Reflux, but is there something else going on?

[Anonymous]

My daughter is 13 weeks old and weighs 12 lbs 15 ounces sleeps well and seems happy most of the time. Since she was just a month old we have had issues with her vomiting up entire feeds at least once a day. Once a day turned into twice a day at two months and she was exhibiting other signs of reflux. At that point we knew something wasnt right. The ped diagnose her with reflux and prescribed zantac. The zantac was working great for about a week, then the vomiting resumed. Gave the ped a call and she decided to put her on prevacid. Every day that she was on prevacid for a few hours she would arch her back and scream and every time her tummy was touched she would scream bloody murder. That did not start until we started the prevacid, so I decided to take her off of it. We took her off of it and gave her the zantac and the screaming stopped, but vomiting resumed again. We thought all was fine as long as she wasnt exhibiting the typical symptoms of reflux because as soon as she would vomit she would take another full feed. After about a week or so of that, the reflux symptoms came back 10 fold. She had taken 4 ounces and then refused to eat for a full 8 hours. Finally got her to eat another 4 ounces and she vomited what seemed like that full feed and the 4 ounces that she had 8 hours before. We took her back to the ped who decided to send her for an upper gi and sono to rule out pyloric stenosis. She was negative for pyloric but could see her refluxing most of the barium in the xray. So the doctor decided to try her on axid. The day after we started her on the axid was even worse. We couldnt get her to take but 11 ounces in a 24 hour period. So I tried calling the doctor twice and nobody had returned my calls. At this point I was completely freaking out so I took her to childrens hospital. At childrens they did another upper gi which was also negative told me to force feed her pedialyte and sent us home . So after a few more days of the same thing I decided to take her back to the ped and she had gained a few ounces (which is beyond me how she could do that with not even eating half of what she used to), so the doc decided to give the meds a full week to work. After that call her and she would figure out what to do from there. She said something about maybe getting her into our childrens house of baylor for a feeding evaluation. Im starting to think that all of these doctors are thinking that Im lying considering she seems well hydrated and her weight is fine. She is my second child, so I know what Im doing and my gut tells me that there is something more going on. If this message seems like a lot of rambling, I apologize. I am at my witts end and Im afraid that they are going to just wait for my girl to start wasting away before they do anything.

[hellbennt]

hi & welcome!

first let’s calculate PROPER zantac dosing- it is very weight sensitive and babies seem to plateau on it and then they ‘move on’ to a PPI…

please do not just take my word on this! read here (link is coming, don’t worry) so you know where my calculations and information comes from- I am not a medical professiona, I’ve ‘just’ been on this forum for EIGHT (!) years now and, while I don’t profess to know everything, I sure do know a lot!

Zantac dosing– my/other’s question (has axid & pepcid doses, too):

https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8288&PN=1

ok so maximum zantac by weight is 10mgs per kilo

so your baby weighs 12lbs 15ounces

that’s 5.9 kilos

so 10 x 5.9 = 59

that’s 59mgs per day of zantac

your bottle of liquid zantac says 15mgs/ml

this means that for every 1ml of liquid you give, there’s 15mgs of the medicine zantac in that 1ml of liquid

so 59 divided by 15 = 3.9

that’s 3.9 mls of zantac that you can give in a 24hr time period

you can divide the dose into two doses however you like-

a ‘higher’ portion in the evening, if sleeping is a big issue, etc-

the doses don’t have to be exactly even…

what form of prevacid couldn’t she tolerate? was it the solutabs?

this is not unheard of with the solutabs.

please read:

Prevacid 101:

scroll to the last page of this post, (it’s actually also about other PPIs like prilosec, too)
https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1936&PN=0&TPN=1

if ‘they’ decide on more tests, you might want to consider a test for DGE Delayed Gastric Emptying…It means that food is digested and moved through the GI tract much more slowly than average which not only contributes to reflux symptoms but can cause constipation- how are poops?

[Anonymous]

She was on solutabs. I asked the pediatrician if she thought the milk was sitting on her tummy longer than it should be and she just said that it probably wasn’t because she’s not a preemie.

[hellbennt]

ok, well, research all you can and keep DGE in the back of your mind, just in case…it’s not just preemies who have DGE…but anyway…

in the meantime, read all you can so that you can be the best advocate you can be for your baby!

I have a LOT to say and most of it’s here, in a link called ‘groupie intro.‘
it’s looong but TRULY will help you- read through it, refer back to it, scroll through it/skim through it. You’ll find yourself coming back to it!
https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=853)

you can do this!

so glad you found us!
laura

[Anonymous]

DGE has been on my mind, which is why i threw it out there to see what the pediatrician said. I’m thinking I may fire the pediatrician or demand a referral to a GI specialist. I dont want it to sound like I’m telling her she doesnt know what she’s talking about, but I’m also not going to let my child suffer.

[Anonymous]

I forgot to answer your how is poops question. She used to poop about twice a day and it was your normal consistency. Now she poops about once a day or every other day and when it first comes out it is like nuggets, but then becomes softer towards the end of her poop. I have even seen blood steaks in there a couple of times, but that may have been because she was straining to get the nuggets out. Doctor just called me back btw and said she wants to get her in for another pointless follow up to check her weight. She also faxed over paperwork to Our Childrens House of Baylor for a feeding evaluation. I’m excited to get the eval done just in case they are thinking that I’m crazy that way they can see it for themselves and maybe the specialists there will know what to do.

Oh and I’m glad I found you guys also. cinnamongirl2011-09-28 18:50:28

[Anonymous]

My son was full term and over 9 pounds and had DGE…… The DGE was actually messing up his meds. There was food/acid remaining in his gut so when I gave him his prevacid solutabs the meds were getting destoyed before it got in his system. He was on 30 mg with NO relief. I started mixing caracream from Reflux Solutions with prevacid capsules. That solved the med problem. It was so effective I was able to drop him to 15 mg a day. Then I added Mirilax to my arsenal and that helped keep things moving which helped with the DGE and the reflux.

[Anonymous]

When your son had dge was he losing weight when he first started refusing food? Or was he still gaining? When this first started she was 12 lbs 11 ounces and a week later she was 12 lbs 15 ounces. Its just beyond me how she can be eating as little as 11 ounces a day and still be putting on weight.

[Anonymous]

Ryan never lost weight but he fell further and further down on the weight chart every month. He started at 92% and got all the way down to 3% by the time he was 18 months old. He was never hungry even as a new born in the hospital.

[Anonymous]

So is it something that they are born with? Or can they develop it over time?

[Author]

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