any toddlers on more than 30mg of meds

[Anonymous]

Emma’s reflux had been totally under control for months but now I am getting a little concerned, just wanted to get some advice. She is 14 months old and has been on 30mg of Zegerid (which I think is a lifesaver) for probably 3 months now. She is around 21 pounds and I was hoping that her weight would outweigh her dosage to gradually ween her off of it. She has had a cold, mostly head congestion, and is still teething (She has a eye tooth and a bottom tooth swollen) and I know both of those aggravate her reflux. Well over the weekend she started having hiccups again (it has been a long time!!). I still have zantac on the side and mylanta and I give one of those in b/w zegerid’s. Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this. If I should just keep adding the zantac/mylanta on the side or up the zegerid a little bit for a while? Just need some input! Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hailey has hiccups often and she doesn’t seem to be refluxing at all. They annoy her though. Are you seeing any other reflux symptoms? It kinda sounds like she might just be feeling miserable in general with the cold and teething? I think I’d wait before upping her meds at all. A trick I found to getting rid of hiccups is to have Hailey drink water from a regular, open cup. She bends forward enough that it must reposition her diaphragm just enough to stop them. Sounds crazy but this works 90% of the time.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Stacey, that makes me feel better. You always answer my posts, I appreciate it. Well Tuesday night was horrible, she cried all evening and almost all night. I took her to the doc yesterday and she has a ear infection in her left ear so that explains so much. She was not pulling at her ears so I am glad I took her.

Did Hailey have gas on Alimentum? Emma has always been gassy and when I spoke to her ped yesterday she wants to see about switching formulas. Emma still will not eat and she is worried about her nutrition. She is still gaining even though she only weighs 21 lbs. She has gained a pound in 1.5 months. She says Alimentum is only healthy for babies under 1 yr, after that they need more nutrition and calories (since they are more active, Emma is a walker and very busy) and since she can’t tolerate milk she wants to try Elecare. Well if insurance won’t cover it I can’t afford it, I don’t qualify for financial help. She goes to her GI doc next Friday and she is the one I follow so I am not going to worry about it till then but was wondering how Hailey did on alimentum all that time. Was she also taking a vitamin and/or eating pretty good??

[Anonymous]

Just to let you know Colt was on 40mg of Zegerid for a long time. We have been able to cut it back now that he is a little older. He also just got over an ear infection and it does seem like they are having reflux issues when they have ear infections. Colt is also still on regular formula and his doctor feels very confident with it. I wonder if its the Alimentum or any baby formula they are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kathleen. I really don’t think it is all formulas. She is worried about Emma b/c of the gas, calories and overall nutrition. She is afraid that b/c she is only in the 25 percentile that if she doesn’t start eating and getting more calories she can fall behind pretty fast. For the past week Emma’s gas has become really really bad and she has some dry patches on her hand and leg so she is wondering if she is not tolerating the Alimentum as well (nor can she handle milk yet) as she should so we should go to a different formula (Neocate, Elecare) for that reason plus for the calories and nutrition. It just sucks b/c she is 14 months and starting to have these problems, its like we are starting all over again. If colt is eating pretty good I wouldn’t think it would be a problem at all. Did he have eczema b/f you went to Neocate??

[Anonymous]

Yes he had a little rash but not real severe. He has been eating pretty good so I know that has helped him. But when he had his ear infections recently we couldn’t get him to eat anything. I would give her time to get over that. We are really lucky because Colt has all of a sudden been able to tolerate almost all foods but not anything with soy oil in it. So we have to shop just for him but its getting so much easier. He only started eating daily lunch and dinner just in the last month or so. It took alot of starting and stopping before we got it right.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again. We tried a hidden milk trial about a month ago and after 2 weeks she had really bad diahrrea, one diaper had some stringy mucous in it. We stopped the diary and it immediately stopped. I was just thinking maybe the gas and rash is a delayed reaction? Well at least I hope it is. She does have her GI appt next Friday so I will try not to worry about it to much and just give her more time to come around. If nothing else maybe she can give me a something to give her more calories.

[Anonymous]

Brandy ~ I’m so sorry Emma is still having trouble. Hopefully, it’s all just a combination of being sick, teething, etc and she’ll pull through. Hailey has always been gassy! Now that you mention it, I do think it was worse on Alimentum because I don’t notice it as much now. We kept Hailey on Alimentum until she was 18 months and she was fine. Our original plan was to keep her on it for two years but a trial at 18 months of dairy was successful. I didn’t give her a vitamin until she was on regular milk. She didn’t really eat very well either until about 2 months ago. There were days she would literally eat just one meal and sometimes that meal was just fruit and/or noodles. I did a lot of adding margarine and oil to things for calories/fat. She never drank that much Alimentum, at Emma’s age she was drinking like 10 oz of it a day. While she was on Alimentum she didn’t gain a lot of weight either, she just wouldn’t drink much of it. Once we were finally able to get her on milk (which took pretty much a whole month to get her to drink) she really started putting on some good weight and is now safely in the 50% or so. I think you’ll have trouble switching her to something like Elecare or Neocate now because of the taste. Did she want you to switch to a toddler one? I know the formulation of toddler formulas is different (I know it has more calcium for example) but I didn’t think they had more calories/fat. Like you, I think I would just wait and see what the Ped GI says.

I hope Emma feels better soon!

[Anonymous]

Hi

My ds is 2.5 and 29-20 pounds and on 37.5mg prevacid

Let me know if you have any other questions…

Kim

Zach and Ava’s mom

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone. Emma is doing much better this week. She has been on one week of antibiotics for her ear infection. Her gas has subsided, of course she still has it just not as much. She still has the rash but it is slowly going away. I can’t wait to go the GI on Friday, I have so many questions.

Kim ~ Thanks for responding, I am not sure if I am going to up it yet. Will know for sure on Friday. What kind of reflux symptoms is your little one still having? I do know though that it will be a long time before I think about weaning!

[Anonymous]

Hi again

Zach does VERY well on prevacid, but when we tried weaning a few mnths

ago his reflux symptoms appeared

He’s a silent refluxer but started throwing up after meals, lots of burping,

crying before bed(never gave us a hard time going to sleep)

At this stage of the game, I’m not sure IF he is going to outgrow it….

Depending on how he continues to do, I may try weaning again if he does

consistently well for 6mnths

It’s too sad/painful to see him in pain from weaning and I am afraid of

damage it may cause (physically as well as emotionally in regards to

eating)

Good Luck

Kim

zach and ava’s mom

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