Reflux - Saint Paul,MN

Hi! I have a son who is now almost 5 :( and he had reflux. I was at my wits end and he ended up being on a fairly high dose of medication. I was VERY hesitant to give him anything, but after uping the dose a few times, they did a scan on him and found he was still extremely irritated from the reflux. We ended up having to double the meds again after the scan and it was the best thing we ever did. I know it's hard and I am really not one for giving the meds, but it made him a happier, calmer baby which made me a better mom. My children are also 18 months apart and he was the baby so I know it's hard with another child to take care of! I hope this helps!!!!

I have a ten-month old with reflux and unfortunately she has not grown out of it yet, although the pediatrician said that most kids will by the time they are about a year and a half. I was hesitant to medicate too but when I couldn't see her like that anymore, I tried it and it has been a world of difference. The doctor will try and see if she doesn't need it anymore in a couple months (we tried at 6months and it was still needed) so they don't think she will have to be on it forever. The thing to think about when deciding whether or not to medicate is that if it keeps going, the acid can cause damage to the esophagus (sp?) and stomach lining. I don't like to give my daughter meds at all but hopefully it's not a forever thing and at least I know she's not in pain. Hope this helps, good luck to you.

J.,
my little guy has reflux. He is now 4 1/2 months. He still has issues with it, but my ped said he would start to out grow it. I chose not to medicate him, he is doing ok with it and is gaining weight really well. He spits up a lot, mainly only during the day too. I wouldn't worry about it too much unless your little one has a lot of issues with it. I don't like the idea of medicating my little one so unless I have to I opt not too. Hang in there if you can. But if he has a lot of issues with it, you can get the medication. So long as your little on is gaining weight ok, and it doesn't bother him too much. Hope that helps.
Sam

Hi J. - My second baby had reflux too! She was breastfed and I didn't want to give her medication either. I ended up tilting her crib mattress at one end (if your crib doesn't have this option - put a pillow or folded up blanket under the mattress at one end) so his head is slightly elevated. This did help some, but it wasn't until I finally gave in and tried the medicine and the tilt on the crib - that worked! My daughter had such relief!! Then I instantly wish I would've done the medicine right away! (She also almost immediately start sleeping thru the night). Just to pre-warn you - the medicine smells horrible - like an altoid or listerine . . .and tastes horrible to baby too- but is sooo worth it! My daughter outgrew her reflux by 7 months old!!! Hang in there I know how tough it can be!!

Hi J., speaking from lots of experience my daughter had reflux bad and was also breast feed, my son didnt have it as bad but was about like your son. My daughter and my son were put on Zyntac and it took longer for my daughter to out grow it maybe a year but my son didnt take long to out grow at all maybe a few months. My daughter also had it for a lot longer before we started medication and even diagnosed what she had. ( we had a bad pediatrition at first and then switched and figured it was reflux the whole time). Both of my children were nursed and had no problems with the medication. I found that it did help a lot. Reflux can actually effect there asofogus (spelling???) and can cause damage if left untreated. My neice also has it and was just recently diagnosed also and it had changed her. I would recommend trying it and if you feel as though it is not helping then I would stop however I would give it a good three weeks before giving up on it. Best of luck. email me if you need any more support. A.

Our twins both had reflux. Although we did end up having to give them medicine (they too were breast fed) we found that elevating the head of their mattresses helped alot. We just put a folded blanket UNDER the mattress at one end to prop it up. Run it by your doctor, it might make your little one a lot more comfortable.

The white tounge and funny breath leads me to believe it's trush which can also contribute to the feeding problems if it's far enough down his throat. I'd have your doc look into it.

Hello,
My daughter had reflux too. She is now 8 months old and outgrew it around 4-5 months old. Our doctor also said we could medicate it, we did not medicate it in the end. Her biggest problem was sleeping because as soon as I laid her down she would throw up and cry and cry and not be able to sleep. We had a nature's touch baby papasan swing that you could elevate to different levels and found that she loved sleeping in there and her reflux decreased significantly when sleeping by having her propped up. She transfered into her crib at 4.5 months and had little reflux trouble after that. Maybe this will help?!

