Reflux relief!

I took Max to the doctor with me today when I had my six week checkup and asked her for advice about dealing with his reflux, which has gradually been getting worse over the past two weeks to where I am spending more time awake at night than I am asleep, rocking a child who screams in pain as he brings up milk and stomach acid.

I asked about Zantac (sp?) as I've read about it here, and she said that before we tried any medication I should try expressing and thickening the breastmilk to see if that helps. I bought some Karicare food thickener, a breastpump and a bottle and have fed Max twice today from the bottle rather than the breast, and it is working like magic!

When I burped him after his 2am feed, instead of getting copious quantities of liquid coming back up all over my shoulder, he only brought up a small dribble from the side of his mouth. Most importantly, though, after ten minutes of bringing up wind after the feed, he is comfortably asleep and hasn't woken up again yelling!
After the pattern of the past two weeks of it taking an hour to settle him after feeds, this is just unbelievable. I've sat up for half an hour now to be awake in case he chucks again, but it really seems to have done the trick.

I hope this advice might help someone else here struggling with reflux, because I can't tell you how happy I am right now that I think I've found the answer without medication - I've tried all sorts of different feeding and sleeping positions and nothing has seemed to provide a lot of relief, but this has really worked.
Expressing milk is a bit of a pain, but for this sort of result I'm more than willing to go through a little inconvenience!

Kerrie

YAY!! I'm so glad you found something that worked!!

We used the karicare HA-AR which is the thickened formula for Matilda for her comp feeds & it was fantastic. Unfortunately despite hours on the pumps of various forms I couldn't express enough to feed her more than one feed a day! And after 2 weeks of trying I gave up, so we comp fed her before bed the thickened formula for 4 months.

So how many feeds of EBM a day would need to be thickened? Or does a small amount of thickened EBM given before each BF work as well? Just wondering as I used to have to express nearly all of bub's feeds for weeks and I just can't do that again. I could probably manange one feed a day though.

Astrid

Well I realised today that I had misread the instructions on the pack. I'd been faithfully expressing all the milk, mixing in the thickener and then feeding it to Max in a bottle, and coming to the same conclusion as you - that I can't keep doing this, I feel like I am permanently attached to the expresser!

I re-read the label and, dolt that I am, had been following the directions for formula! For breastmilk, I just need to mix a little expressed breastmilk or cooled boiled water with a spoonful of thickener, then feed it to him before, during and after the feed.
I used a dropper and squeezed it into the side of his mouth as he fed from the breast, so he swallowed it with the milk and it didn't interrupt his feed.

Astrid, I need to use it every time I feed him, if I give him any quantity of milk without the thickener he throws it back up and cries. With the thickener, he still regurgitates a small mouthful, but there is no pain attached to it.

Kerrie

I haven't used the karicare thickener but my LC said to slip some slippery elm into Jovie before a feed when things were really bad. So I would mix some EBM with half a capsule of slippery elm & give around a ml to Jovie just before a feed and it worked a treat. It does take 10-15 minutes to thicken but it worked really well & was a natural product.

I dont bf at all but thought this may help at the hospital my dd goes to the mums there that breast feed reflux bubs use guarcol thickener they mix up smal amounts of it with EBM and give bub 5mls in a syringe before in the midle and after a feed, the reason they use gaurcol over karicare is karicare can have a tendensy to consipate the bubs which over time can make reflux worse

guarcol

sory i had spelt it wrong
i just sent you an e mail by the way

you poor thing

And yes i know you dont have post natal depresion dealing with a refluxer is horible i hvae days where i just cry with kenzee i know how you feel

Does he have peadiatrician that eh sees or just a gp

Caro its awful. I spent so much time with Matilda just not knowing how to deal with it. I couldn't find one thing that helped and when she reached 9 months I got some relief. It was hell. It was the screaming & crying that did it to me. Around 3-4 days a week DH would come home & find us both crying on the bed. What stinks is you know your child is in pain, and you've done everything you can to help & nothing has worked. I found the RISA website (google it) was helpful too as well as meeting other mum's with reflux babies.

With Jovie... another story as I've PM'd you, we found for her that there was a definate "cause" of reflux and once we dealt with that its over.

No offence but try dealing with it for three years, when people look at Parker now and say he is great, well they don't have to scrape gobs of crap out of his mouth at 2am in the morning or deal with it, yeah he looks great when you see him for 10minutes.

Do they have to see him still cry in pain, or I go in and he is telling me to get it out of his throat and ripping at his tonsils, he writhes in pain a lot, he coughs, hiccups, gags, and lets not even start on the aggression.

They easily forget everything that we have been through, and no one understands how it feels to not get an 8 hour uninterrupted sleep for 3 years, and how it changes day to day, and how it plays on your mind continually. and NO I don't have PND either.

The reality of it is that it is something so unrecognised and so unsympathised (and I can't blame them cause I never knew) so unsupportive. No one can beleive that everything Parker has, and had to go through is reflux related.

I also recommend RISA, also infantrefluxdisease (if you have to delete the links do so) they concentrate on the single issue of reflux.

Oh and the best part LOL, people are now asking why I don't have another baby yet? Sheesh!

Sorry there is my vent!

*hugs* Scarlet it sounds so hard. I know with Matilda's I thought 9 months of it was bad, she continued with episodes but nothing like the day in day out of reflux. She's now 3 and still doesn't sleep through but thats about all.

IKWYM about it being so unrecognised and unsupportive.

