Seeking Acid Reflux Moms

My 1st 3 were medicated and it never really seemed to do too much, especially with the 1st 2 who had it severely (the 1st one STILL has it at 5yrs, but only on occasion). My 4th has it, but since my last one was born 2 1/2yrs ago, new studies have shown that the side effects and problems that come with the medications do not out way the benefits so it's better to NOT medicate. So, with her, we're just doing the "home remedies" that we did with the others. We put a wedge under her mattress so she sleeps with her head raised, we keep her upright for at least 30mins after she eats, I watch what I eat (I'm nursing), and that's just about all we can do. The meds don't usually help at all with the spitting up (even though you said it helped) so you'd have the same amount of spit up, but it takes their pain away a tiny bit but not enough to get the possible problems or side effects (future breathing problems or diabetes are 2) and resistance to the meds when their older is a very common one. It's VERY VERY dangerous to increase meds without talking to a Dr first. It can really cause them problems in the future that you won't see right away. I know he weighs more, but still, it's better to be safe than sorry, right? If you have problems with your Dr and his discisions, change Drs.

Go out today and buy Nestle Good Start formula with Comfort Proteins and try it for about a week. It worked wonders with my second son who got diagnosed with acid reflux and my third who never had any problems because I started her on it from the beginning. It is worth a shot!! Let me know if you try it and it helps....

If you haven't done it yet get some kind of wedge to go under crib mattress or put a block under the front legs of the crib. My daughter was older and in a bed but elevating her head really helped.

My son had it for a few months when he was around 4 months old. Our doctor gave us a sample of Prevacid (15mg Solutabs) that we had to disolve in warm water and give through an oral syringe. It worked very well for us. I was supposed to give it to him once a day, but we discovered (after missing a dose) that we only really had to give it to him every other day. After a few months, I stopped the medication to see if he had gotten better, and he has not had a problem since. You may want to try a different formula if you are not breastfeeding. I decided to try a different can each time I bought one to see if it made a difference, and it did. I found that with some formulas he would have a more difficult time keeping it down than others. It was frustrating at times, but it was a short-lived problem.

I don't know what kind of doctor that you have but sounds like you need to find another one. Maybe he isn't suggesting any meds for reflux because he doesn't particularly like to give meds to babies unless absolutely necessary. First of all, I don't know why he put that small baby on all that medication, whether there were some bad complications due to other things that I don't know about, but I am a breast feeding person. I think that God gave you boobs for a reason and that is always best medicine. I see more problems when they are on formula. Breast milk has your immunities in it (ALOT OF IMMUNITIES) to keep them from getting sick and having stuff like that. I do understand sometimes it isn't possible to breast feed. I have heard of putting babies on reflux medication but usually it is a weak sphincter and will go away on its own as they get older. It is a little inconvenient but I would much rather prefer the inconvenience to any medication for my small baby any day.
If you want, you can always get a second opinion.

Hi M.

I just have a second, I heard my little one wake up.
My first had reflux...it was awful, he spit up appx 40 times a day and screamed all the time. My second one spit just as much, but it never bothered him so we didn't medicate for it. Some babies just spit up a lot.
My first was on Prevacid and it worked pretty good with Mylanta when needed. I was nursing him so I continued to change my diet until I found what triggered his reflux. It is very hard. Dr's don't like to medicate little one.
My DR didn't until I finally insisted at 14 weeks b/c he had not slept more than an hour in a row and that was only when he was aleep on my chest in the chair. The meds made a big difference. Have you tried the Nutramigen formula? that is what I had to use with my second child. He could NOT handle the milk based formulas. It made a big difference and he didn't have to be medicated.

I am not sure what to tell you other than, I have been there, covered in puke, smelling like spoiled milk with many sleepless nights :) Have you considered changing DR?

J.

Hello M.,

My now 9 yr old daughter had the same problem. Unfortunately, they didn't diagnose her until she was 8 mths old and had a terrible ulcer that had started to bleed! At first they thought I was just 'overreacting', then said it was 'just colic', but with the projectile vomit and if she was laid on her stomach she would scream like the pain was unbearable. Eventually they told me to 'let her cry it out. After taking her to my GP they did a scope down her throat and discovered her ulcer. Which since I had my first ulcer as a child and life long acid reflux, they should have checked with me for my history too. Anyway, they prescriped the same, Zantac and Reglan and a minute (don't remember how much) of another medicine to 'repair' it, she got better. She stayed on the medicine for 4 yrs until she got better. She still has periods of it when she is highly stressed or anxious though and my GP prescribed Nexium for her. The only thing is she now has IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) when she gets stressed. She is like her Mom, very sensitive and prone to too much acid. So we watch and make sure she stays away from acidic foods as much as possible when things are high tension. (like tomatoes, citrus, ketchup, orange juice etc.)
Good luck with your little one. Oh, and they ended up putting Cassie on Nutramegan (sp) and that stuff smells like rotten milk but really helped her also. (AND it's like $25 a container). Take care and let us know how he is doing.

