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Christy, February 2015
I have 8 month old twins who have struggled with their reflux from birth. When my girls were new, my real pediatrician was on maternity leave. So I went to the other doctors in the practice. That was the “turmoil” phase. About three weeks before her return to work, I started zegerid (more to follow about this). When she came back, I made an appointment and discussed my girls’case with her.
We tried seven (7) formulas in the turmoil phase: enfamil newborn, enfamil infant, similac neosure 22, holle, nutramigen, gentlease (for the constipation…epic disaster), nannycare. All of these formula changes took place over a 5.5 month period.
My girls were weighing in “okay” at each appointment, so the doctors kept telling us they were fine. However, getting them to eat (the bottle…they were only given breast milk for a short time) was beyond difficult. When the doctors would say they are fine, I would reply with “it doesn’t feel fine that it takes two hours to feed them and then they really only eat when they fall asleep and we sneak the bottle in.” I honestly feel that their weight gain in the beginning was due to our pure tenacity. I wanted my babies to thrive, not be “fine.” Refusing to eat, and spitting up all day and screaming constantly, is not “fine” to me. I should note that we have an older son who also had reflux and we managed his reflux with compounded prevacid for one year, so babies and reflux are not new to me.
I finally called my pediatrician’s office and asked for them to test a stool sample. They agreed. It was clear. Then I went to our first GI (a young GI, fresh out of school) who wanted us to do a trial on nutramigen. I knew that didn’t seem right. And, it wasn’t. In the meantime, I was waiting to get in with a more renowned GI. When I did get in to see him, he took one look at the girls and said, jokingly, “why are you here?” (He said this because they are not skinny….but they are also not chunky… One was 15%tile and the other 20th%tile, or something close to that – you get the picture).
He (second, more renowned, GI) did another stool test; it came back clear. He wanted us to increase our prevacid and change to enfamil AR. The issue I have with AR is that my girls struggle with constipation and AR would not work without huge amounts of prune juice (which made the reflux worse). Also, I should note our own family’s personal conviction about clean eating and not liking the ingredients in american formulas. I expressed to all the doctors that we are mindful of ingredients and would like to use a healthier formula for them. The doctors really didn’t go out of their way to help me solve the girls issues more creatively. I just knew I could figure out a way to give them the healthiest formula I could afford AND manage the reflux.
I then started researching and found Marci Kids. After some time, I felt confident enough to compound my own zegerid. It was a game changer; it was night and day improvement! I was so excited; I printed the research for our pediatrician, who was back from her maternity leave, highlighted parts for her, and discussed with her how I went about my decision making process. She was very excited about reading it all and was/is extremely supportive. The best results for us, regarding formula: nannycare (goat milk based). They are still on it. Things aren’t perfect but I don’t expect them to be. They continue to spit up like crazy, but they aren’t screaming! And, they are chugging 7-8oz bottles at each feeding. I am so thankful for zegerid, this group, and parents that don’t take “no” for an answer. It is because of you all that we have this information available and that is what gave me the confidence to take matters into my own hands. Thank you!!!
