MSPI, Prevacid, lactose, and Zegerid

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone! I’m really happy to have found this site. Sorry, this might be a long one…

My wife and I have a daughter who is nearly 4 months old. At about 6 weeks we found she was MSPI and we immediately went to Neocate. Since she had cried most waking hours prior to Neocate, we really were hoping for some relief. None came our way. She continued to cry, fuss, spit up, and vomit. She was prescribed prevacid solutabs. At about 10 weeks her GI dr. performed scope on her esophogus and an upper-GI. Both procedures came back with normal results. We were told she is a healthy baby with collic and stopped the solutabs as they didn’t seem to do anything.

We continued to try and comfort her to keep her as calm as possible but she continued to cry. She started to improve a bit with her crying but continued to be challenging. We tried gripe water and mylicon drops but both did not seem to help.

Last week she was exceptionally fussy. She was arching her back during feedings, excessive gassiness, plenty of spits and vomit and her diahrea led to an extremely red diaper rash. After a few days she was a little better and then had another episode of what seemed to be an extremely sour stomach.

After the second bout of this, it was New Year’s Eve. No doctor available and a cupboard that still had prevacid. Just to help her feel better, we tried the prevacid. Within the first 24 hours she was better. After 48 hours, she was a new kid. However, she started to push the bottle away and didn’t eat quite as well as before the meds. But, she wasn’t spitting nearly as much with no vomits, diahrea or diaper rash. We are now 5 days in and she’s starting to trend backwards. I recently found that prevacid has lactose. We’ve been prescribed Zegerid. Has anyone had any similar situations with prevacid and has Zegerid helped? I’m just hoping to help our little girl feel better.

Thanks!!

[hellbennt]

hi there! it might be the aspertame in the soutabs, as lactose is a milk sugar, not a milk proteins and mspi is about proteins….but you never know…

have you checked the dose on http://www.marci-kids.com?

also solutabs need to be given on an empty stomach followed by a ‘meal’ 30 minutes later…

if you haven’t already read this, this should help:

Prevacid 101(last post on the page): https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1936&PN=0&TPN=1

[Anonymous]

We were told by our GI to put the solutabs with the neocate. That’s what we’ve been doing…

Do you think that would make a substantial difference in effectiveness?

[Anonymous]

The meds will not work if they aren’t given on an empty stomach, most doctors don’t tell you this, but it is VERY important to give on an empty stomach and followed by a meal 30-60 min later.

[Anonymous]

That’s a helpful bit of advice. Unfortunately, we’ve just moved on to zegerid today.

Here is our dilemma – on Prevacid (remember, this was our second try with it) she started out wonderfully. After two nights of taking it, she began sleeping through the night. However, she started struggling with eating. Pushing the bottle away, talking during eating, just an overall disinterest in eating…which was very unusual for her. But, her behavior improved dramatically. She was fussing much less, her BMs were normal neocate ones with no pain during toots or anything. Initially, her spits ups were less frequent, but had increased back to her “normal” (usually one major throw up and two or three spits with each feeding).

This morning we started the zegerid. She hasn’t spit up too much with feedings today, and she ate much easier today. However, her behavior has been much more challenging tonight – more crying and overall discomfort. After giving her the second half of the dose this evening, she threw up a lot. I’m not sure if she’s just not used to the new meds, or what exactly happened. Since then, she seems more uncomfortable.

We just don’t know what to think anymore. Do we go with the sleep through the night, happier baby who doesn’t want to eat as much (25 ounces per day) or do we go in another direction with the new medicine and see what happens? This entire experience has been nothing but trial after trial with nothing but difficult results.

