silent reflux

Hi, Im just wondering about some of the symptoms of silent reflux. I went to my Dr as Coco has been struggling since birth as though she is constantly trying to poo. It is loud, disturbing etc. The doc told me to try mylanta. Im not sure if it's made any difference, it seemed to the first day, but Im probably going to stop tomorrow as Im just not sure and i'll try her without it.
im not convinced its' silent reflux which is why I want to hear what the symptoms are. She doesn't vomit, she doesn't seem in pain except for in her gut.
Also, has anyone experienced this and think it might be something different. It is not just the normal grunts and groans either, this has been going for 7 weeks and will wake her from a deep sleep. Sometimes she sleeps half an hour in 15 hours, and grunts the whole time.
thanks xoxoxo
ps she does normal poos. Sometimes days apart. But even if she does a huge one, the grunting continues. xo

I have decided it's not reflux. I have stopped all medication .We are now trying formula for one feed at night. I am also cutting out dairy and seeing if that helps. Trial and error!!

Hi Meg,

I just thought I'd point out this thread for you. It might help you??

Christy's daughter Matilda had silent reflux and she mentions the symptoms in that thread.

Meg did you have a read of that link Melinda posted? Thats basically what Sarah & I were trying to figure out the whole silent reflux. With Matilda she was diagnosed because of the excoriations on the back of her throat (basically acid burns). For a full on diagnosis they actually have to do an endoscope where they do a GA & put a camera down their throats, they usually wont do that invasive of a procedure on a baby unless they are loosing weight.

I think its really hard with being diagnosed with things because a lot of people told me things (whats new when you have a newborn). Some nurses said a lot of babies are misdiagnosed or not properly diagnosed & I felt bad sometimes thinking that Matilda may not have it. In the end we wound up on Zantac & Mylanta and that helped post feeds (when she screamed the most). You have to trust your gut as Mum. I found myself doubting everything when we went to paediatricians and Dr's and nurses saying things different, but I knew Matilda was in pain and I wanted to stop that. The determined nature of Matilda couldn't be changed ;) but at least we could stop the pain. HTH!

I think Dylan might have silent reflux. We saw a paed late last year when Dylan was about 7 weeks old and he said Dylan was either hungry, had reflux, or both. Well, we put him on the bottle and he's been so much happier so the main problem was hunger, but he has always been chucky and it's getting worse. He'll do 3-4 huge chucks straight after a feed, and then some more about 1/2 hour later. These later ones smell awful and he seems to choke a bit on them. It doesn't seem to bother him most of the time, but the chucking definately bothers us!! Does this sound like reflux? The paed gave us a prescription for Losec which I think we might try usuing and see if it helps. Does anyone know if I can dissolve the Losec in his bottle or do I need to give it to him in a syringe?

Donella - Lucie was on Losec for about 7 weeks or so. The prescription the paed gave us was for Losec syrup - it's quite hard to get 'cos you need to have access to a compounding pharmacy. But basically they make it up into a syrup which is a lot less fuss than crushing tablets yourself! Then we just gave it to her via the (provided) syringe. Maybe ask your paed? Lucie actually loved taking it, it was fruit flavoured too! Good luck.

Thanks for your replies! Does the Losec help reduce the amount of vomits? He's just done 4 huge ones and soaked right through his bib and the towel. It's driving me batty!

Donella - No I don't think it stops the vomit unfortunately. Basically I think it neutralises the acid in the stomach so when it comes up it doesn't burn.

Brooke - Wow our girls have the same birthday!!!!! How is she going? We are expecting #2 in September!!!!!!

I actually took him back to the paed today as he has been choking on the amount of gunk he's bringing up. He said to give him a bit of rice ceral before each bottle. He reckons the thickened formulas are a bit of a con. Even though Dylan is only 3 1/2 months old he actually weighs what your average 6 month old weighs so he said there is no problem starting solids this early. We're giving him a small dose of Losec each day as well. We'll see how he goes... thanks for all your advice.

Donella - Your paed sounds so similar to mine! My paed said AR formulas were a con too, but Lucie has been on it since she was about 9 weeks. She didn't ever actually spew much in the first place (more silent reflux so the paed thought), but I did notice a reduction in the spews she did do. I actually think Lucie just hates milk myself! Anyway, I hope it works out for you.

Shannon - wow you know your stuff - thanks for the info!

Shannon - the paed did say Gaviscon was an option, but as that is full of chemicals and rice cereal is natural, he said the rice cereal was a better, healthier and more natural option. He said if the rice cereal doesn't settle it down that we will then try medication. O:)

Dylan is not bothered by the reflux -there doesn't seem to be any burning there. It's really only us bothered by the spilling. If Dylan was distressed then we would certainly have gone for the medication approach.

I do know of some babies with reflux who were put on rice cereal earlier. I guess I find it scary because of the information about allergies and starting solids too early, however I think that if you just stick with the rice cereal ONLY until they are 6 months you may be able to avoid more allergies. I suppose gluten would be a risk then... dunno...

I know the Cailin was told to add rice cereal to Paris bottles to help with reflux. I was told the same & tried it but actually found it better to use the easier to digest thickened formula because that worked best for Matilda.

Christy - I was worried about the allergy thing too, but nobody on either side of the family has any food allergies at all, so it would be pretty unlikely that Dylan would. We will just stick to rice cereal though. We are giving him one to two spoonfuls before each bottle rather than adding it to the bottle just to try it out. Not sure of the logic, but he said to try it till Sunday and see if it makes a difference.

Yeah we did it and it helped, but back in my day ROFLMAO they didn't diagnose *reflux* nor did you you get any meds for it. We went diagnosed without being diagnosed if that makes sense. We were told she had reflux, I mean it was obvious she screamed alot puked alot and arched her back all the time (later found out this is what they do to get away from their oesophagus as it hurts so bad) but they still didn't do anything :( I can only imagine how frustrating silent reflux must be. But also we gave it to her earlier than what they recommend now too, so I dunno if I'd do it again with seth we'll just have to wait and see. I'm hoping to BF longer too this time.

Edited to say thanks Shannon I forgot about the teat, yeah we used the avent one it worked fine, I also preferred it because we'd put about a TBS in the bottle and some of it would get trapped so in a way she only got the fine stuff...I dunno if my logic makes sense on that one LOL!

*hugs*
Cailin

Dee I'm not sure if you've already realised this yet, but the Losec doesn't actually help with the vomitting at all. Losec actually stops the acid being developed in bubs stomach so when they do throw up it doesn't hurt them at all. Good in one way cos bub isn't in pain anymore, but not so good for mummy's washing!

As for the thickened formulas, if you are making it correctly it should still look pretty similar to the regular formulas. The bottle has to be made up at either room temperature or slightly less as the thickening agent works once it's heated. So you give bub the bottle at room temperature and when it hits their stomach it thickens up, the idea being that it is then heavy in their stomach so it will stay in there longer & won't be brought back up.