Is Zantac Not Enough?

[Anonymous]

Leanne,

You’re very welcome. We’ve all been there and that’s why were are here to help each other. I think I may have lost my mind if I hadn’t found this site when I did.

Good luck. I hope you get her on the right meds and dose before you go back to work.

[Anonymous]

Hi Leanne. Sorry that I’m just getting into this thread now, but I also recently went back to work and put my little one in day care and so things have been busy around here.

I’m sorry that you’re having such a hard time dealing with reflux. I can only imagine the challenge of having two refluxers with feeding issues. I’ve often felt like the reflux is nothing compared to the feeding problems (which says a lot because the reflux is BAD on it’s own).

Hailey also started out on zantac, but we were lucky in that our ped told us that we should see it work after a few days, and if things weren’t better then he wanted to do a PPI. Where things went wrong for us at that point, was that she was never on a proper dose of PPI, and the compound wasn’t being made properly. We finally got that issue resolved around 9 or 10 months, but by then her Sandifer’s was awful, and her feeding aversion had been out of control for so long already.

I guess you’re pretty experienced with this, since Anika is your second refluxer, but my advice would be to make sure that you have a doctor who takes reflux seriously. I’m not sure if switching docs is an option, but it might be something that you want to consider if your current doctor is giving you a hard time. Some people on this site has had success in having Dr. Phillips from marci-kids, who is the creator of zegerid, to call their doctors about zegerid and dosing.

I certainly hear you on the “med-hater” issue… both my kids have been med haters due to frequent medicating during their first year. Hailey’s was the absolute worse, because we worried about forcing meds into her by mouth making her oral aversion worse. Many people have liked the prevacid solutabs for that reason. They work the exact same way as the capsules (both of which are DELAYED RELEASE not TIMED RELEASE). Like Christine said, you can mix them into a bit of water and give them on a spoon, and most babies like it. Because it tastes like strawberry, they often don’t even associate it with meds if given this way.

What is Anika’s dose? If you want to give twice daily instead of once (which is really better for most kids because of the way they metabolize drugs) then you can get a little pill cutter at the pharmacy. Cut it in half, and wrap up the rest and put it in a dry clean place and then give the other half later in the day. As Christine said, make sure to give it on an empty stomach (at least 2-3 hours after her previous meal) and as close to 30 minutes before her next one as possible, as the meal will essentially activate the med. It can be challenging to time meds this way with a little one, especially if your daughter is already having feeding problems. We always found that we couldn’t time Hailey’s meals, because she would always refuse them, and we didn’t know when she would actually eat and how much.

As for Maxon, I’m so so sorry to hear that he had to suffer so much before being diagnosed with reflux. It’s sad to hear that your doc couldn’t identify the issue earlier, especially when you mention all of the feeding problems you encountered. Hailey was sleep-fed because of her feeding aversion, and because of that she also gained weight, so even though they acknowledged that she had reflux, no one acknowledged that we had a problem. So I can imagine your frustration. I just wanted to let you know that Hailey just had an endoscopy done a few days ago, and our ped GI told us that since they don’t know the cause, it is possible that she might never outgrow it, and that being said, even if she had to be on her PPI for 10 years or more, the research indicates that PPIs are not built up in the system, and that they are safe to give longterm for the treatment of GERD. I don’t know what kind of symptoms your son is still having, but I just wanted to let you know that our doc seems to feel that it is fine to remain on these meds for as long as needed.

We also went through awful torment from friends and family who blamed me with everything under the sun as the cause for Hailey’s reflux. I was told that I was stressing her out so she wouldn’t eat, I was spoiling her so she wouldn’t sleep, that I didn’t make food that was tasty and so she learned to hate food, and the list went on and on. I just recently had a conversation with my mil and sil who seemed to be mortified at hearing that I didn’t want any more children because I was too exhausted from dealing with reflux and was afraid to go through it again. They looked at me like I was insane and basically told me that all babies have some degree of reflux. This is after everything we’ve been through during the past 16 months. So I think the moral of the story is that no one can understand this experience until they’ve endured it themselves. It certainly can be trying and exhausting, especially because reflux is belittled by so many people.

