Cough Congestion/3 month old w/reflux/LONG POST

Greetings,

I am new to this board. I am a mother of two (as my username suggests!) I have a 4 1/2 old little girl and I now have a 3 month old little boy who was diagnosed with reflux at 2 weeks old. My DD has asthma (non-reflux related although now I’m starting to wonder…) My DS was put on Nexium 10 mg packets by his pediatrician. He is to take 3 ml a day in the morning. I saw a complete improvement withing 2 days of the meds.

So I was mixing the entire 10 mg packet with 15 ml of water as directed on the packaging but only giving him 3 ml of it and disposing of the rest. My DS was also seen by a pedi GI who told me to give him another dose in the afternoon. He didn’t give me an additional Rx. So I doubled the dosage of the orignal 1x of day Rx and finished my packets way before the 30 day refill authorization. I called my pedi and she switched the Rx authorization to 2x per day but my insurance is giving me a hard time about changing the Rx from 1x a day to 2x a day in the middle of the 30 day authorized Rx so it’s pending at the pharmacy right now waiting for insurance approval. In the meantime, I decided to split the 10 mg packet in two and give half the dose (5 mg with 5 ml of water) in the a.m. and the other half in the p.m. (okayed by the pedi). He continues to do great except that 1 week ago he developed a cough with some chest rattling. He has no fever, no fussiness, no runny nose…just a cough with rattling noise when he breaths. I took him immediately to his pedi and she told me his lungs are clear. She asked that I use a humidifier and pour saline drops in his nose and suck the phlegm with a bulb syringe. Neither one of us correlated the cough/congestion to reflux. It’s been a week without any change. I hate listening to his little chest rattle all day long!

My question: is it normal for a reflux infant to have this type of cough and chest rattling? Am I going to have to deal with this until he outgrows it? Or after a week of this, should I take him back and have him re-checked for pneumonia or RSV? I want to eliminate reflux before I take him back to the pedi.

Any help for this newbie is appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: I forgot to mention that DS is exclusively breastfed. I am now back at work and pump-expressing and he’s getting b/milk in a bottle. Motheroftwo2013-01-14 15:27:02