To medicate or not to medicate

argh I'm at my wits end with this decision.
I hope you dont mind me posting my own thread with questions that have probably been asked a billion times before, but I could really do with some support!
EJ is 4 weeks old on tuesday and we (us and his GP) are pretty sure he has reflux. He possets a few times a day, often right after a feed, but sometimes well afterwards, and then it is all curdled and causes him pain. He also gets really bad hiccups, sometimes coughs/gags and often has a snuffly nose. But mainly its the screaming. He will have a good cry after every feed and often about an hour afterwards as well. He is usually fairly quick to settle, although at other times it can take an hour. But it does sound like a pain cry (as much as I can tell as a FTM!). Once he's asleep he usually sleeps ok until he next wakes looking for a feed (which are 3 and sometimes 4 hours apart) My main worry is that he rarely seems happy, whenever he's awake he might be happy for a while but will quickly be distracted by a pain in his belly, with lots of grimacing and whinging. He has only really smiled once or twice, and I get worried that he is miserable. He grunts a lot in his sleep, often waking himself up - he seems to be straining and will often calm after passing wind. He also seems to have fairly explosive poos- they have shot across the room once when we were in the middle of a nappy change! We can constantly hear loud gurgles through his stomach, and these seem to be associated with grimacing.

He is exclusively breast-fed, I do seem to have a fast letdown, and I wonder if him taking in air might contribute to the problem- in which case, medicating him seems silly. Also I wonder if I trialled dairy/soy free... but that takes so long to work and I dont want to wait a month to see if that works before I give him some relief.

The GP has given us a script for losec and said to have a think about it. I need to give her a call on tuesday to make the decision. My worry is that losec works to increase pH of stomach acid- but stomachs are acidic for a reason! I am a big believer in the importance of gut microbiota, and I really dont want to mess with his digestion if the problem is too much air, or a weak gastro-esophageal sphincter or if he's actually just a normal baby!

any insights? My doctor said to stop researching and just go with my gut feeling, but I am really torn in both directions.

My DS1 had reflux and was always grizzly and restless, would only sleep on lieing on my chest at night and would possit regularly, and at 5 weeks of age we had 4 projectile massive vomits in and row and I thought enough was a enough and went to the GP. We got a script for Locec and within 2 days noticed and improvement and within 2 weeks was much better.

After 2 weeks of dissolving the tabs etc I went back to GP and got a script for suspension to be made at compounding pharmacy was much easier to give but he fought it as it tasted disgusting.

He was off it by 7 months old and no issues since and he is 3.

good luck

could be the fast letdown. Have you tried expressing first to slow the flow before feeding? Or positional feeding - leaning back so he's working against gravity. Overesupply can also be a problem.
Maybe try calling the ABA for advice - 1800-686-2-686
To a certain extent these sorts of things are quite normal in the early weeks. The long periods of sleep sound exceptional for reflux babies - especially during the day.

After two that had your 'normal' newborn digestive issues to sort out our #3 came and her 'normal' issues were not settling and only getting worse. At the one month mark every second night may have been a difficult one, she'd cry, be visably in pain, arch her back, swallow and cringe, feed every few hours, never brought anything up and would not sleep any longer than 40 min. By the 6 week mark this was every day/night, at about 11pm she'd finally pass out and have a relitively good night. Like you say she was never happy, my poor girl didn't smile until well over 2 months old.

I did take her to the GP and we were prescribed zantac, it definately helped her and us through an extremely difficult time. As it's prescribed by weight as she grew the dose would not be sufficient and the signs would show again. I do not regret helping our family in that way.

At the time i tried what nartural methods i could but i didn't have a lot of knowledge in that area. I can see you are hesitant about giving your son the medicine but obviously want to help him in some way. Have you tried the osteo or the chiro? DD had a few osteo appt and she screamed through them but there were a few positive results from it. Also you could try seeing a naturopath. I went and saw one a few months back for my own personal reasons and she was quite horrified that DD was taking zantac. I told her how it helped in a time that we definately needed help but would love to try and have her off it if i could. We took her off it and she gave me something else to give DD if she was having any upset/refluxy tummies and we've never looked back. By this stage she was 7 months so it could have been that she'd grown out of it anyway but it feels so good to not have to give her that horrible stuff anymore.