Any ideas from what you’ve experienced? I guess we’re just going to go forward with the new meds for two weeks and see what we get…

[Anonymous]

There is a ton of sodium bicarb in the zegerid and many babies on here have not been able to tolerate it b/c of that. I only have experience with Prevacid as it worked wonders for my lo. But there is also a “honeymoon” phase that tends to happen with both med and formula changes and maybe that is what happened with the prevacid. Also none of the meds are going to stop the spitting. They may actually increase it b/c the babies aren’t in pain anymore and therefore it doesn’t hurt to let it out so it may truly increase. There have even been a few cases of silent refluxers becoming regular refluxers when on meds b/c it doesn’t hurt anymore and they just let it all out. Good Luck. HTH.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Beth. Hopefully, she’ll get a better handle on the new meds. Our doctor and the pharmacist recommended giving her the entire dose at once using 1 to 2 tbsp of water. We split that in half and gave her half this morning (no problems then) and half late this afternoon. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

I’ve heard about the honeymoon phase with prevacid. We weren’t entirely concerned with the extra spitting, she’s done that since birth. Our main concern was the amount of formula she would eat in a day. For her weight and age it’s recommended she eat between 28 and 32 ounces. We were pushing her to get 25 ounces in a day. She’d sleep throught the night and usually get in 5 feedings (about 3.5 hours apart) and hopefully 5 ounces. We just can’t find an explanation for her not wanting to eat. After 3 ounces she just didn’t want to eat anymore!

Her last two feedings this evening have been very good. She pounded down all her formula with minimal spit ups. She was more fussy tonight and required constant attention (ie, me in front of her playing guitar and singing).

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

One last thing I just thought about. After the GI ped performed the scope down our little one’s throat and the after the upper GI, our doctor said that our daughter is perfectly healthy. She simply has MSPI and is colicky. We asked if she had reflux or if anything else could explain what appeared to us to be pain and discomfort, and he again handed it off as being a happy spitter and colic. She has clearly not been happy and I still am not convinced it is just colic. Is this the same kind of advice others have had?

[hellbennt]

experience:

YOU are your baby’s advocate

YOU know your baby & if baby is in pain

research is key!

Helpful links:

Wondertime article/colic solved: (p2 tells you probiotics- see link below for more info)

http://wondertime.go.com/learning/article/interview-colic-expert.html

Mspi/allergy info(‘main page’): vb https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2697&PN=1&TPN=1

Look for link ‘how to administer solutabs: Prevacid 101(last post on the page): https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1936&PN=0&TPN=1

Probiotics, brands used: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8970&PN=1

[Anonymous]

Hey there. I used Zegerid with my son and had great success. I would highly recommend splitting up the doses throughout the day for maximum and continual effect. Also, what kind of packets are you using? 20 mg or 40 mg? If you are using the 20 mg. there is ALOT of sodium bicarb in them that can cause babies to puke them up or even have tummy pains. My son couldn’t handle them, so we had to move to the 40 mg. packs. These you have to mix with added buffer (like Mylanta or Tums) because there isnt’ enough bicarb in them. But the Mylanta helps with the taste.

I’m not sure how you are administering the Zegerid, but using just a tablespoon or two of water doesn’t sound quite right to me. Check out http://www.marci-kids.com for the info about how to correctly mix the Zegerid packets. When we used it, we mixed a 40 mg. pack with 6.5 mls of water to get 10 mls of medicine at a 4 mg/ml ratio. This site also has a dosing calculator so you can check to see if he is getting enough.

Please PM me if you have any more questions, and I’ll try to check back.

[Anonymous]

Hi Naomi,

Thanks for the reply and sorry I’m so slow to get back. We actually discontinued the Zegerid as she threw up massively after the three doses we administered. We used the 20 mg packets and split it into two doses. The pharmacist and the GI dr. recommended once per day. Well, she didn’t even get a half-packet down so I’m not sure what they were thinking.

We have gone back to Prevacid (I don’t think we should have changed from the beginning) and she is doing very well. We’re almost a week into it and she is more comfortable, less fussy, eating better, and sleeping very well. Thanks to everyone who has replied to my post. This is a great site for those of us who previously thought there was little hope to help our little ones.

I think we’re figuring our little one out slowly but surely!

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