Help -feeding aversion

[Anonymous]

My daugter is 4.5 months old and has had a feeding aversion for several weeks. She has been on 7.5mg prevacid 3x/day. The last week she got much worse to the point we thought she might have to be hospitalized. She fights almost every feeding except for the middle of the night of course and her intake has decreased. If after struggling with her to take the bottle she takes 2 oz on average. Sometimes less, sometimes more. It is so stressful to watch her arch her back and scream. We are not having good luck with the GI so we called the ped. and he raised her prevacid dose to 15 mg in the morning and 7.5 at night. We are hoping this works, but from what I understand it could take a couple of weeks to work so in the meantime I will try anything! Any advice?

[Anonymous]

Hang in there. Sorry, I don’t have any novel advice. I posted all my thoughts in reply to your other posts.

Make sure that you’re giving the prevacid on an empty stomach, and followed up with a meal 30 minutes later. You’re doing the solutabs right?

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure if you are using it yet, but many moms have luck with a little Mylanta Supreme prior to feedings to help coat and soothe the throat especially since she is having such a hard time. You may want to try it and give the prevacid some time to kick in.

[Anonymous]

I just saw this – i am sorry that you are having such a difficult time. Most babies will react well to a high dose of medicine. Apart from the Mylanta, you can also ask your ped to write a prescription for either Zantac or Pepcid (the pepcid tastes a lot better). We used ot give Matthew prevacid 2x and pepcid 2x a day, spaced 3 or 4 hours.

I don’t know what else to say – we never pushed Matthew to eat because it was impossible. For us, the medication did nothing and the feeding aversion was there. It was up and down for a while and then just down. But again, kids do respond to medication.

What formula are you giving?? When Matthew started only taking 2ounces at each feeding, we switched formulas over and over. At the end, we were just on Neocate because that was the safest bet at the time.

Good lulck – i hope that things improve soon.

[Anonymous]

Sorry – wanted to ask what testing has she had???? At this point, when she is really only taking 2 oz and crying, i would def have at least an endo with biopsies, maybe a pH probe too.

Sorry – don’t know much about your story so you may have already done this

[Anonymous]

How long was she on 7.5 mg / 3 x’s daily?

Her dose is actually still the same, 22.5 mg total, just broken down differently. Myles did not do well until he was on 30 mg a day. Mabye she needs a higher dose. I’d check her dose at http://www.marci-kids.com and then fax the marci-kids information to her ped and ask him to please allow you to try a higher dose (whatever dose marci-kids recommends) three times per day.

What formula is she on? Maybe she needs a specialty formula for MSPI? Many reflux babies also have MSPI.

[Anonymous]

Aburchett,
Sorry to hear about your troubles.
For what it is worth. I tried changing the nipples alot and it worked out for us. My baby seems to do better on the ortho nipples for some reason. I think it might have something to do with the hole sitting on the roof of the mouth then facing the back of the throat. Also the smaller the nipple the better for us.
I tried it thinking maybe if I change it up it wouldn’t be so familar to him.
Hope it helps you out.

[Anonymous]

HI

My daughter is 3 months old and also on average taking 2-3 oz at a time. We started prevacid about 2 weeks ago and her feedings are getting somewhat easier and I also am still giving her Zantac 4 hours apart twice a day. I don’t have any suggestions for you, just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I know how frustrating it is, espically when I have friends with newborns drinking 4-5 oz at a time. We did change her formula to Elecare, which is a higher fat and it is 24 cal and go up to 28 cal. We had that done, while she was hospitalized for failure to thrieve. Good luck

Catina

[Anonymous]

I wanted to update everyone on Gabby’s feeding problem. as some of you know she has been having a terrible feeding aversion to the bottle. She had her prevacid doage raised through her ped because the GI would not up the dose. She is now on 15mg of prevacid in the morning and 7.5 at night but still she is no better. We took her to the after hours clinic this weekend because we had only managed to get 5 ounces down her in about 20 hours. The ped we saw at after hours obviously did not approve of her increased dosage of prevacid, but after our pleading and begging for anything she gave her 0.8cc of zantac 3x a day. She said we would have to decrease or eliminate the prevacid but could overlap it for a few days. The problem is she hates the Zantac. She spits it out and gags! Any suggestions? Also does anyone know how long it takes to work if it’s going to? We see the specialist this week and they will probably do further testing. Right now the only time she eats without a fight is in her sleep. It is exhausting!