My son had reflux and was given liquid Zantac by his doctor at about 1.5 mos. He is also a breastfed baby and it has not affected his feeding or anything else...except he seems happier without the reflux symptoms. I recommend looking into it. We started with a really low dose and gradually increased until it worked. He ended up on 1mL 2x daily and it worked wonders. The doc says we will keep him on it (4mos old right now) until 6mos as he will outgrow the reflux by then and if we keep him on the same 1mL until then as he grows bigger it is a way to slowly wean him off the dose (he gets bigger but dose doesn't). I would have hated for him to suffer with those symptoms until it was outgrown. A friend also had a baby with same thing and they just decided to stop the Zantac at 4mos and it worked out fine for them, but that case was not as severe as ours. Good Luck in whatever you choose.

Medication at this early stage is not safe for a newborn. Medicines contain preservatives and can ruin life of baby. Always try to soothe your baby from natural remedies. Babies magic tea can soothe baby from reflux.

My daughter outgrew her reflux by probaly 8 or 9 mos.old. She was gaining weight so they never put her on medications or anything. She ruined alot of clothing and everytime I had the video camera on she was spitting up. She did great in her carseat or swing but tummy time or anything else didn't work good at all.

My daughter was also sent home from the hospital with thrush I thought she just had milk in her mouth but it was painful and she wasn't eating at all.

My daughter has pretty severe reflux. She's six months old now and has been on a pretty aggressive round of meds since she was eight weeks old. Factors to consider when you are thinking about medicating are pain and weight gain. If your child doesn't appear to be in pain, then I wouldn't worry. Gabby would not take a bottle even after not eating for twelve plus hours. She would scream and arch backwards if we tried. If he is gaining well and not in pain, I'd say play it by ear. But if he starts showing signs of discomfort, such as nursing and pulling off and crying or arching his back, I'd suggest you reevaluate the situation with your pediatrician. Good luck.

Oh yeah, Gabby is also stuffy, especially at night. It comes from the liquids coming up their esophagus and hitting the back of the sinus. At least that's how my doctor explained it. I hope this helps.

K.

From what I have heard about reflux in babies, they usually outgrow it by a year of age. I probably wouldn't worry about medicating unless it is causing an abnormally large amount of spitting up.

However, to me that doesn't sound like reflux (stuffy nose and bad breath) - that sounds more like a possible sinus infection (I know sinus infections can cause bad breath), or maybe even allergies or a cold of some sort. I would maybe check into that a little further.

Hi J.-

I do know what your going through... my daughter had that problem too, there are special bottles you can buy which help and I found that switching my daughter to soy formula helped too. I debated cause I really didn't want to go the formula route but it really helped and made it easier on her tummy. It is best to either prop the matress in the crib or find a way to let them sleep with their head slightly elevated. Sometimes when she got bad I would let her sleep in her car seat even just to help. But, once I made the switch to soy and got different bottles I noticed a big change. My daughter is now almost 4 and I've never had a problem. She pretty much quit having trouble after I made some changes, but I pretty much noticed it disappeared once she started sitting up on her own and ate finger foods and things like that cause they help absorb any acids and stuff in the stomach. I could have gone the medication route too, but the doctor told me if I made just a few changes I could avoid it so I did. I'm glad I did too, because it got me prepared for my son who had the same problem. He's now 19 months old and I never really ended up with too much of a problem with him because I noticed it right away and just propped his mattress up a little and ended up switching to soy. The soy thing is optional I may have gotten by without doing that but I just knew it would be a little easier if I did. Also, try not to lay your baby down after eating... if you can try and wait 20 - 30 minutes before completely laying him down. Any elevation helps with a baby with reflux.

The white tounge thing is pretty normal though. I wouldn't worry too much unless it looks like white sores but you would see them on the inside walls of the mouth and stuff too... that would be thrush. But if it is just a white tounge, its from the milk. You can get rid of that but letting him have a little water once in awhile to help rinse the milk off of there or I also just brush my kids tounges with a baby tooth brush or the thumb brush you can get and it really helped get rid of the white tounge and the bad breath. So, then I just started whiping their tounge off once a day. My doctor said it helps them too cause then they can taste better and they aren't swallowing the germs and bacteria that forms on the tounge and stuff.

