foods causing or aggravating reflux

[Anonymous]

Sorry in advance if this question is confusing, but I’ve been thinking about this lately:

How do you tell the difference between a child that has reflux, and that reflux becoming aggravated by certain foods, and a child who has reflux symptoms DUE TO food intolerances. (If you can even understand what I’m trying to get at.)

I know that many kids on this board, and others, have reactions of worsened reflux when they eat certain foods. It also seems that many kids test negative for true allergies to these same foods (though I do know that allergy testing is unreliable in this age group). How can you tell if it’s the food intolerance causing the reflux (i.e. a true allergy or intolerance causing reflux as a symptom) or a reflux flare-up from eating specific foods. Many adults with reflux seem to report that specific foods make the reflux much worse. Just wondering.

[Anonymous]

That’s a good question. I’ve often wondered whether Kaelyn’s reflux may actually have just been a symptom of her milk allergy. It’s so hard to tell. I guess if it’s truly a symptom of a food allergy/intolerance then the reflux would go away when that food was removed from the diet.

[Anonymous]

Lori, I do understand what you are talking about. Carson does not have allergies that are detected in RAST testing or skin prick testing, but he does have food intolerances. He eats the foods fine and loves them. He does ok for maybe 2 hours. He then starts to get a little stuffy nose and starts behaving badly. During the night he will swollow over and over and have such arching and HORRID tummy trouble. Sometimes he will have spots on his chin (rarely any more) and sometimes very faint ones on his tummy. He has trouble with wheat, corn, dairy, soy and oats. Our specialist says exactly what you are saying, that most babies outgrow the reflux, but that foods aggravate their systems and cause reflux flair ups. It is so difficult.

Good luck and write down what you are giving the little one! My food diary helps me so much.

[Anonymous]

I can tell with Aidan because if he has eaten something that aggrivates his reflux, he feels better when I give him mylanta. And usually I can track down the culprit and know that he ate something not so good like today, he drank like an ounce of grape juice dilouted with water, and started refluxing (glurping noise around bedtime) and was squirming and just annoyed, so I gave him some mylanta and about 10 mins (estimating that) later, he was quiet and more comfortable. Also, he never has any of the physical symptoms of intolerance (tummy upset? that’s what I think I remember most of them being) or allergy (except to cherries, but I think that’s because he got over excited and ate 9)

[Author]

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