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Hi!
I’m a new poster but I’ve read almost every post on this very informative website. My son is 2 months old and weighs 11.5 lbs. He is a silent refluxer. We tried Zantac and Reglan but he hated the Zantac taste and the Reglan gave him leg tremors. We were on Prevacid 15mg for 1 month when he started spitting up, hiccuping, refluxing, etc. again.
He is currently on 20mg Prevacid, which was a huge battle with his pediatrician. He was on 15mg Prevacid and I took all of Dr. Phillips information to her. She still was not comfortable with increasing it (called it “internet information”
) and consulted a pediatric gastroenterologist, who said he only felt comfortable with 20mg. They are concerned about achlorhydra, which apparently can be a result of these PPIs. I briefly googled it but my pediatrician said that these PPIs can neutralize the stomach acid too much, resulting in a bacterial infection of the stomach. Has anyone ever experienced this or heard of any of the such? Is this a legitimate concern or is this a nice case of my pediatrician/pediatric gastroenterologist trying to cover their butts in case something were to happen?BTW, we have an appt with a pedi gastro this Wednesday and I plan on asking him to let us switch over to Zegerid. This 30-minute wait time is become exceedingly harder for him these days, and rightly so. I emailed Dr. Phillips to ask what dosage he thinks my son should be on; I didn’t see a dosage chart for Zegerid.
Any help would be appreciated! This is such a great site. I’ve learned soooooo much, almost too much I think — I think his pediatrician hates me!
kevieb wrote:
i have 3 children with reflux. while none of them has had problems with achlorhydra, two of them have had a problem with esophageal thrush. people think esophageal thrush is not very common, but the ped gi says it is more common that people realize, especially in someone with a chronic condition such as reflux.
achlorhydra is probably not a very common complication from using a PPI, but give your docs credit for considering it. since it is not very common,and so rarely mentioned, somewhere there is someone that has it, and is furious because their doctor never mentioned it as a possibility.
as far as your doc being wary of marci-kids info—-she’s right, it IS internet information and it is obviously not the AUTHORITY of reflux info, or every ped gi out there would be aware of it. marci kids has a lot of very good info, but remember that the doc that physically examines your child should be the one that treats them—not someone you exchange e-mail with.
Wow, most people have been very helpful with their posts but I must say I’m not finding that yours is. You are very negative and a little harsh.
I completely realize that it is “internet information” but when my pediatrician can physically call Dr. Phillips to discuss it with him……that’s a little different. He’s very open to being contacted and has a lot of studies backing his literature. I honestly don’t think that it is the AUTHORITY on infant reflux either; I don’t think I ever said that but they have do have substantiated literature. Obviously it is mostly correct or else so many of you wonderful ladies wouldn’t have been praising Dr. Phillips so much. Make sense?
And yes, some doctors are morons! Some are good, some arn’t. I can appreciate a doctor that is looking out for us and will tell me about a possible side effect. I thanked my doctor immensely because I do want to know the downside of these meds. Obviously I was concerned about it enough to post a question about it. But if it’s just a slight chance, I’d rather still increase my son’s dosage and take that chance than him suffer with the reflux on too low of a dose. That’s why I specifically asked if anyone on here had experienced the achlorhydra.
Oh, and BTW, the pedi gastro that increased his Prevacid dosage to 20mg has never physically examined my son yet. Kind of funny how our pedi who has examined my child in person wouldn’t increase it but the pedi gastro who hasn’t seen him would. Ironic!
can we end it here?
everyone has stated their opinions.
let’s get back to achloryda
and, if not, then this thread is done.
Thank you!
[returning to regularly scheduled programming
]We went to the Pedi Gastro on Wednesday and I inquired about achlorhydra and told him my concerns. He said that it’s inevitable with these meds that our children will have achlorhydra. They are on such high doses, which subsequently neutralizes the acid in their stomachs. He also said that he has never seen a bacterial infection as a result of the achlorhydra and specifically said, “Please don’t worry about that. That would be just another thing to worry about and it’s not needed.” The time it would be a problem is if our children ingested salmonella or e coli or some other potent bacteria, which is not likely to happen. So, I guess most of our children do have the achlorhydra but it’s not too much to be concerned about unless they are being exposed to foods that potentially carry these types of bacteria.
He said that Jackson’s reflux should be 75% better by 5-6 months of age so hopefully we won’t have to worry about reflux, achlorhydra and bacterial infections of the stomach by the time he is eating solid foods.I also told my pedi about it. She was the one that forewarned me about the bacterial infection part and made it sound like much more of a possibility of occurring than the pedi gastro did. I don’t think she honestly knew that it is quite rare so I think she felt much better about him being on the higher dose of Prevacid.
She also referred my son to the physical therapist for his torticollis (wry neck). Thank goodness for early intervention! I just wish the hits would stop coming.
Just thought I would update!!! Sorry to have started such a controversial thread!
It was not my intent! ali gal2006-9-29 8:48:2
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