Reflux and Gas- I'm dying!

[Anonymous]

Hi–

I am new to the boards. I have a 9 wk old daughter who was diagnosed with GERD at 4 weeks because she would literally choke if we laid her down.

We were on Prilosec and she had started sleeping better but then rebounded with gas pain. She would sort of wake at around 3 a.m. wrench around around in her sleep and cry out for the rest of the night, but she was still asleep. I tried everything from pumping her feet, to feeding (and eventually not because it made it worse) feeding her. Also tried Mylicon and Gripe Water. Nothing helped.

I was worried it might be the baking soda in the Prilosec, so we moved her to the Prevacid solutabs over the weekend (once a day, 7.5 mg). It hasn’t kicked in, but the Prilosec has worn off, so now we are back to square one with BOTH the reflux choking her and waking her up, and the gas issue. I feel like we take one step forward (she had finally been sleeping in her crib) and then 3 back (now she’s refluxing, and sleeping on me again).

Has anyone had this issue with gas, too? I am BF, but am about to start to introduce formula because with lack of sleep, nursing (oh and did I mention we are just getting over an ear infection which led to thrush) I am dying. She has been off all other meds except prilosec (and then prevacid) for a week. I had really been hoping it was the Nystatin causing the gas, but no luck.

[Anonymous]

I have to tell you, after reading to the bottom of this post- our WORST reflux flare EVER with Landen in the 10 or so months he had it was from THRUSH!!!! Nystatin does not work fast enough. If your DD still has it, call the pedi and ask for diflucan for her. They make an oral syrup based kind that she can take. it will get rid of it so fast. OMG, thrush is sooo bad for refluxers!!

Also, give the solutabs time to kick in. In the meantime you can try giving Mylanta Cherry Supreme spaced 4 hrs apart. Gripe water always made Landen so much worse. Ever drank water when you had heartburn? Fuel to the fire! I don’t have much more advice other than I think she’ll be much better w/o the thrush and when those solutabs kick in. I can totally sympathize. been there and done that! HUGS!!!!

[Anonymous]

I am so sorry, I was going to suggest trying the Mylanta too until the Prevacid kicks in.

[Anonymous]

Also, try some probiotics. They will help get the thrush under control and even aid in digestion to help with the gas.

[Anonymous]

I dono’t have much to add the other ladies covered it. But Mylanta works wonders when they are getting the meds right.

[hellbennt]

the prevacid dose may not be ‘proper’

check http://www.marci-kids.com for up-to-date dosing info

if you can hold off, I wouldn’t switch to formula just yet…it’s hard to do too many changes at once (meds, switching formulas, etc)

please please read/skim/scroll through here, as

I have a LOT to say & (most of) it’s here:

J

Groupie Intro: my intro: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=853&PN=1&TPN=1

so glad you found us!

~laura:

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for the encouragement. My ped. didn’t know about the Mylanta. Do you know how much to give?

[hellbennt]

mylanta cherry supreme has no aluminum in it- dafe for newborns, even-

give 1ml here & there- I’d say up to 5mls spread out over the course of a day-you’ll know if its too much if you see loose stools- if you see loose stools (well, breastfed baby stools can be loose) then you can back off 🙂

[Anonymous]

Do you have dairy in your diet? It could be worth a trial of you going completely dairy free if you are nursing (not just eliminating milk but all hidden sources of dairy). Ear infections can be caused by milk intolerance, and my kids always got unbelievable gas and discomfort when they were getting a food they could not tolerate. Milk intolerance can also be a cause of reflux.

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much Laura and Sheri!

I found some Mylanta, and will try that out this evening. We went back to the dr. yesterday to do a quick check of her ears and they are clear and the thrush is gone. Yeah! One obstacle down.

Her doctor was out sick, so I saw another dr. at the practice, which was good for a second opinion. He did a really through exam and said she looked good and is still gaining weight.

The dr. also suggested for me to back off of dairy, nuts, and citrus, and keep a food diary, which I have started and said that if I do decide to wean (he would never suggest this unless I was going to do it anyway) then I should try soy , and not milk based formulas based on her previous reaction to AR. So he gave me some Prosobee to try, but I agree with the PP that I should wait until the drug kicks in.

Poor Catherine has been so fussy (and outright screaming at times) the last day or two, and it starts every time she reluxes. I think she’s geting to the point where her throat is burning again. I just feel so bad for her and am competely second guessing the change in meds. At least she was comfy during the day with Prilosec.

Thanks to this forum I now know she has silent reflux. This sight is really a god-send. I can’t tell you how releaved I am to know that there is hope and help out there.

[hellbennt]

if you have any zantac (or pepsid or axid or tagament) you can give that, too- just give it 4hrs seperate from the prevacid

this might help until you get a proper dose of prevacid (unless the http://www.marci-kids.com calculator says that 7.5mgs of prevacid is ok for her weight & age)

doing the elimination diet is HARd, don[t get me wrong, but it was worth it for me- turns out it wasn’treally my diet, but I was glad to ‘know’ it from doeing the diet…

a food journal is good- look at the effects of what you eat about 3-5 hrs after you’ve eaten it

however, the food journal won’t work for those foods w/ proteins that ‘build up’ in the system, like milk & soy- for wexample: it helped me to know that my baby reacted to tomato, citrus, eggpant & tuna- but he didn’t have mspi- it takes a good full two or three weeks even to get the milk & soy out of your system

hang in there!

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately. we started with Prilosec, so it’s all I have.

Thanks for the tip on how long I should wait to expect to see it in her (4 hours). I wasn’t really sure.

[hellbennt]

I thought she was on prevacid? “so we moved her to the Prevacid solutabs over the weekend (once a day, 7.5 mg). “

anyway, I hope it’s a ‘proper’ dose (http://www.marci-kids.com will confirm this)…hang in there…

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the confusion – she started Prevacid over the weekend. We had her on Prilosec 2X a day for about a month and had gone to the max dose. She was getting a lot of relief during the day when she was upright 90% of the time, but it wasn’t enough at night even though I had her in a bouncer or on a wedge, so the Ped. thought we’d try Prevacid to see if it would do any better. She also had a ton of weird gas in the middle of the night, and I thought it might be the sodium bicarbonate it was mixed with.

Back when we started the Prilosec, it kicked in within about 3 days. I still am not seeing any relief with the Prevacid. I am going to take the MARCI Kids recs into her doctor tomorrow.

I was wondering and didn’t see any info on it, but does the Zegerid kick in fairly quickly, or is it also around two weeks? I ask because timing the Prevacid is really tricky and when I start work in a few weeks it may fall to her daycare provider, which makes me nervous. I wonder if we should have started there.

I also looked and unfortunately we don’t have any GI specialists for kids in my area. Her Ped. is really supportive, so at least we have that.

[Anonymous]

By the way- the Mylanta worked like a charm. I gave her some before bed and she slept almost 5 hours straight!!! Compared to waking every hour, this was like heaven!!

Is it possible that it is helping witht he gas as well as the reflux?

[Author]

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