is sad to witness each week.

I think you have to ask yourself if you want to see your father in such a condition. Others have mentioned important points of view such as speaking more thoroughly with the doctor as to his future health wise. It is also wise to understand more fully the affect of the stroke.

Sometimes a life is over before the body gives up. I don't see the point of an elderly compromised person having a feeding tube.

No to feeding tube

Given your previous posts about your dad's worsening dementia, a feeding tube seems like unnecessary torture.

Did he ever make his end of life wishes clear in a written document?

Feeding tubes may give a little more time but does not really affect the overall death rate. I think you need to ask the doctor if they would be surprised if he was around a year from now.

Are you expecting that he will suddenly wake and he can go home to a normal life? You may be looking at a life in a nursing home. You really need to find out the severity of the stroke.

What are the doctors saying about your dad's prognosis? Do they feel he will survive and thrive? Or do they feel that since he lost consciousness the other morning and hasn't come out of it that he will never be any better and will die soon?
Those are questions that need to be answered before you make the decision about having a PEG put in him, because if he's not ever going to get any better, why put him through that?
If the prognosis is not good, you may want to instead talk to his doctors about either putting a PICC line or Midline in his arm so they can at least administer any medications needed, and get hospice on board for his comfort care.
And had your dad made his wishes known(MOST form or advance directives) about to what extreme he wanted to be kept alive? Hopefully he had and that just helps make your decision making a bit easier as you will be doing his wishes instead of yours.

When my husband at the age of 48 had a massive stroke and was having swallowing issues they put a PEG in fairly quickly only to have to take it back out a week or so later as my husband began to swallow on his own again. But my husband was much younger, and while he survived the stroke it left him with many permanent disabilities that he lived with until his death at the age of 72.

I'm sorry that you're having to go through this, but at this point I would do what is best for your dad and what you know or think he would want done.
God bless you.