Lisa M. Epp, RDN, LD, discusses home enteral nutrition

Lisa M. Epp, RDN, LD, Home Enteral Nutrition, Mayo Clinic: There are two ways that you can administer nutrition through a feeding tube. Less common would be directly into the intestine but more common would be with the feeding tube directly into the stomach that may look like this. So on the inside of the stomach, you would have a bumper, making sure the tube did not fall out. Through the skin, you would have a small amount of tubing and on the outside of the skin, this would be sitting lightly. This adapter would allow you to put food, water or medication through your tube. There are a couple of different ways we can do that. The first way would be with a drip bag. This would allow me to hang a bag on an IV pole, take my container of food and pour it into the bag, and then over a thirty- to sixty-minute period of time, while watching the news or reading the paper, that would slowly go into my feeding tube. People who are more active or maybe have a little bit busier schedule might like to feed with a syringe, so this would allow me to take the syringe and put it on the end of my feeding tube and take my can of food and just pour that into my tube. That would slowly go into my stomach over a shorter period of time to allow me to get on with the rest of my day.