All i can say is some bubs 'normal' reflux signs can be a little excessive and often need some help to get through them before the whole family go crazy. If you want to go down the path of giving your son something to help him maybe try the natural approaches first.

Good luck i know it's such a difficult time and all you want to do is help your baby :hug:

Have a look at Dr Bryan Vartabedian's book "Colic Solved" or Pinky McKay has a seminar series on that the moment - it's one you buy, but her interview with Dr Vartabedian was fabulous. You can see it at Breastfeeding Made Easy with Pinky McKay.

Basically, we all have reflux to some extent. for all of us, our stomach contents come up and down. Worse for babies because they have such low muscle tone (normal for babies) and because we have them lying on their backs so much. There is a lot you can do before you medicate. Many babies feed, chuck grow and thrive. Rarely does it cause a problem with their weight gain. The other good thing is that these things are only for a short time, and improve really quite quickly. The sphincter in their esophagus is weak and flops open easily - but it gets stronger. Your milk supply will settle down a bit too over time. if symptoms persist you might check out your family history. Is there any history of allergies? Food intolerances? That might give you a clue as to what foods you would cut out.

Other thing we did was we went to an osteopath as well and that helped as well, not sure what helped more but they both improved things.

:rofl: Oinky McKay. Cool typo

Omigod! thant's terrible - have edited. Up too late last night.....

Thank you all for your advice
Have had a chat with ABA and with another lactation consultant. I think oversupply is a problem and so am following every piece of advice I can find on that.
But I also decided to give the losec a try. I figure if there is something I can do that will reduce any pain he might have I should give it a go, even if his symptoms are really only fairly mild compared to many babies.
I started it last night and to be honest, I do have reservations. It seemed so wrong putting this banana-smelling syrup into my pure breastfed baby... but I will perservere- give it a week or two and see if it does anything.
I still swing wildly- right now he's asleep (yep, sleeping in the middle of arsenic hour like a very NON-reflux baby!) but this morning when he was arching his back and screaming, I felt better about the whole thing.

...oh wait he just woke up....

anyway, I know I need to just take it all in my stride and not get myself stressed about it. Cos having a stressed out mum is not going to do him any good! Hopefully I'll just keep trying everything and I'll have my smiling happy baby soon enough.

ETA- had been recommended 'colic solved' by a few people and it finally arrived today- can't wait to get into it!

hi
my personal view is, if the reflux is bad enough, your baby will have to go on medication. We tried all the natural methods heart breakingly nothing worked. After that our daughter was in such severe pain we had no choice. So it depends how bad it is. You will know your own baby. Many people have mentioned to me that my daughter shouldn't of been put on medication as she was too young, and that there alternatives. Well I tried them all. Alot of people don't understand how bad reflux can actually be. It was a nightmare for me having to put my daughter on the medication... went against everything I believed it. But I couldn't see her in pain any longer. Most children do grow out of reflux my the time they are 1. Sadly my daughter hasn't. She will be 2 in November. I feel sick when I give her the losec, wondering how it could be damaging her, but in all honestly, without it she would suffer and could have other medical complications. I try every 3 months to get her off it. We have been to a naturopath, chiro, 8 or more GP's (lost count) and still no answer. Shes seeing a specialist very soon to see what further tests she will be having.

I truely hope your little one doesn't have reflux. The word reflux is thrown about alot, so some children with severe reflux aren't taken seriously. (there is 2 types, one produces pain, one alot of vomit!)

There is a fantastic website called reflux infant support (or similar) have a look on there.

I haven't read all the replies but I just want tos ay I completely understand your reservations. My DD had colic and reflux, although it was diagnosed a bit later. Eventually we did use losec and the improvement was undeniable. Another thing we did was took her to a osteopath that specialised in paediatrics and cranial osteopathy. I hope you have some results that make your baby more content soon. It is difficult and a lot of people don't understand.