I really hope that you can get some relief for your kids and that you can nip these issues in the bud for your daughter. Don’t give up. Keep pushing until you get doctors to listen to you. Good luck with your PPI. I hope it works well and fast. Keep us posted.

[Anonymous]

Christine.

Lori, Thank you so much for your long post back. You know, I saw your thread about the endoscopy but I didn’t have time to read through it all. I’m glad to hear they still did it even though she was a bit sick. Is she feeling better? We had a scoped done about a year ago too. This was after Max had been on Prevacid for 6 months but still had worked his way down to 3% in weight. See, his weight went like this: 25% @ birth; 25% @ 1 month; 50% @ 2 months; 25% @ 4 months (when our problems really started but MIL says he was always difficult to feed); 15% @ 6 months; 10% @ 9 months; 5% @ 12 months; 3% @ 15 months…. For the most part, all of his reflux meds or treatments were based on me doing research and getting the doctors to try the meds. We didn’t even start on that path though until he was 10.5 months old and it wasn’t until we had the scope that it was really confirmed. It’s an awful proceedure to see your baby go through but for me it confirmed I was right. I had a fair amount of guilt/ questioning if I did the right thing by strong-arming the doctors for meds.

It seems like Hailey is pretty much a year behind Max on all of this. So far he is doing fine off of the meds. We do mix a powder probiotic in his milk and I will have to say that we do feel as though that affects his eating. I want to give it to Anika too but we were waiting for her to be 1 month old… But now that we are having issues we just don’t want to introduce too many things at once otherwise we won’t know what is working and what isn’t, you know.

So, excuse my ignorance but what is a feeding aversion, a sleep feeder, and Sandifers? I’ve heard of Sandifers but don’t know if I fully understand it… and I can sort of guess what a feeding aversion is but could you explain it from your perspective? I know I can tell you that one big issue you are probably dealing with that we too delt with is in conjunction with everything that you have going on, you also have a normal toddler who is learning how to use her powers… she knows when you want her to eat and will use that to get what she wants – – at least that’s what Max did. He is a total cookie monster and would love to have a full diet of them. We finally had to drop the attitude of “at least he is eating something” (no, he really didn’t always get cookies but my husband did give in to his desires A LOT). After a few evenings of going to bed without dinner he knew we were serious.

[Anonymous]

Leanne, a feeding aversion is when the baby associates pain with eating and they don’t want to eat even though they’re hungry because they think it will hurt. They can be milder or more severe, depending on the child. Some babies will be difficult to feed (pull of the nipple after a few sucks, cry etc.), and others will refuse to feed altogether. Hailey started in the first group, and at two months old, she just suddenly refused to eat. I couldn’t feed her. She would just scream and arch away. Most babies who are this bad require a feeding tube. I discovered with Hailey that if I could get her to sleep, then I could pull out her fingers and slip in her bottle. She would generally take an ounce or so this way, but she would still pull off in between and I would have to get her back to sleep to feed her again. That was the only way she would take bottles. We couldn’t leave the house b/c if she fell asleep anywhere, then she would miss a feed. It didn’t matter how long she had gone between feeds, she would still refuse to eat. That was her bottle aversion phase, which also turned into a feeding aversion with solids b/c her reflux wasn’t under control. She didn’t start tasting solids until very late into her first year, and required feeding therapy. Even now, she’s a very fussy eater, who can live off nearly nothing. And for her, I don’t think that she’s manipulating me (YET!!…I’m sure that will come!)

Sandifer’s is a neurological response to reflux pain. They will arch their backs, or adopt other strange behaviours or postures (like stiffening a leg, or eye rolling). The behaviours look like seizures, but are actually an attempt to lengthen the esophagus to provide relief from the acid burning. Hailey had a normal EEG, and recently a normal endoscopy. She still does arch and I can hear her reflux, but it’s not nearly the same as it used to be, so I do believe that she still has reflux, and that it still bothers her, but that her acid is under control.

