Shan,

This is what I have decided after having a refluxer for 3 and a bit years and there are two types of refluxers, there is the one who outgrows it after a certain period, and I SO wish Parker was one of these, but he wasn't. It wasn't until he was one that I finally got some help other than zantac. I mean what I know now I can't beleive how silly I was to think zantac would cure everything and then one day I would wake up and it be gone.

The second type of refluxer has it longer and may never outgrow it, sometimes there are other things going on, like the delayed gastric emptying or esinophillic esophagitis, but in the end they start to loose weight, or they stop eating or drinking, they become averted to foods and they get infections, chest and ear, they have coughing or asthma symptoms, cold symptoms, they also have some type of food intolerence or allergy.

Unfortunatly the only thing that separates type 1 and 2 is time generally.

At one year you would expect to be able to wean off medicine, but if you can't you definately need to get into a paed who will specialise in reflux and do some testing, or a paed GI.

I am in Perth, so if you are in Perth forget about the paed GI, there is ONE, and she is busy, it is unbeleiveable. If you aren't in Perth I am sure there are more though. You need to go to the GP and ask for a referral for a paed GI. If he doesn't listen, be firm, unfortunately you sometimes have to be the doctor and say no this is not normal, I know this isn't normal and it has nothing to do with being overprotective.

By the time I finally got someone to listen to me, I remember taking my mum and crying to this doctor to get my child some help cause he was one, and it can't be reflux if you KWIM?

Anyway, if he isn't eating, or vomitting too much, you don't have time to waste. I would push for some good meds, what is he on? We are on losec 30mg compounded split over 3 times a day, at one time we were also on zantac as well. 30mg is a pretty high dose and most drs wont go higher than 20. Also you can ask for testing, but at the end of the day it will confirm reflux, so some people dont' really want to do it.

The tests you can ask for is a barium swallow, which MAY tell if he has reflux, basically it is a point in time test, if he has reflux at the time of the test it will show it, but it will also show abnormalities, but basically it shows reflux.

There is the pH probe which is a tube in their nose that has a probe that records the pH over a 24 hour period.

There is the endoscopy that can show if there is inflammation but also they can take biopsys and see if there are other things at play like celiac or EE.

There is also the delayed gastric emptying test, which calculates if the food is digested in a normal amount of time, cause if it doesn't then this can increase reflux.

There is a lot a GI or paed can do. Good luck and if you need any specific help, I will try and help you out