In children and teenagers with crohns disease, a special treatment called "Exclusive Enteral Nutrition" is used where...

In children and teenagers with crohns disease, a special treatment called "Exclusive Enteral Nutrition" is used where during up to eight weeks the patient is exclusively feeded by a special liquid diet. As this formula is for many patients impossible to drink due to the inacceptable taste, a tube is applied to the patients via the nose to the stomach. This tube is usually fixed in the patient’s face by tape and is extremely bothersome for the children and teenagers who are often fit enough to go to school but suffer from the obvious disadvantage of wearing a tube directly in the face.

When I was treated with this nutrition some years ago, my doctors applied a system which is called "nose olive" in German created to hide the tube’s end in the nose. For this, an anaplastologist build a suitable end fitting customized for my specific nose from an impression. In Germany, this procedure is used by different institutions but very seldomly communicated. See this german Website for an example: http://www.epithetik.net/journal/KGPabstracts/2012akgp1.html
The "nose olive" is the transparent piece in the center of the picture.

Some research on the internet suggested that a big German manufacturer of the tubes offered this solution but there is no evidence that they still offer it today. The problem could be that it is at the same time a very individual device that needs to be customized to the patient while only consisting of cheap plastic. The customized procedure is very costly and I think it could be easily improved by modern 3D-printing technology.

If there is interest from current patients I am convinced we as a community on this platform could try to find a suitable solution here.