New here, please, please help!

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have a seven month old daughter who has g.e.r.d. My story is, at three months she stopped eating, she has always been a fussy baby, always seemingly in pain, and never ate more than 2 ounce at once. At my insistence, her pediatrician referred an upper G.I. and they found out she has Gerd which was causing her ulcers in her insides and extreme pain, so much she was refusing to eat. She was put on zantac( no improvement)and  after two weeks, Prevacid solu tab 15. She takes half a tablet of prevacid a day. 

This last week, the Prevacid seems to be loosing its effectiveness! She is back to being constantly being in pain, sticking out her tongue, arching backwards, very quiet, cottage cheese spit ups/ throw ups. She is on 90% breast milk and 5% soy milk, 5% fruit purée. I have eliminated fatty and dairy, and spicy foods from my diet. I am a loss at what to do. She is having trouble sleeping, I am having trouble sleeping. She is loosing weight so am I. I guess what I am asking is what next? We are going to the pediatrician tomorrow afternoon and her pediatrician will likely change her medication. I am wondering if that is that way to go. Her pediatrician does not seem to be treating this with the seriousness it deserves I think.  Please let me know what steps you all took when faced with something like this. Please any advice will be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

She was also diagnosed with delayed stomach emptying. She is currently 16 lbs. has only gained 3.5 pounds the last three months

[Anonymous]

She probably just needs a higher dose of Prevacid. My son did not get relief until he was getting 30 mgs (yes, 30!) of Prevacid a day. I divided that into 3 – 10 mg doses per day, but some babies would do fine on one solutab (15 mgs) twice per day.

Have you read about marci kids? I don’t think their site is up anymore but maybe it’s in the medication sticky or the groupie information stickie. Dr. Phillips at marci kids (they researched infant reflux and reflux meds) explains that babies need higher doses of PPI’s than adults do to their super fast metabolism.

https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/printer_friendly_posts.asp?TID=2668

Personally, I’d push for a higher dose rather than a different medication.

My son also had DGE. Don’t worry so much about that. This is something that is outgrown with time. My doc told me to not treat this condition with medication unless the baby was not growing/thriving because the drugs they use to treat it (motility drugs) are very dangerous with scary side effects. The best way to deal with DGE is to feed them very small but frequent meals which is what your dd is doing all on her own. My son also never ate more than 2 ounces at that age and even at a year still only took 4 ounces of breast milk (by spoon – he quite taking a bottle at 7 months due to a feeding aversion).

Also, I have never posted this before because it’s something I just learned. I wish I had known when my babies were suffering… I just read this book called Wheat Belly. The author is a doctor/scientist/researcher and he blames wheat on a myriad of health concerns including infant reflux. If I had to do it all over again I’d eliminate wheat and gluten from my diet while breast feeding.

Hang in there. I know how hard it is. I had two refluxers and one with DGE as well. My son was so miserable, and so was I. But the right dose of Prevacid truly did turn things around for him. I hope you can talk your doctor into upping her dose.

[Anonymous]

I am so sorry that your little one is suffering so much. And you too! 🙁 I know how hard it is to watch your little one be in pain and not know what to do. (((HUG)))

Although I have not studied up on it much, I too have read and heard about the wheat and gluten being much more of a problem than we think.

After having my 2 oldest children suffer very badly from digestive problems and finally finding answers for them, I decided to create a blog about all that we went through and all that I have learned. Although I of course do not have all the answers I do my best to help as many people as possible.

Here is the link to my blog.http://help4acidreflux.wordpress.com/ I have several stories from other mothers who have found help for their little ones who were refusing to eat properly and not gaining weight like they should. Here is one of them. http://help4acidreflux.wordpress.com/federicas-story/

I hope that you soon find help and answers for your little one! Feel free to ask any questions you would have and we will try our best to answer them!

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