[Anonymous]

Personally I’d stick with the two doses of Prevacid and give her Zantac mid-day. It’s fine for her to be on both meds as long as they are given several hours apart from one another. There have been a few babies on this board who’ve been on both meds. So, that’s what I would do, at least until you see the specialist.

As for how long, it took 10 days for Myles to turn around once he was on the right dose of Prevacid. Most moms here say it took about two weeks to see results with their babies.

What form of Prevacid is she on? If she’s on the solutabs or packets it should be given on an empty stomach and followed up 30 minutes later with a feeding.

I hope things are better soon. I remember those awful days when my babies wouldn’t eat. It’s horrible and I really feel for you. I hope and pray this specialist you are seeing will help her.

[Anonymous]

Where do you live? Maybe someone on here can suggest a doc in your area who doses meds more aggresively. You can give both at the same time like Christine said, but for the most part, if the PPI is working properly and covering them as it should, they shouldn’t really need both. But it’s worth a try. Might also help with breakthrough at night. There’s an efferdose version of the zantac that tastes better, like citrus. Not sure about the dosing of the zantac, but it also sounds quite low.

Hang in there. Hopefully we can find you a doc that will help.

[Anonymous]

I am from Atlanta where there are plenty of docs to choose from but now I live in Mississippi where there are no docs at all!
I am hoping the specialist I am seeing this week is good. She is my last hope here. I heard she was aggressive but I am not sure they were talking about meds. I believe she is aggressive in her testing to get to the bottom of what is going on. The doctors have had me thinking the high dose of prevacid is not safe but that is not what I read on Marci-kids. How would a pediatric GI specialist not be aware of these statistics? Obviously all of you moms who are on high doses have had positive results! Has anyone had any negative side effects to the high doses?

[Anonymous]

I’ll try to look around for you here and on other forums and see if I can find a doc in your area.

As for the doctors saying that the meds aren’t safe at high doses, it’s because there hasn’t been any formal research on the safety in children our age so many doctors go by adult dosing regimens which aren’t set for infants. Marci-kids has done research on the need for higher dosing, but of course, there haven’t been studies that go back and look at kids that have been on these doses. But the literature seems to suggest that it’s safe, and even our ped GI, who is quite conservative, told me that it would be safe to keep Hailey on prevacid for her whole life if she needed to be. There are some studies out there on the marci-kids site that you can reference to your new doc regardng the need for higher more frequent dosing in infants. Or you can ask Dr. Phillips from marci-kids (who’s a pharmacist) to call and talk to your doc.

The ped GIs and other docs don’t know about these results because the marci-kids research has not been well disseminated. I asked dr. Phillips about this recently and can’t find his response, but basically he said that it takes 5 years or more to share results with the medical community due to standards for sharing research, or something like that. Right now, most ped GIs follow the protocol set out by NASPHGAN (north american society of pediatric hepatology, gastroenteroly, and nutrition), and they don’t have the results of marci-kids yet, due to the lag in information sharing apparently. I recently also contacted them via email and phone and they wouldn’t comment on this issue. I directed them to marci-kids website, but never heard anything back.

My feeling on the high dosing issue is that it’s definitely a personal choice, and somewhat of a leap of faith. But when you’re already dealing with feeding problems, it’s worth a try to see if that can help to control things. Our feeding therapists have felt strongly that the pain has to be eliminated before they can even start feeding therapy. Since you’re still early in this journey, maybe things can be turned around. High meds didn’t help us, but they’ve helped others. Good luck.

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