Reflux & Colic General Chatter & Support

[Trillian]

Hello all!

This thread has been created as a general chatter thread for those parents with children suffering from Reflux or Colic. Please feel free to talk and support one another during these difficult months.

The previous Reflux and colic chatter thread can be found here

[renzymum]

HI there,

i am new to this site but here it goes. my daughter was born on the 8 september and started showing signs of reflux from about 2 weeks. about a week ago we could defitnately say she had it and have started giving her food thickner and it is working great. she still has her moments but is not screaming all day from pain. also she sleeps at a 30 degree angle and she only wakes up 1 - 2 times a night. it is wonderful.

[chepie]

HI,

This may sound silly but ..... I am a 1st time mum and I am worried about my little man, as I think he may suffer from reflux.... after most feeds he screams and crawls up my chest and then goes stiff all over and seems like he is in pain and sometimes I just can't get him to burp?????? Are all babies meant to burp after each feed?? He does vomit a fair bit too.....Then comes the afternoon/nighttime and its screaming time and nothing we do can settle him really.... this can go on for a good 3 hours or more......

Any advice would be appreaciated

Thanks ladies

[renzymum]

Hi chepie

it really sounds like your little man has got reflux. How old is he? with daniqa, she would scream like someone was pulling of her skin, and would settle a lot easier if we carried her upright and bobbed her slightly. we thought she just wanted to be in the arms. i laughed when you said how he tries to climb up your chest, daniqa did excactly the same thing and would ask her where are you trying to go, you cant go any higher. it is very sore for them, and also the vomitting is a sign of the reflux although you can get silent reflux, which is when it comes up and then goes down, which is doubley sore for them. daniqa has this one. in fixing it, it depends whether you are breastfeeding, or bottlefeeding. i use a thickner that i just add to the milk, if BB you can make a gel and give it to him after his feed. also some babies dont always burp especially after BB, but try and wind him as best you can as if the wind wants to come up after half and hour say, this is when it burns them, so if you can try to get the winds up before then and it will be the best. when he sleeps try to keep him elevated as this will also help to keep his food down whilst sleeping.

hope this all helps, let me know if you need to know anything else and i shall do what i can, i really know how frustrating it can be not knowing what is wrong or even what to do once you do know. it is hard and i shall listen if you need to vent.

keep well
renzy

[renzymum]

hey chepie i just saw, your boy was born on the same day as my girl daniqa, must of been a reflex day. lol

[chepie]

renzymum...

Thanks babe for your advice, I am BB also .... It must have been a reflux day!!! I love your little ones name... I will try all those tips, once again thank you my friend

[Dragonbub]

Hey,
Thought I would clear the cobwebs out of this thread. Is reflux generally from day 1, or can they develop it in time? I would think that it would be from birth and maybe gradually get worst? My bubs has just developed a nasty screaming routine just this week, so not sure if it is a reflux issue, or just a 6 week growing pain thing.

Anyways, if anyone reads this, help would be greatly appreciated

[renzymum]

Hello dragonfly,

well from what i have experienced they can start crying in 1 day, but my baby started from about 2 weeks, although we did not know at the time what it was.
the major signs were if we were holding her and we tried to lie her, either in our hands or on the couch, she would scream. we thought she just wanted to be held but she would also do it if we held her lying down. another one is throwing up a lot and also cat napping during the day.

i have heard that from 6 weeks a child can go through a difficult stage, i know mine did and and then get better again in about a week, i suppose it is like a growing thing. they almost go from a new born to a baby in a way.

well i hope i helped a little, and if you need to know anything else just let me know as i know a lot about reflux. Daniqa is on Losec and 20mg A DAY. it is hard but like everyone says, they do grow out of it. some longer than others though.

good luck
renzy

[Dragonbub]

Thanks Renzy, it is good to know others are out there! It is weird but I feel like I lucked out, ya know? And really, he isn't such a bad bubba. I think I am feeling a bit fragile after the hell week last week. I am scared to go anywhere in case he cries. It is so much easier at home where no one is staring at me and I don't feel like a failure of a mum because I can't quiten my baby.

I wish there was a simple test they could do which told you whether they had reflux or not. That would save giving them medication unnecessarily. Having said that, he does seem to be better with it, so I will keep him on it for a while and see how he goes. I might try a trial period off it in a few months (when I am a bit more together) and see if he is ok off the meds.

It's tough isn't it? My big sis had a horrendous child, screamed all day and night. I just don't know how she did it...

Have a great week everyone

[ozloz]

I'm in desperate need of some help.

My son was diagnosed with Silent Reflux at 7 weeks he is now 4mths old.

Some symptoms... fussiness when feeding, distress during and after feeds, back arching, squirming, coughing, gagging, swallowing when there's nothing there, catnapping during day, happy when elevated...

He was put on Zantac which had an initial effect but then stopped working after 2 weeks so we upped the dose, still no results unfortunately.

At 9 weeks we started him on Losec 5mg a day. This took 7 days to kick in and it coincided with me taking him to sleep school, when he was 11 weeks old. We had 3 days of absolute bliss at sleep school. He would feed, then play (flat on his back on the floor!), then sleep up until his next feed. We also cut out his 3am feed and had a night where he slept through, Bliss! On the fourth day though he woke from a day nap screaming, we gave him Mylanta to settle him. The following day we returned home. I was expecting him to revert back to his old habits a bit, I was told to expect this. So over the next few weeks we would have 3days out of the week where he would be unsettled with reflux or wind and this was ok to deal with as it wasn't every day.

Then over the past three weeks it has been every day. His dose of Losec isn't working anymore and I am really confused because the pead has told me that we can't change the dose of 5mg for quite a while. He told me to introduce rice cereal to see if that would help and I also replaced 2 breastfeeds with thickened formula to see if that would make a difference. But it hasn't. So I have gone back to solely breastfeeding him.