My son was born 5 weeks early and had horrible reflux. He would scream before eating, during eating, and after eating - sometimes for 5 hours straight. At about 8 weeks, we tried zantac and it didn't work for us. Prevacid was our life saver! Within a week of being on the prevacid, he was screaming much less and within 2 weeks, he was a totally different child. He stopped the medication at 5 months and has never looked back.

Hang in there. It's a difficult situation and gut wrenching for any mom!

My daughter was diagnosed with moderately severe acid reflux during her first year, and my pediatrician prescribed Axid. It worked well for my daughter, but it's expensive. Good luck!

my son has acid reflux. he also got it at 3mo old. he is now 6
we had him on the same meds and he did great. the dose you have him on now is correct. but remember that if you up the dose
like you have you will run out and can not get refills unless it has been the right amount of days.

Our son now takes zantac over the counter for children. So there is hope. we also but rice cereal in his formala that made a huge differnce. hope this helps

shells

I don't know a whole lot about the disease, but I do know that maybe you should find a new doctor. My best friends son was diagnosed at 2 months old. His doctor also switched formulas numerous times and had him on Zantac and Reglan, but nothing seemed to help. The doctor never seemed that concerned. When Cade was 6 months old, she switched doctors. They did tests and found out that due to the reflux, Cade had had approx. 5 ulcers in his stomach. My advice, seek a new doctor who knows a little more about this condition. I will see if I can get the name of the new medication they put Cade on that seems to be working really well. Good Luck.

Hi M.!
My son was diagnosed with acid reflux at 2 weeks old. We tried Zantac at first and it did seem to help...but not for long. It seemed to just get worse and worse so his doctor prescribed Prevacid. It is a dissolvable pill that I put in his bottle once a day. It helped soooo much! Also, (I know that most moms are against this) his doctor told us to put 1 tsp of rice cereal per ounce of formula in his bottles to make it thicker so that it is not as easy for it to come back up. And it really did help too! But if your against the rice cereal...Enfamil makes a formula "AR" that already has this in it...that way you know that your not putting too much to make him have a belly ache. Well, I hope this helped and hang in there!

My daughter had acid refluxwhen she was an infant. They did all the tests even did an ultrasound on her stomach. We had to change her diet and make it very bland until she was almost two years old. She would throw up everything that she ate for the weirdest reasons. Texture made her gag. Acid made her puke. Foods like tater tots made her puke. It was horrible.
Luckily, she finally outgrew it. She is now going on three and it only flares up when she gets a stomach bug (even a VERY minor one). Just try to stay on top of it. And remember...after this, you'll never have a weak stomach again.

what kind of formula are yall on? we put my son on enfamil lacto free and that was a BIG help but every child is different.

I have four boys and all of them went through acid reflux. A few questions. First, you said you tried changing his formula, have you tried changing it to soy? Second, does he seem to have a lot of trouble with his nose and breathing like allergies? Third, is he on any baby food? Let me know these answers and I can help you better, because I have been able to help my little ones. My email address is ____@____.com

hi, my son also had reflux he could hit the wall 3feet away with it. I did not use medicines . I was nursing and thought I was killing him HA Ha. They kept running test on him until he was diagnosed with reflux. they told me to prop his bed up and to make sure he did not lay flat down always keep him propped up. they also told me to express and put rice cereal in his bottle to thicken the milk. that worked he started finally putting on weight and became a much happier child. I also became happier because I could finally get sleep.

my sister's baby has it and it seemes to get better with time. her doc had her on med but it didn't help.i have another family member who's baby had it and they took him to a specialist out of town he did alot better than my sisters baby. my suggestion would be go out side your family doc and get help..

I don't know if you can over-dose on Zantac but you may want to consult a physician before upping his dosage on your own. There are guidelines with weight and dosages of meds for children. Just be careful. My son used raglan and so did I and we had a great success from it. Also, we changed his milk to lactose free and it made a wonderful difference.

M.,

My son also has acid reflux, while I don't know alot about it. My doctor has never changed his formula but prescribed to him Zantac. He has to take it in the morning and the evening. He was diagnosed at 2 weeks with reflux.