As for the “cookie monster syndrome”, I know where you’re coming from. We’ve spent so long getting Hailey to eat anything, that we used to give her chips and cheezies just to get her to eat a few bites of something. The thing is with her, is that she just doesn’t like to eat. There’s nothing that she really loves. I think she eats to live and not the other way around, and in fact, even the first part is questionable, so we have to keep on top of her. I do worry that she’s going to soon start manipulating us to only get the kinds of junk food that she wants, but we try not to stress about her eating in front of her, and if she won’t eat, then we just ignore it. Thankfully, now that she’s out of her first year, it’s not quite as awful because the expectations for weight gain are a lot less.

Which probiotic are you using with your son btw? We’re looking to try something new with Hailey. We get the baby jarodophilus.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Lori…

Wow, Hailey (and you) have really gone through A LOT! (((hugs))) Thank you so much for explaining it all from your experience. When I hear it that way, I believe that Max had both the feeding aversion and Sandifer’s but much milder than what you are describing. We didn’t resort to needing to get him to sleep to feed him but we did give him Orajel and he started insisting his bottles be HOT HOT, not just warm… then he kid that was slapping the bottle out of my hand all of a sudden quickly sucked down 7+ oz….

We were first time parents with no family in town. He was difficult to feed but not totally refusing until right after he got his first 2 teeth at 4.5 months. After that we just thought he was teething… but those next two teeth didn’t show up until Christmas day which was 4 months later (at 8.5 months). It still took another 2 months before I figured this out. The way I figured it out was one day when I was home with him sick (he got everything gastrointestinal and was VERY SICK every other week it seemed – -dh and I both felt like we should be fired) and I was avoiding daytime TV. I ended up watching this Discovery Health show about all kinds of eating disorders from anorexia to extreme obesity. On that show was a 4 year old boy who screamed and refused to eat anything but cookies and crackers… turns out he had reflux. That just sounded like my kid who really only wanted to eat crackers and cookies. So, I hit the net and was immediately convinced that’s what Max had when I read about the stiffening of the body and arching of the back… … everything all of a sudden made sense. Getting meds from the doctor took some effort but one hour after the first dose of Zantac the kid who would never hold a bottle (rather we had to hold him down to take it) was drinking water out of a sippy cup (totally unheard of).

If I think too much of it now I get pissed that the doctors, our family (when they were visiting), or our daycare didn’t tell us that what we were going through was not normal. But then I’m still having to convince my family that we were even going through anything. My in-laws saw it so they know. And when I started suspecting reflux our daycare owner said that bottles are supposed to be soothing. That’s when I was convinced that we had a problem because I felt as though his bottles were traumatic 85% of the time… I don’t have good memories of feeding my son and I refuse for that to be the same about my daughter.

Anyway, we use the same probiotic. It doesn’t mix all that well in cold milk but I seem to remember it did mix into warm bottles pretty decently.

It sounds like you are doing the best you can with Hailey. It is so hard though to determine when they are playing you versus when they really are in pain or having a problem. I will say though that it was right about the age that Hailey is that we determined that Max was definitely playing us some.

– – oh, and update: I just spoke with the pharmacy and we will be getting the Prevacid TODAY! I’m going to give her a full dose this afternoon (following your 2 hour/ 30 minute guideline) and then starting tomorrow I will split it into 2 doses. I can’t remember the strength of the Prevacid so I’ll come back and tell you when I get it. Like I said earlier, I definitely will be leaning on you here to make sure we are on the right dose.

Maxon&AnikaMom2006-9-15 9:21:0

[Anonymous]

Great news about the Prevacid! I hope it works as well for your little girl as it did for Myles. Hopefully they gave you a high enough dose.

[Anonymous]

We got 15 MG solutabs. Max had 15 MG capsules so I guess we are OK with that (BTW- he is doing great off the Prevacid )

But now I need some serious help on administering this Solutab. I tried to give her a full dose this evening (figuring I’ll start the 1/2 doses tomorrow) but it was really kind of a disaster. I need to start a new thread for this so I can hopefully get some advise for tomorrow AM’s dose… It would be generous to say she got 75% of the dose…

[Anonymous]

Great news about Max.

