Where to go now?? Help!

[hellbennt]

good luck!

please post about your ped GI after your visit (I’m sure I’ll remind you then, LOL!)

~laura

[Anonymous]

We went to the GI specialist on thursday. He strongly suspects that she has a gastric emptying delay and that is why she eats a little but then stops. She is now scheduled for a study to determine if this is the problem. Overall though, he didn’t seem concerned about her, since she has maintained her growth on the same curve (3rd percentile for height and 9th for weight). Its good that he isnt that concerned about her growth, but it also seems she might be low priority as a result. Plus he doesnt have to feed her 6 times a day. One weird thing was that he said that her reflux isnt the problem and that all babies have reflux. He seemed to be of the opinion that unless they have recurring pneumonia or ear infections, then reflux isnt a problem. He said we should stop the Prevacid. Im not so sure about this. I read that gastric emptying delay and reflux go hand in hand, so I guess treating the gastric emptying delay could help with the reflux problems. I read a little about the drugs to treat this (Reglan and another I cant remember), and Reglan seemed a little scary, although he seemed to think this was the better drug.

Oh well, we will see on tuesday if this is the problem. If so, will have to decide on a treatment (or not). Does anyone else know anything about this?

Also – have given up on the Elecare for now…Amelia started refusing even the 1/2/ oz Elecare per 4 oz Good Start. The GI also did not seem concerned about an allergy.

[hellbennt]

Can’t type much, I’m on my phone…do a search for erythromyacin (sp?) This is the ‘preferred’ med for DGE, use search button, upper right hand corner of screen & search all forums & go BACK 6 months and OLDER…as for Prevacid, if baby is refluxing & in PAIN w/o the meds, then it’s needed…

[Anonymous]

Update: Amelia went for the delayed gastric emptying (DGE) study. Luckily she drank the minimum amount to do the text, but not a drop more! Anyway, results show she does have DGE. They said that it is normal for the stomach to empty 40-70% in 60 minutes, but Amelia’s stomach only emptied 26%. The doctor is recommending Reglan. He said that he has treated babies with Reglan for 10 years and only once seen a side effect. He would give Reglan to his own children. If we dont want to do that, then Erythromycin is the other option. He would put her on for a month and then take her off to see if there is any change.

We are pretty undecided about treatment. Im scared of Reglan. Initially I though maybe we could stick it out with no treatment, but things have gone downhill the last few days. She still is maintaining her growth though…We may try Erythromycin. Im going to post in another thread and solicit info in Erythromycin. I did read the other posts on the board.

The Dr. did mention today that an elemental formula would be good – so, I may try to take that up again!!

[Anonymous]

Update: After discussion with the specialist and pediatrician, we decided not to treat Amelia’s DGE. They both said that her growth was ok, and so the treatment would be more for us than for her. We did stop giving her Prevacid, and that seemed to have no impact, so I actually think her reflux problem has resolved.

She still has issues feeding (refuses her bottle), but I started feeding her while rocking in a rocking chair, and that has made a big difference. It seems like she is more relaxed and then eats more. She is also eating more solids and seems to do fine with them, but wont eat both solids and formula. I did give up on the Elecare, because she totally refused to have anything to do with it. Her weight gain wasn’t great last month, but it was pretty consistent with how she has been doing overall. Oh well, we are hanging in! At least she doesn’t seem to be in pain, she just feels full or something.

[Anonymous]

if her weight gain is ok and she doesn’t seem to be in pain, it may just be that she is going to be a small child—-i’ve had a houseful of small children. feeding her 6 times a day doesn’t sound particularly out of the norm to me for an infant—especially since you know she has DGE—she’s not going to want to eat very much at a time. i thought reglan was being pulled off the market—-i’ve seen a lot of adds for a class-action lawsuit—-did it never happen?

[Author]

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