New to the mommying a reflux infant

Anne –

Are you being given actual name brand zantac or the generic ranitidine?

Name brand zantac has a fair amount of alcohol in it, which can further upset baby’s tummy and cause restlesness. If you are on zantac, you might want to try switching to generic.

Ours had really bad gas as well from birth to about 2.5 months. He would always draw his legs up to his tummy after he ate and then stretch out stiff as a board – that would go on for about 30 minutes until he finally passed out. We put gas drops in every bottle (we later just gave it to him straight right before he ate). Actually we tried every remedy imaginable – gas drops, gripe water, warm towels, pedaling his legs, tummy massage, etc.

Eventually the gas seemed to subside on its own – he either learned to pass it easier or his tummy matured enough for him ti handle it. He still gets little bouts of gas sometimes, but it was nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

Just on zantac. The ped had him on the lowest dose for his weight (1.5 mg/kg.) Didn’t do much so after reading up on these blogs I raised it to 3mg/kg and saw results. He went on zantac beginning of Feb. He would be good for a week, and then he’d start having issues again – I would bump up his dose a tad. Same cycle – he would be better for a week, then have issues again.

Last week of Feb the zantac stopped working. Doc put him on prevacid but pharmacy only had the compound. I wasn’t happy about that, given how unstable it can be. It was also, again, the lowest dose possible. I kept him on the compound for 3 days, with zero improvement. He also gagged when taking it. So I put him BACK on the zantac, highest dose for his weight. For some reason, the zantac worked again.

Saw GI doc in mid-March, said up the zantac more, explore a hypo formula, and come back in 3 weeks. He also told me that peds can only can only authorize low doses of these meds, while GI docs can give higher ones. I was also told by my ped that she could only write a script for zantac or prevacid – anything else I’d need a GI for. Not sure if that is true in every state, but it is here.

So like i said in my other post, zantac worked again, with continual upping, until a week ago and now DS is back to fussing/screaming/crying on bottle. Have GI appt next week so I suppose we will try prevacid solutabs (or something else) along with the hypo formula he has been on for 2 days.

It’s interesting that the zantac only helped my DS with eating and burping. He didn’t cry on the bottle and would be calm during burps. He would still often fuss on his bottle (stretch, wiggle, kick – but now he cries and resists burps like the plague.) The zantac did nothing for his other symptoms (general fusiness, and congestion).