Saw a GI and a Reglan Question

[Anonymous]

We saw a GI for the first time last week. He is a new doc in town. The one I really wanted to see won’t be able to see us for another couple of months. DS is 8 weeks old and is on 15mg prevacid solutab and breastfed.

I have been on TED for close to 1.5 months now. I uped his prevacid dose from 15mg to 22mg, 15mg at night and 7 in the morning and saw an improvment right away but that didn’t last for more than a week. All of a sudden, he started throwing up and spitting up a lot more and seemed in so much pain when he is pooping.

This new GI didn’t want to increase the prevacid dose instead he wanted to take him of prevacid, put him on axid 3 times a day and give him Reglan 3 times a day. He also tested his poop and it showed some blood so he sent us home with Elecare and asked to give it to him for a few days and then we can go back to breastfeeding once his guts heal as he puts it.

I had read some horrible stories about Reglan and told him I really do not want to give it to him. He said in lower doses he shouldn’t have any side effects. I also told him that we tried Zantac and it didn’t help and I didn’t want to take him off prevacid because it heals the esaphogus on top of neutralizing the acid.

He said to trust him he has seen many kids do really well on reglan.

I asked him about the gastric emptiying study and he said they do not do that on newborns.

Anyway, I went home even more depressed and confused and instead of doing what this guy said, I uped my son’s dose to 30mg a day. 15mg in the morning and 15mg at night. We saw an improvment right away but that again didn’t last and my son is now throwing, spitting up and having yucky bowel movments more than before.

We haven’t tried the Elecare yet. Nothing changed in my diet and my son is not sick.

I am just baffled and readt to try what this doc is suggesting but am

really worried about the sied effects of Reglan. I called his regular doc and he said he wouldn’t hesitate to give him Reglan and that he has never seen any bad side effects on it. He used to give it to his patients all the time 5 years ago but stopped since there was some study that showed that it didn’t really do anything.

So my question is after all this rambling. has anybody put their kid on Reglan? And what was your experience with it. The doc prescribed 0.6mg 3 times a day. Is it worth the shot? I am just terrified of the side effects

Oh, he also said that the prevacid can cause loose and greenish stool in some babies.

[hellbennt]

I just posted a ;ong response. it disappeared. erg

OK:

this is short & sweet- not angry- just condensed-not bossy-just fast

1) get another dr:

I would never say to go from PPI ‘back’ to H2blocker. Me, I would stick w/ the prevacid

2) try reglan- you can always stop. but i don’t think it’s here nor there. if you see a bad reaction, give benedryl and throw the reglan away.

3) call la leche league 1-877-452-5324

4) find & go to aa Int’l board certified lactation consultant

http://www.ilca.org/falc.html

5) when you say TEd what exactly do you eat? any chance you’re taking a medication or vitamin or supplemnt w/ hidden traces of milk or soy?

6) go post on yahoorefluxbreastfeeding site

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/breastfeedingreflux/

(copy & paste your post & tell exactly what you’re eating)

7) email dr philips! [email protected]

copy & paste your post- tell him (& us) exactly what you’re eating

8) read this:

There’s an article at Dr Jack Newman’s site about the use of Pancrease
(digestive enzymes) to resolve blood in the stools.

info here
http://www.drjacknewman.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&itemid=120

article from Journal Human Lactation
http://www.drjacknewman.com/images/stories/Articles_pdf/schachjhumlact2002.pdf

9)and then email the mama who posted this- she’s from the yahoo board- i will PM you her email

10) go here; Mspi/allergy info(‘main page’): https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2697&PN=1&TPN=1 and click on the link Misconceptions about elemental formula

11)

hellbennt2008-02-14 19:15:40

[hellbennt]

ok this site is being wonky for me!

about elecare: not that I don’t think that some babies need formula! but get another opinion bcse there are 3 things this dr told you that don’t sound ‘right’ to me;

1) switching away from PPI

2) reglan

3) telling to give elecare a few days. you’d need to give it 2 or 3 weeks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Laura,

I have seen an excellent LC who is also a nurse practitioner 3 times already. I don’t have OAL. Most days I don’t take any supplements except expecta for nursing moms

[Anonymous]

I am eating lamb, turkey, rice cereal, rice bread from the health food store (it is sweetened with some fruit juice), I drink some cafeine free green tea but has only started that recently (once a day). Pear juice, water, sweet potato, zuchini. squash (yellow and butternut)

[hellbennt]

hmmm. check the ingredients in nursing moms?

change your toothpaste?

any milk or soy proteins in the cereal? the bread?

is there wheat in the bread? is it wheat free?

if there’s wheat in the cereal or bread, try cutting it out and finding rice & rice products w/o wheat? try this for 2 weeks and have stool tested again?

then maybe cut out rice for 2 weeks and see what happens?

then you’d be left w/ nothing, though…

this stinks!

well, try #s:

1, 2, 6, 7, 8,9,10 & ask lactation consultant about blood in stools…

[Anonymous]

Bread is gluten, dairy, soy and wheat free. It is made of brown rice.

