Possible Silent Reflux now and teeth grinding?

Sorry that your daughter is still having problems at this age. We’re in a similar situation with my daughter at 2.5, except she’s always been a silent refluxer for the most part except when she’s sick and becomes a champion projectile puker!

The interesting thing is that about 3-4 months ago, my daughter, who used to previously suck her fingers to soothe herself while sleeping, started the most horrific teeth grinding I’ve ever heard! Really horrible… it sounds like someone taking two huge rocks and banging them across each other. I’ve tried to put my hands on her jaw to make her stop, but even with me holding it, her jaw is going back and forth in the most extreme way. It’s very scary and I don’t want her destroying the enamel on her teeth. I spoke to a dentist who said there’s not much you can do about it and that all her refluxing has probably already impacted her enamel.

Anyhow, about your situation, I would really take her to a pediatric gastroenterologist. At 3 years old, she shouldn’t be having that much discomfort anymore and really shouldn’t be refluxing if it was just simple reflux due to an immature LES. At that age her LES has matured, and if she’s still having problems, I would think that having answers would be the best solution. No one wants to put their child through tests, but often that’s the only way to help them if things are persisting. My daughter had testing done and also had an endoscopy at 15 months and it was not nearly as bad as I expected and also was a relief to hear that everything looked good. Your situation makes me wonder about allergic esophagitis (EE). Since she’s been off losec or meds and eating everything without restrictions, now would be a good time for an endoscopy b/c it would tell you if she has damage, if she even needs to go back on meds, and her biopsies would better diagnose any problems.

This is just my opinion, but I know that it’s not typical for reflux to persist this long without having a food related component or an underlying cause.

About the meds, my dd has been on losec or prevacid since the time she was 2 months old. I can’t say that I love having her on meds, but her reflux has been so bad and her feeding aversion so awful that we haven’t been able to wean out of fear of any pain retrigerring a feeding aversion. Anyhow, I’ve done a LOT of reading and research beyond what you find on the internet, and it seems that PPIs have been shown safe when taken as long as up to 10 years. They looked at kids and adults who took them for up to 10 years at standard to high dosing and it seems that there were no ill effects. That doesn’t mean too much to me in the end anyhow, b/c I’ve felt that we have had no choice. But just to put your mind at ease in case your daughter does need something.

We have another poster (evergreenie) who you might be able to pm for a recommendation as she’s also in Australia, but doesn’t come on to the forum that much anymore.

Good luck. I hope you find answers soon. And if you find a solution to the teeth grinding, let me know. My daughter is medicated on prevacid and still does this, so any answers would be appreciated.