I've made an appointment to see another pead for a second opinion and have an appointment with a gastro in january.

I've tried everything that the pead has recommended and we are still not getting anywhere. From what I've read his dose of Losec seems quite low so I would think that this would be the reason its not working, but the pead doesn't want to put it up. My son now weighs 6kgs.

It's been going on for so long and I'm just so confused.

I'm giving the Lozec by disolving it in water on a spoon. He is pretty good at taking it like this. But I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile trying it as a liquid form?!?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[scarlet121]

Hey there, I am sorry to hear that you are having a difficult time of it. The thing with reflux is that there are so many severities and also a totally different range of meds that a bubs will do well on.

I have a lot of expiereince with this and I would say that you are doing the right thing by getting a second opinion, 5mg is a low dose of losec and at 4 months you would expect probably 10mg a day, split twice. So 5mg am and pm.

With non controlled reflux what tends to happen is you get side effects to the reflux that you wouldn't be aware of like food reflusal, lack of weight gain or failure to thrive, ear infections, chest infections, rattly chest, congestion... a big list. Anyway it is important if it isn't controlled to keep pushing until you get it right, Parker is on a really high dose of losec and has been since 16months, which is 30mg a day, but for him it is what he needs.

With the paed, just make it clear that this is not working for you guys and something needs to be done. With the losec form, if he takes it from a spoon when it is dissolved (making sure he gets all the beads and they aren't crushed) I personally would stick to that. We get the compound and not only is it expensive, costs me about $80 a month, to get it working really well you need to get the scrip refilled every 2 weeks, which also causes a lot of grief when people don't know this and everyone tells you it lasts 4 weeks.

We are still on the compound and he can not have the losec brand it makes him hypo, but the acimax is fine.

Good luck and if you have any questions, please ask. You can also search the internet on infantrefluxdisease and have a look around there and see if there are things you can do to help, I have written a lot of the articles for this site.

Good luck!

[renzymum]

Hi ozloz,

i definately would get a second opinion, my daugther is now 3 months old and has had reflux since 2 weeks, we only ended up on Losec about 3 weeks ago but the paed put her onto 20mg a day from the beginning. 10 in morning and 10 at night. it did take a while to work but it definately has made a difference. she is actually laughing, and playing now. anyway hope thins work out.

[ozloz]

Thanks so much for your replies. Confirmed my suspicions.
Luckily I've been able to get an appointment to see a pead tomorrow.

I also think he might be milk protein intolerant. He has always had very runny green poos, gets bad tummy cramps and wind, congested nose and has been getting a blotchy rash on his head, neck, chest and back while he feeds.
I might have to eliminate dairy from my diet as I am BF.

scarlet12
Do you know if the liquid form enters there system any differently to the tablet. I've heard that the best time to give it in tablet form is 30mins to an hour before a feed, but this can be tricky.

[scarlet121]

Hi Ozloz, the compound doesn't enter differently but because it is crushed down it doesn't technically need to wait the 30mins.

Basically with the beads they are coated in a substance to withstand internal acids so that the omperazole gets to where it needs to be without being eaten, with the compound it is already crushed but it is in a buffer which neutralises on the way down, so when it gets to where it needs to be it doesn't need the time to dissolve.

The reason they say 30minutes is that it takes about this long for the bead to dissolve then by the time they eat, when the acid will be high it will be ready to work!

[Adi]

Does anyone know if Losec should be given before or after a feed or does it not matter when?

[mrscricket]

Hi Adi - I think it is recommended that it is given half an hour before a feed so that the beads in the medication have a chance to disolve. Scarlett may be able to help you out a bit more - the only advice i can give is what she gave me!

[Dragonbub]

Hello All,
We saw our Paed the other week and he listened to Caden's symptoms - irritability, some chucking after feeds but not much. Caden also chucked a tantrum while being checked over, so Doc got to see him in full flight! He said that he doesn't have reflux, that it is so often over-diagnosed due to the ease of diagnosis. As parents we just want an answer - and sometimes it is reflux, which makes it even more confusing.

The doc said his rate of growth is 350 grams per week on average. He never really had a growth spurt as such, just has been growing so fast since about 3 weeks old. He has created his own curve on the chart - straight up! The Paed said that he is injesting the equivalent of 20L of milk a day and all that milk creates lots of gas and discomfort. He assured me that things will slow down soon and bubs should be a lot happier.

Anyhoo, I took him off the losec, and there was no improvement, but no worsening either, which means the Losec wasn't working, or he doesnt have reflux. I mean, he is grumpy most days, but sleeps well on his back, doesn't throw up alot, and enjoys his feeds 9 times out of 10 - and is a bit fussy for the odd one. He is also weighing 6 kilos at 9 weeks, so he is growing well.

SO - maybe bub doesn't have reflux. Definitely get a second opinion Ozloz - and if they up the dose and it works, well excellent news for you! If not, maybe try not taking anything and see if that helps (it is hard to be brave though, I didn't want to take him off losec in case things got worse).

Good luck hun *hugs*

[Early Kids]

Hello everyone

A little about my lil man:
He was born at 30wks and has had reflux since birth. He started to get colicy around 5 weeks old. Colic settled about 2 weeks after he went to formula at 5 months. He still has reflux and is just over 11 months old. We had his Follow-up aapt with his Paed on Tuesday, the Paed was a little concerned that Brendan still had reflux and that it was not just milk being bought up but solids as well. We've never tried anything other than thickening his formula which made it about 100 times worse, other than that I've been told that if the thickner didn't work and actually made it worse then Brendan basically has to "grow out of it".

What I was wondering was maybe there was something else I could try????

Thanks for listening