ME/CFS - Whitney Dafoe
- Condition
- ME/CFS
- At worst
- Very severe (bedbound, unable to do basic care)
- Ill for
- 9 years
- Published
- Undated
Summary
Percutaneous jejunostomy (J-)tube feeding, inserted in 2013 after his stomach became completely paralyzed, used daily since alongside a separate PICC line for saline hydration. Whitney Dafoe had been severely ill with ME/CFS since 2004, and by 2013 was starving because he could no longer eat, becoming one of the most severely affected known patients. He states the J-tube placement "saved his life," providing his sole source of nutrition for over a decade. By the end of 2024 he reports regaining enough function to eat some real food again, but he still relies on the tube for water and the PICC line for saline, so tube feeding remains an ongoing daily requirement rather than something he has come off.
What they credit
Credits Salt, fluids and compression, Tube feeding (NG, NJ, PEG, TPN).
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