My daughter also had reflux and the only thing that helped her was Prevacid solutabs. We did half a tab in the morning and the rest at night and it worked wonders. She's over it now and doing fine, been off of it since August. She's 15 months old now. Good Luck!

my daughter had acid relux when she was just a couple weeks old. the first PED we went to didnt do too much to healp her so we switched to another PED. my daughter was put on two types of medicaine (one was zantac), but i cant remember the name of the other one right now). those two medicines combined did help/decrease the amount of spit up she had at each feeding. Another thing that helped was to feed her a bottle in the sitting upright position and we didnt move her much afterwards for about 20 - 30 minutes. It may seem kinda extreme, but we did start to notice the spit ups were considerably less. Of course when other family members would feed her in an incline possiion or rock her afterwards, she just spit most of it back up and be hungry again. The good thing is that my duaghter grew out of this by the age of 1 yrs old (she is now 18 months old). So htere is light at the end of the tunnel. Also we were advised to feed her smaller amounts of formula more frequently instead of feeding her a whole 8 oz bottle at one time. We went throught the changing of formula about every week. I believe we went through about 10 different formulas before we (including the PED) found one that helped her a lot. Hopes this info helps you some. oh i almost forgot, try to get a formula which has rice cereal in it because it helps to keep it down longer along with the meds. It will though possilbly add some weight onto your baby because of the rice cereal. My daughter was losing weight at first because of all the spitting up, but once she switched to a formula with rice cereal in it, she started to gain weight back and keep the formula down. Also dont put the baby in the car seat or lie her down for a nap for at least an hour afterwards (just from my experience) to prevent spit up.

My son had reflux at 3 months old. His doctor just put him on the Zantac ( a wonderful drug) and told me to put a teaspoon of cereal in every bottle. For us, this worked great. It didn't stop him from spitting up completely, but it sure did help. He never had a severe case of reflux, but a couple of times he did aspirate and have problems breathing. As for the carafate, I really don't know how much that will help. It is really prescribed for stomach ulcers. It is used to coat the stomach lining, and most infant reflux is due to an imature sphincter in the stomach. So really your doctor is on the right track with everything else. Your son will eventually grow out of it, esp when he starts eating more solid foods.

My daughter had acid reflux when she was a baby up until about 2 1/2, 3. She was taking previcid. Her pedictrician did not prescribe it for me, her ear nose and throat doctor did because he said is was one of the many things that caused repeat ear infections. I only give it to her now if she eats something spicy. Can you see another dr.?

My son is 3 years old now but,I do remember what it was like cleaning "spit up" constantly. Give the Carafate a little more time, hopefully it will help. You can also give something called "Thick It" a try. It is not prescription but you do usually have to get it behind the pharmacy counter. You just put it in the bottles and it helps keep the formula down. If you are not doing it already, try to keep him sitting up for awhile after his feeding. Hope this will be of some help.

Hi M.,

I know exactly what you are going through. I have twins and one of them was diagnosed with reflux early on, before yours. He would push back, spit up every time, he had gas alot, it was terrible.
First, I changed his bottles- I used Playtex with the drop ins. This helped the gas a whole lot
Second, "I" changed his formula- I bought Nutramigen. I got tried of the pedi's telling me that he would grow out of everything.
Third- I changed my pedi. The doctors were not sure about anything. We was prescribed Prevacid, It worked miracles. I gave it to him before he drank and mylicon and anytime of acid medicine after he ate. Rub his stomach and his back during burp time and after a few mins. he was fine.

Reflux can be hard, we had a severe case.

M.,
I too went through what you are going through with my son. He had terrible acid reflux. I breast fed him for a while and that was when the reflux was worst. We tried Prevacid but to no avail. I am an RN but was still nervous about using adult meds on my baby. There is really no research to back up their use/non-use. The biggest difference we found was when we switched him to Enfamily A.R. (stands for Added Rice) It made his bottles like a thinned out milkshake, which helped keep the milk weighted down in his stomach. (If you do this, get nipples with big holes or the thickened milk will get 'stuck' in the nipple) His reflux improved 50% I'd say when we switched. The only other thing that worked was...time! When he was about 10 months his reflux had improved to where he was only refluxing 2-3 times/day. Many doctors will require your child to go through a "swallow study" to "prove" that they have reflux before you can be put on 2 or more meds. I guess you are fortunate that your pediatrician is willing to try different meds with your son. It is encouraging that your child is gaining weight...means you're doing something right!

My son had acid reflux. He is 13 months now and I am going to start to wean him off the medicine and just see what happens... He took Zantac at first. THen I was out of town visiting my family and he seemed to be getting worse so I took him to my pediatrician (when i was a little girl). He said that he always recommends prevacid. I started using that when he was around 7 months and have not seen any spit up since! I would highly recommend you ask your doctor about that. I have seen no side effects and I TOTALLY trust that physician, he has been in practice for over 30 years and is very knowledgeable. Feel free to ask me any questions! Also, if you notice that his tounge always looks white or even sometimes purple that is a fungus that is common in kids with acid reflux and needs to be treated. My son had that too!