Caro - Nicholas is on Losec, as you know and it took about 10 days to start working. Some days it doesn't work though and we give him double the dosage (1 ml twice a day istead of 1 ml once a day). The only other thing I can suggest is seeing a chiropractor. My GP recommended it, and I was sceptical, but we have been seeing her for a few weeks now and Nicholas is much better than he was. He is sleeping up to 6 hours at night now, and some days, he hardly spews at all. I also have the days when we are both in tears, and I feel terrible that I can't work out what to do with him, but I am getting better at coping with the crying now.

Scarlett - I can't imagine what you must be going through with Parker. :hugs: Hugs to you xx

Thanks guys, I wasn't trying to say oh poor me I have it worse or anything, I don't, there are a lot of people who have it a lot worse than us, one month or 10 years, it is the same feeling you get, I suppose I know what it is like now, and it would be really good for people to understand KWIM? I am sure you do.

And I think the worse thing is they can have good days, and its like you are just waiting for the bad, you just can't always enjoy it, I sometimes think that is worse having good and bad, then just having bad, at least that is how it is and you deal with it.

In saying that Parker doesn't hold us back from anything now, he is old enough to settle quickly, and understand and to actually give us a clue as to what is going on. But I would love it to be gone completely.

JoMarie, what chiropractor are you going to? I am in Perth and that was going to be my next avenue...we have done kineseology (no reflux help, but good for food intolerences) and homeopathy, which worked for a bit, but not totally. Thanks :hug:

Yeah we did chiropractor work as well & acupuncture for the food intolerances which I have to say is what made the difference in Jovie. Well I guess its only honestly been 1 month since we've had the painful screaming/crying at times & the feeding issues. We still see the regurgitations and gagging but she doesn't seem as painful now.

scarlets litle boy parker does suffer really badly poor ltile man he is so beautuful and he will be playing and talking one minute then the next he will be trying to talk whilst gargling on his stomache contents is so sad and as he is that bit older its even more heart breaking and he trys so hard not to let it bther him you can see it in his face wjile he trys to muble through

BIG HUGS PARKER

sorry rach hope you dont mind me talking about parker

Caro reflux sucks no matter what the serverity of it is so dont ever feel that its worse for rach and I yes kenzee and parker do suffer badly but how rach and i deal with it is the same KWIM you dont like to see you baby in oain any more thanwe do how much pain or how severe is irelavent your boy is still doing it tough

:

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scarlets litle boy parker does suffer really badly poor ltile man he is so beautuful and he will be playing and talking one minute then the next he will be trying to talk whilst gargling on his stomache contents is so sad and as he is that bit older its even more heart breaking and he trys so hard not to let it bther him you can see it in his face wjile he trys to muble through

BIG HUGS PARKER

sorry rach hope you dont mind me talking about parker

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Of course I don't Amy, :hug: I said in another post that Miki is just beautiful, you know I think she is, we all do. Parker and Miki are a match made in heaven LOL

Caro,

I feel your pain that you are going through, how I deal with it is I have a really good reflux support network now, that is how I met Amy, talking to people who have been through it makes you feel less nuts in a way. We met on a reflux message board and have met up on lots of occasions now.

The thing is when people see Parker they see a happy thriving boy, first off they forget the pain that was ages ago, they don't see the little things that make him upset, they don't see his insides burning, and they don't know what to do about it, they will tell you things like feed him more, or do this or that, well it isn't going to help. They don't get it, I could sit for hours and explain it to people but unless you have had it, you don't know.

I work 3 days, and my cousin used to watch Parker when he was little, and he would be great for her, have a few off days but great, we were on zantac then so it helped a lot but not like the losec. Anyway I always thought that she didn't really get it, even though she did see it more than most, well she has had a baby recently and she came to me for advice, the baby has reflux, and she actually said you poor thing is this what you have to deal with.

I can also tell you that I have too tried everything, take the losec, honestly if he grows out of it at 6months, but you have got to have these months with your little boy being good, that is the best, otherwise you will have ups and downs it will play on your mind you will try this and that, get totally confused and end up where you started, I know cause I have been there, I know cause on the message boards I go to I see it all the time, people on 10different concoctions. My first thought is stop the extras take the PPI, if you have to increase it, so be it, and change the milk to a HA one or take dairy out of your diet, this will work a lot better than anything else.

Once they are doing well then you can try things, go to a homeopath (there is a really good one in Kalamunda I highly recommend), or chiro whatever, but get him going good and then trial things ONE at a time, at least a week or two each thing, otherwise it is a jumble.

One of the worst things I did was wait until he would grow out of it, I thought no child ever had reflux past one, and actually prayed quite frequently for the year to go fast so that he would be good, but it didn't and I hate that I didn't get to enjoy my baby, and for Parker all that took was losec. For Miki it takes a lot, lot more, Parker is actually one of the really lucky ones, as all his reflux complications subside on medication.

And finally the whole he is gaining he is great, they gain cause they comfort eat, they comfort eat cause thier throat is burnign and the milk soothes it for a minute, but eventually they learn that this isn't the way because the more they eat the more it hurts, this is when they stop eating and the fun food aversions begin.

Good luck, I do understand your frustration, good luck in finding a dr who actually will give you practical and understanding advice about reflux, I haven't found one yet, and we go to a gastroenterologist, she is great, but still Parker is only doing well now mainly because of what I have learn't and done along the way.

Thats the other thing Caro I was thinking today, that there are paeds who specialise in gastroenterology, the girls on the reflux forums can help with locations too, all I had to do was ask ;)