Anonymousmomof4 wrote:
Heidi,
I have a question for you…did your other boys get that kind of relief? If so, what meds did they take? It seems to me that the most relief comes from Zegerid as a general rule…I’m just wondering if your other refluxers were on Zegerid as well. I think I remember you saying that your boys had reflux too, but I may be thinking of someone else.
I so wish Zegerid was around for my boys. Its such a miracle drug.
With my older two kids they did not use medication for reflux. My oldest is almost 17. He had reflux severely. He was actually hospitalized for his inability to stay asleep (I just realized in the past week that it was reflux causing the problem because Maggie was doing the same thing. I could feel with Maggie the acid coming up and not coming all the way out but it would wake her up just like Johnny). When he was hospitalized I was not allowed to stay with him for the first 36 hours ( I know crazy. Now a days that would never happen). One of things they discovered was Johnny over ate and that is why he was gaining weight. When they fed him less, he just spit it all back out and could not maintain his weight. We did TEDs with Johnny, no luck, formula, homemade formula, goats milk and back to breast feeding. We spoon fed him rice cereal really young and gripe water seem to help some (remember this was before medication). By the time he was 5 months old or so he was on full solids. He had a thing for dill pickles (ya I am not sure who gives their 5 month old dill pickles but we did). I think there is something in dill pickles that helped relieve the acid as Johnny sucked on them all the time.
James my 15 year old same story except we just breast fed. He gained weight a lot slower then Johnny. He did rice and gripe water really young for some relief.
Levi is 9 and he was our first on zantact. It helped but there still was some discomfort. It was hard to keep up with the weight gain. Again we did rice cereal and gripe water with the zantact then he went on regland (it was before there was any documented problems. We got our first wedge and what a huge help that was.
Liam who is 8 same story as Levi but we did not use regland. Liam did not gain weight but did not loose. He has always been really small like 10% until the last year or so. Liam developed some eating issues as a baby and toddler. I breast fed him until 2 1/2 because of those issues. When Liam was 5 he got pretty sick and was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis. It took about a year on his medication and he finally started gaining weight. When he was being tested for JA, we discovered in an upper GI then he was still refluxing so we treat that as needed.
My oldest and Maggie have been the far worst. It was a lot harder with Johnny as there was no medication, and it was okay then for a baby to be in pain and scream for hours. Now I would never accept any doctor telling me its okay for my child to be in pain. That is a bunch of hogwash (thankfully our pediatrician feels that same way). I believe within my hearts of hearts that because Johnny was not treated as an infant for his reflux that it has caused permanent damage. He suffers horrible from it now and has ulcers (of course part of the problem is he is 16 and will only take his medication when he is really hurting).