If I can help in any other way just let me know or you can email me too if you would like ____@____.com

Hope this helps you.

If his tongue is white he might have thrush, which is a yeast infection in the mouth. It may go away on it's own, but if he's had it for two weeks or more, you should get it treated. You will also need to sterilize all nipples, pacifiers etc, and also your nipples if you are nursing.

both of my boys had very bad reflux. Jamie, my 2nd, was born at 30 weeks and reflux was so bad that he would stop breathing and was in the NICU for 2 months. He was medicated for the first 6 months of his life to control it and then just started to grow out of it.

I didn't ever notice the breath problem or the white tongue (i've only seen that with thrush), My eldest had the constantly stuffy nose but that was his adenoids and fixed immediately when they were removed at age 4. They both slept well too but would bring up milk constantly - we couldn't go anywhere without a few packs of wet wipes! We would get through a couple of bibs an hour. Just little amounts but alot of them.

J.

ps. i forgot to add, i breastfed jamie the entire time he was medicated and it caused no problems. We used the teat of an avent bottle to squirt his meds into so he could suck them out before he was fed.

Hi J.. It sounds to me like you need to find a new doctor. One that doesn't just assume but rather actual do the proper tests. My daughter had SEVERE acid reflux. She was tested and then put on medications and she slept on a wedge. I need to tell you though that she did not have white in her mouth, her breath did not smell, and she did not have a stuffy nose. It sounds like your so called doctor needs to look into this a little further before just assuming and possibly medicating for something your child may not even have. Good luck.

Our son had the same problem, at about the same age. We did medicate, at the pediatrician's suggestion/recommendation, and it made an immediate difference.

Jackson's 3 now, and I can't remember exactly when we left the meds behind, but it was long, long ago- long before his 1st birthday, in fact. So, at least in our case, this wasn't a chronic condition, just something he needed help with for a few months, and then it was gone.

I'm afraid that I can't help with the breast-fed aspect of this, though, as Jackson was a bottle-fed baby.

Good Luck!

M.

has he been checked for thrush? The white tongue would make me think thrush, which would make him very cranky and irritable because it hurts. Have him checked for thrush, and also see another doctor, maybe a breastfeeding friendly one, who can give you more advice and hopefully find a solution taht works. Based on your post alone, I don't think reflux is the problem.

However, Breastmilk is the best thing for a reflux baby. It has natural antacids in it helping reduce the pain and spitup of reflux, if in fact that is what he has. Also its so easily digested that his little tummy doesn't have to work hard to get it through. So please don't stop nursing, its the best thing for him!

Hi, My daughter had a similar type thing with her stomach.. i thought it was a reflux problem which she did have a little bit.. but the biggest thing i found was she had an allergy to dairy... I breastfeed her to and as soon as i took the dairy out of my diet i noticed a huge change immediately.. the reflux didn't totally go away but it cut down dramitcally and she didn't seem to be in much pain then, or it didn't seem to bother her as much...

J.,

My son was diagnosed with reflux at 5 days old and was put on Zantac at that time. I too was really nervous about the effects of this medicine on him. I was also breastfeeding. I can say now, looking back, that I'm so thankful we put him on it. He had two incidences in the first 3 weeks of life where he stopped breathing due to the reflux (if it backs up into their nose, babies that young don't know yet how to breath through their mouth so they choke. Yikes!) Anyway, every time he always start having trouble sleeping right around the time we'd take him in for his next well-baby visit and it always turned out that his increase in weight meant we needed to increase his dosage a bit to keep things under control. I'm not in any way a medicine fan, especially for little ones, but I could definitely see the difference in my little guy when he was on it. At about 6 mo. we started to decrease his dosage (once he started solids) and by 12 mo. he was off it completely. I'm told it's very common for them to outgrow it by around 9 mo. to a year. Good luck!