How to safely update Struts, or is there something better?

Building a survival game that uses a data table to hold all the items information, value, sprites, models, durability, sounds, etc.

The item struct is built into a lot of my blueprints, for character clothes/tools/inventory, shop UIs enemy drops, workstation.

Every time I update the strut though it breaks every blueprint its involved in. And two times now, updating the struct completely bricked my project forcing me to load the whole project form old saves.

Is there a way I can safely and reliable update my item struct as development grows?