As for administering the solutabs….here’s what worked for Myles. I would divide the tablet using a sharp knife (you can get a pill cutter at the pharmacy…I didn’t know about those until I read it here), then store the extra piece in a small medicine bottle or rubbermaid container. I’d dissolve the dose to be given in a small medicine cup with about 2-3 ml’s of water. Then I used a small bulb syringe/medicinne dropper (the kind you get with infant’s tylenol or vitamins) to draw it up and adminster it. I found this to work better than the large medicine syringes for some reason. At first Myles would gag and spit it out…but I learned that if I put the dropper towards the back of the cheek on one side and then slowly moved it across to the other side of his mouth while squirting the meds, he couldn’t spit it out because it was dispersed evenly and in small amts. After a few months he got used to the taste and it was easier to give it to him. He had a very strong oral aversion…..hopefully it will be easier for Anika.

[Anonymous]

Ahh… GREAT IDEA Christine! I’ll have to see if we have a medicine dropper kind of syringe (we’ve got a bazillion kinds here)… Or, I guess I did read about holding it in their cheek. Just not sure what would work best so I’ll have to experiment.

Gah, what would I do without this place??? I’m so glad you were here tonight!

[Anonymous]

Thanks…. I hope my “crazy” method works for you. It took me weeks to find the right combination of factors….the small medicine dropper was the best thing….(the one I liked best came off of a bottle of Mylicon drops)….and moving it across from one side of the mouth to the other worked wonders. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Ooooh, the MYLICON DROPPER!!! I was planning on going to the drug store to get one but I’ve got a bunch of gas drop bottles as well as a few un-opened ones (btw- did you know that Target sells the same thing under their brand for $3 instead of $12?)

Well, I tried the cheek thing this AM since I thought I didn’t have a dropper… it was a little cleaner but still a bit of a mess and it was all under my fingernail. Plus, I noticed I lost a bit when I split it in two. Oh, and do you know does it need to be air tight after I split it?

[Anonymous]

I used to buy the Walmart brand which is about $3.50

Putting the tablet in Myles’ cheek never worked for us. I think it takes too long to dissolve and we always lost too much of it. Like you; it was always stuck under my fingernails and ended up spread out all over his cheeks. I gave up on the method after a few tries.

I think it probably should be kept air tight. That’s why I always used a little rubbermaid container. I think they are pretty air tight.

As for losing a little when you split it into two, I used to split the tablets on a paper plate so I could fold the plate and pour the little pieces into the container. I guess it was ok because Myles did great on Prevacid.

Good luck. You’ll be an old pro before you know it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Christine. I’m already feeling like an old pro. That gas drops “dropper” works GREAT! And we use a fraction of the water that is needed for a syringe. I just put the 1/2 tablet into a small medicine cup (like what comes with Children’s Motrin) and then put in about one dropper worth of water. I end up needing to put about half of a dropper more in to get the rest out but for the most part, it’s nowhere near enough water for her to spit/ drool out.

We seem to be doing better on it too… starting about mid-day yesterday her bottles have been significantly smoother. We are still giving her the Zantac too because with Max we took him off of the Zantac as soon as it seemed as though the Prevacid was working and overall it was too soon. Hopefully we can stop the Zantac by next weekend.

Well… the princess calls!

[Anonymous]

Glad to hear it’s working well for you. I might have to try the gas dropper method too!

I’ve read elsewhere that once you cut the pill it can be quite unstable to air (not sure if this is true or not), but just to be safe, you might want to wrap it up and then put it in a container. We never did it, but just thought I’d pass on the info.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad to hear the little dropper is working for you. That’s exactly how I did it, with the little medicine cup, a tiny bit of water, and the gas drops dropper. It worked great for Myles.

I’m glad to hear she is feeling better. Myles was somewhat better after just a few days, but by the tenth day he was a new baby. I always joke that I was as happy that day as I was the day he was born!

I hope things keep improving for your little sweetie.

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