I need to look at the expecta supplement. It is supposed to supplement for moms that don’t eat fish.

[Anonymous]

I h.ad made a list that somebody had posted under the TED diet of what they buy, what brands and so forth and went out and bought all that

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry you’re struggling so much right now. I just wanted to say that it was a big letdown for me too when we took my first son to the ped GI. He sounds a lot like your guy — instead of upping his Prevacid Rx, he wanted us to try Reglan. But we decided not to go that route and increase the Prevacid ourselves. Luckily, with some samples I’d been given and the prescription for 15 mg, we were able to stretch the solutabs for the higher dose until he outgrew reflux around a year. It worked like a charm for my first son.

So, with my second son I didn’t even bother trying to get him to a GI. It seems that because they’re specialists, their minds tend to be made up already about high PPI dosing — they’re either for it or they’re not. So we hunted around and switched pediatricians til we finally found one who would give us the 30 mg Rx we needed. When you say that you increased your son’s dose to 30 mg, for how long?

One thing I want to mention is that when we did get Nathan on 30 mg of the solutabs (around 2 1/2 months old), he showed great improvement for a couple of days and then was back to pooping all the time (messy poops) and sleeping terribly, but he didn’t seem to be in REFLUX pain anymore…it was something else. Anyway, long story short — I found out from this site that the solutabs contain lactose and my first son is definitely lactose intolerant (although the solutabs did not bother him, but he was 10 months old when he started them), so I thought Nathan might be too (especially since he was milk protein intolerant like his big bro). We switched him over to Prevacid powder packets (no lactose) and that was it! He’s still on the packets, but I’m afraid they’re discontinuing them so he’s on his last box. He’s old enough now to switch to Prevacid capsules (which have to be given with a tiny bit of applesauce, as I understand it), but I don’t know if you could go that route yet.

Anyway, I’m trying to get my thoughts together 🙂 I agree with Laura that an H2 blocker like Axid is probably NOT what your son needs. If Zantac didn’t help him, I would highly doubt that Axid would. To me it sounds like he needs the marci-kids dose of a PPI — maybe try a different form of Prevacid (some pharmacies probably still have a box or two of the powder packets) or Zegerid? I know it’s rare for a newborn to be lactose intolerant, but it does happen and my boys are proof. In fact, I read somewhere the other day that if a child is born with lactose intolerance, it tends to be COMPLETE lactose intolerance. I was SO skeptical that the lactose in the solutabs could possibly be enough to bother Nathan, but it absolutely did. I’m still nursing, and if I eat just the tiniest bit of lactose, he poops like crazy and naps/sleeps terribly for a day or two. I’ve tried going back to the solutab, too, and the SAME exact reaction every time.

Last thing, you could try Reglan but I would definitely not stop giving the PPI. The last thing you want is to stop it, have terrible results, then have to start it again and wait 2 weeks for it to work again!

Good luck! Please keep us posted on whatever you decide.

[Anonymous]

I was also going to suggest that maybe it’s a lactose problem since you are using the solutabs. They also have aspartame in them ,so maybe he is reacting to that too???

I have to agree with Laura about the Reglan suggestion, especially since the GI wasn’t willing to do an emptying study, as Reglan treats DGE. What did he say the Reglan would help do?

Also, the Elecare, from what I understand is basically as “clean” as your breastmilk at this point since you’ve been on the TED. Unless you are getting something foreign in your diet via your vitamin, etc. then your breastmilk really should be ok.

I know you are faced with alot of decisions right now. Hang in there and listen to your gut. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

You have gotten a ton of really good advice here. The only things I would like to say is also what Naomi mentioned. Your breastmilk is already allergy free unless he is reacting to rice. There have been some babies that are allergic to rice. I know what a pain that would be to stop using that though. Sorry, just a thought. Back to the bf, I wouldn’t try the formula even for a few days. Your supply will go down and also anything new you try is probably going to work for a week and then stop working. So, if you were to try it and it work for a week and you think it’s helping and stop nursing, it’s possible it could stop working and by time you find that out you would have a hard time getting your supply back up. This is what happened with my son Luke. With my son Justice I decided that noone was going to convince me to stop and they tryed, but didn’t succeed. I’m glad I didn’t stop because bf helped Justice so much. Keep us updated. Oh, Reglan many moms have taken this to get their breastmilk supply up and have had bad reactions. So, to say that couldn’t or wouldn’t happen to a baby is crazy. My friend is a La Leache League leader and she has talked with at least 3 moms that have tryed it. Two of the moms said they felt like they were crawling out of their skin and one mom went into a major depression. Not to scare you, but to say the drs. are wrong. Baby’s can’t talk and tell us what their feeling so of course, the drs. don’t know of those effects in babies. I would if you are going to try it to watch your baby very closely for any changes.

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